-- Tandem Studio, an AI-native venture studio owned and run by five senior operators, opened to the public today. The studio takes on client engagements and designs and builds its own software. Client work runs on one sixty-day model with no junior staff and no account managers on any project.
AI has produced the largest new population of builders in a generation. A working prototype now takes a weekend, and people who have never shipped software are making them. Most builders then hit the same wall. Something demonstrates well, and then it buckles under real users, real security requirements, and real load.
"Design is the first thing a founder hands off to AI, and it shows," said Cade Collister, a Tandem co-founder who leads design and user experience. "Left on its own, AI reaches for the same patterns every time, and people recognize the templated look before they have read a word. Using AI is right. Using it without an expert steering it is how a product tells the market not to pick it."
The price works because of how the work gets done. Traditional software shops carry a production layer beneath their senior people, and the client pays for all of it. Tandem is built so the senior operators carry the work themselves, start to finish, with AI as the tool they work through. A Tandem engagement, which the studio calls a Jump, allocates all five owners fractionally across sixty days, weighted to what the work needs, which is how senior staff have always actually worked on client projects.
"You could always hire people like us. Most companies could not afford us," said Jonathan Sasse, a Tandem co-founder who leads product and strategy. "What AI changed is that a founder with a good idea and limited resources can get the best people in the room and get to market fast. That used to take a million dollars and two years."
One of Tandem's early engagements was with Jared Eichelberger, a former professional pitcher in the New York Mets and Seattle Mariners organizations who founded 5ive Tool Baseball Academy. The Jump landed ahead of his busiest stretch of the year.
"I had never had a team look at my business the way Tandem did," Eichelberger said. "In sixty days they gave me a read from people who have actually built things at scale, and it set up the best summer we've had. We're running twenty-three camps this year, and the timing was not an accident."
"The name is literal," said Scott Davis, a Tandem co-founder who leads engineering and technology. "On a tandem skydive the instructor is strapped in with you, and partway down he hands you the controls. Sixty days in, a client has working software and knows how to run it without us. The first jump is with us. Every jump after that is yours."
Each Jump is a flat twenty-five thousand dollars paid up front. Sixty days, no retainer, no hourly billing, one model with no tiers. A Jump runs in one of two modes, defining a product and building a working prototype, or taking an existing prototype to production. Every Jump opens twelve months of direct access to the team from the day it begins, ten of them continuing after the sixty days end. Additional Jumps inside that window draw on the same relationship, and the clock does not restart. New bookings open October 1, 2026.
Anyone can start a conversation before spending anything. The agent at tandemstudio.ai works through what a founder is building and sends them off with a real next step whether or not it involves Tandem.
The goal isn't a better agency. It's not needing one at all.
About Tandem Studio
Tandem Studio is an AI-native venture studio in Bentonville, Arkansas, owned and run by five senior operators across product strategy, engineering, design, content, and growth. No junior staff, no account managers. Alongside client work, the studio designs and builds its own software, including Cherry, a screenwriting application now open to a first group of writers at cherrydraft.com. More products are in development. Learn more at tandemstudio.ai.
About the founders
Jonathan Sasse led technology at Rio, iriver, and Slacker Radio, where he was a founding executive, and most recently served as CEO of a software development firm. Scott Davis ran seller-side engineering at StockX and began his career building secure communications systems at the U.S. Department of Defense. Cade Collister was Chief Experience Officer at Acumen Brands, the company behind Country Outfitter, co-founded Scout Retail Ventures, and has led product and design engagements for Walmart and Microsoft.
Contact Info:
Name: Gary Bird
Email: Send Email
Organization: Tandem Studio
Website: https://tandemstudio.ai/
Release ID: 89204258
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