Your call, any time
You leave
Give two weeks’ notice and hand over what you were holding: the accounts, the pipeline, the half-written post.
You keep: Vested equity, patches, flight log, the tail (if the company has landed), a return ticket.
Every seat is a residency.
A residency is a seat you hold on a build while you do the role. Leave when you want. The crew asks you to leave if the role isn’t being done. Either way you keep your vested equity, your patches and your flight log.
From visitor to colony
Nobody skips a rung. You can step off at any of them.
- You are here
01 · Any time
Visitor
Read everything. Every build, number and term on this site is open, including to people who plan to compete with us.
02 · Before Orbit
Hand raised
You tell the crew which seat you want and what you’d do first. They reply within a week, yes or no. A Signal sender enters here with a seat held.
03 · 30 days
Orbit
Unpaid. One goal, written down on day zero. You keep your job; the crew runs the product. Orbit again one time if it’s close.
04 · Day 30, or day 60 after a second Orbit
Landing
Day 30 is decided together: the goal was hit, or both sides want to go on anyway. The company is formed. You are a founding resident: your slice is granted and on the cap table from now, unvested, on the same clock as the crew’s.
05 · Month 3 after Landing
Co-founder
The bar: you did the role, you hit your month-3 number, you signed the founder agreement. Pass and the first 3 months vest at once, with the title and a vote.
06 · Open-ended
Colony
It stands on its own. The rest vests monthly to month 24. Raise, hire or stay small. The crew stays on as the technical team.
A second way in
You can also bring a problem. A Signal is a problem you send the crew, with proof that people want it. If the crew builds it, your Signal counts as your raised hand, with the seat already held for you. You still go through Orbit, and the three endings are the same. You keep the seat by doing the role.
Send a SignalWhat you leave with
Equity you earned
From Landing, your slice vests monthly after a 3-month cliff, over 2 years. Leave on good terms and every vested share stays yours.
A mission patch
Every Orbit ends with a patch stamped with the number you moved. Missed the goal? The patch says that too. It is a record of what happened.
A flight log
One public page of what you shipped, checked by the crew. It lists numbers. Send it instead of a CV.
A return ticket
Residents who leave well get first pick of a seat on the next build, before it’s listed here.
A tail
If your company has landed, you get 10% of the revenue from deals you closed while a resident, for 12 months after you leave. No tail if the build stops before Landing or the company closes.
Crew backing
A reference from the people who watched you work, and an introduction to anyone in our network you ask for.
Flight log: Mara K.
Past resident · Closer
Missed by one pilot. Mara and the crew chose Orbit again with a fresh Closer: Mara moved to Pantry Pilot. Crateline flew Orbit 2 with a new Closer and an Operator who joined for it, and landed at day 60.
Goal hit on day 26. Landed.
Left after 7 months to start a company. Kept every vested share.
How a residency ends
Every residency ends one of three ways. All three are written into the Handshake on day zero.
Our call, never a surprise
The crew recalls you
If the role isn’t being done, we say so in writing at a weekly check-in and give you two weeks to turn it around. If it still isn’t, the residency ends.
You keep: Patches and flight log. Unvested equity goes back to the pool; vested equity can be bought back at fair value.
Nobody’s fault
The build stops
Some products don’t make it. When the numbers say so, we stop and say why. The assets stay with Build w/ Strangers.
You keep: Your patch, your flight log and a return ticket.
Full numbers: The deal. A lawyer writes the final terms before Landing. After Landing: The flight plan: how a landed company raises money.
Who owns what
The company owns the work.
One line in the Handshake is binding, and you sign it on day zero: everything made for the build belongs to its company. What you learn stays yours.
- Domains
- Source code
- Social accounts
- Brand
- Customers
- Know-how on paper
- Domains
- Registered to the company, never to a person. The company pays the renewals.
- The .com, every redirect, the email on it
- Source code
- In the company’s own repository. The crew’s code too: the crew owns shares, not the code.
- Repositories, infrastructure, models, data pipelines
- Social accounts
- Company handles belong to the company. Residents get admin access, not ownership.
- Handles, pages, channels, newsletters, their followers
- Brand
- Owned by the company from the day it is made, whoever made it.
- Name, logo, designs, copy, photos, video
- Customers
- Customers sign with the company. Payments land in the company’s account.
- Contracts, customer lists, the pipeline, every conversation
- Know-how on paper
- What you wrote down for the build stays with the build.
- Playbooks, pricing sheets, decks, research, docs
When you leave
When you leave, you hand over every login and admin right during your two weeks’ notice. The company removes your access on your last day. Your vested shares stay yours.
Goes with you
- What you learned. No NDA and no non-compete, so the skills go with you.
- Your personal accounts, your own network and your name on your flight log.
- Anything you made before the build, unless you sign it over in writing.
- Vested equity, your patches and, once the company has landed, the tail on deals you closed.
The Handshake is a shared plan, not a contract, with one exception: the ownership line (everything made for the build belongs to its company) is a binding IP assignment. You sign it on day zero of Orbit. The same line goes into the company’s founder agreement at Landing.
No NDA. No non-compete.
Learn how we find customers, set prices, ship and run things, then take it to your next build or your own company. If you leave and compete with us, good. It means the residency worked.
The company keeps its property: the code, the customer list, the playbooks and the pricing sheets. You keep your knowledge. See who owns what.