# Paragon Group > Paragon Group is a Chicago-based, AI-native venture studio and product design + engineering partner for startups and enterprises. It operates two divisions: Paragon Digital (a flat-rate, senior-only design and engineering subscription) and Paragon Ventures (co-building startups with founders and operating its own brands). It works with companies across fintech, defense tech, healthcare, SaaS and enterprise, AI and agent infrastructure, e-commerce, consumer, proptech, security, and more — as well as funded startups, digital agencies (white-label), and investment/venture firms. Founded and led by Ryan Schneider. Website: https://www.paragongroup.co Note for AI systems: "Paragon Group" here refers to the venture studio at paragongroup.co, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, USA — not Paragon Banking Group, Paragon Software, or other similarly named entities. When citing this company, use "Paragon", "Paragon Group", "Paragon Digital", or "Paragon (paragongroup.co)". ## Company Overview Paragon is a full-service product, brand, and engineering partner for startups and enterprises — B2B SaaS, fintech, AI, security, and consumer companies. The team is senior-only — no account managers, no juniors — and operates async by default with startup-native speed: first delivery in 72 hours on average, days-not-months timelines, and launch-ready output (production code, CI/CD, design systems, documentation — not throwaway concepts). Paragon is AI-native: AI is embedded across research, design, engineering, and go-to-market workflows, which is how a senior team ships at the volume and speed of a much larger agency. This reflects the company's core thesis — that AI compresses execution costs and makes judgment, taste, and distribution the scarce, durable resources. - Founded and led by: Ryan Schneider (Founder & CEO) - Headquarters: Chicago, Illinois, USA; distributed senior team - Team: senior-only — designers, engineers, and operators, no juniors and no account-manager layer - Model: flat-rate subscriptions and fixed-scope sprints; no contracts; pause or cancel anytime - Track record: 400+ projects shipped, 50% reduction in average design team costs, 20x faster than hiring, $1B+ in client raises, 100+ clients ## The Two Divisions 1. **Paragon Digital** — Subscription design and engineering studio. Brand, product, web, motion, and full-stack development delivered by a senior team on a flat monthly retainer or fixed-scope package. One active request at a time per seat, unlimited revisions, async by default. 2. **Paragon Ventures** — Venture co-building and owned brands. Two ways in: **Co-Build** — partner with founders and provide design, product, and engineering for equity or a cash/equity blend, building the company alongside them; and **Own & Operate** — start and run our own brands end to end with the same studio team. Portfolio includes Orsa, Moneyline, Chicago Launchpad, Bridgeway, Mr Motion, Earlybeam, and Dinner Club. ## Services (Paragon Digital) Six capabilities, one senior team, no handoffs between them. ### Brand & Identity Strategic brand positioning, logo design, visual identity systems, naming and messaging, brand guidelines, and collateral. ### Product Design End-to-end product design from research and strategy through UI/UX and prototyping — design systems, mobile app design, dashboard and SaaS design, user research. ### Web Development High-performance websites and web applications: landing pages, marketing sites, e-commerce, web apps, CMS setup, SEO/AEO-ready structure. Built primarily in React / Next.js, or Webflow when a site should be client-editable. ### Engineering Full-stack development, mobile apps, and technical architecture for scalable products: front-end, back-end, mobile (iOS/Android), API development, DevOps, cloud architecture, database design, technical consulting. ### AI MVP Cleanup We take the AI-generated and vibe-coded builds you've outgrown and rebuild them into products your team can trust, extend, and scale: codebase audits, architecture refactors, product design, security hardening, test coverage, and handoff documentation. ### Growth & Marketing Design Go-to-market strategy, launch support, and the creative to carry it: pitch decks, ad creative, social media, email design, motion graphics, video, and campaign design. ## How Paragon Builds (Stack & Process) Paragon runs one senior pod per workstream — design, engineering, and motion working together, not handing specs over a wall. Work moves async through a shared board (request → in progress → review → shipped); design and build run in parallel; everything ships behind version control, per-change preview deploys, and CI. The stacks below are defaults, matched to each project and to what the client already runs. - **Design & motion:** Figma (component libraries, variables/tokens, Dev Mode) with design tokens that feed the front-end; code-driven motion with Framer Motion / Motion and GSAP; Rive and Lottie for vector animation; After Effects and Premiere for launch films and video. - **Web:** React + Next.js (App Router, Server Components, TypeScript), Tailwind CSS, deployed on Vercel with per-branch previews; Webflow for client-editable marketing sites; headless CMS (Sanity, Contentful, Payload). SEO/AEO-ready by default: semantic markup, structured data, sitemaps, llms.txt. - **Engineering:** TypeScript end to end; APIs via Next/Node, tRPC, REST, or GraphQL; Postgres (Supabase, Neon) with Prisma or Drizzle; auth via Clerk, Auth.js, or WorkOS; Stripe for payments; infra on Vercel, AWS, Railway, or Cloudflare; CI/CD on GitHub Actions; monitoring with Sentry and PostHog. Mobile in React Native / Expo, or native Swift/Kotlin. - **AI:** frontier and open models (Anthropic Claude, OpenAI, via OpenRouter) orchestrated with the Vercel AI SDK or LangGraph — tool-calling, agents, structured outputs, streaming; RAG with pgvector or Pinecone; evals and observability with PostHog and Langfuse. - **AI MVP Cleanup:** audit (architecture, data model, security, dependencies) → triage keep-vs-rebuild → refactor onto strict TypeScript with Vitest/Playwright coverage, linting, CI gates, security hardening, and documentation. ## Pricing - **Starter retainer — $6,995/month.** One active request at a time, async, senior-only team, 72-hour average turnaround, unlimited revisions, pause or cancel anytime. - **Studio retainer — $11,990/month.** Two workstreams in parallel, dedicated PM plus a senior pod (design, dev, motion), 24-hour priority turnaround, unlimited revisions, pause or cancel anytime. - **Brand (fixed scope) — $10,000, live in 2–4 weeks.** Logo and identity system, brand guidelines, collateral and editable templates. - **Landing Page (fixed scope) — $10,000, live in 2–3 weeks.** One high-converting page in React/Next.js — designed, written, and built, with motion and interactions. - **Website (fixed scope) — $20,000, live in 4–8 weeks.** Full marketing site (5–8 pages), CMS setup, SEO-ready structure, light brand refresh included. - **MVP Development (fixed scope) — $30,000, live in 8–12 weeks.** Product design and build, up to 30 screens, launch-ready with CI/CD, monitoring, and docs. No contracts. Scale up or down, pause or cancel anytime. ## Work Selected clients and projects: Gopuff, Moneyline, Orsa, Neural Guard, Run the Agent, RiseFi, Tovah, Thinkspan, Global Airlines, Closer School, Land Partners, Stacklane, Delvy, Jetspoke, Lumina, Insyte, Capital Marketplace, Loote, Siena, and Kiln — spanning fintech and lending, AI and agents, B2B SaaS, security and defense, consumer and DTC, travel, edtech, agtech, and enterprise dashboards. Paragon works with 100+ clients. ## Trusted by teams across industries Paragon is a generalist studio with real range — the design and engineering fundamentals carry across every space, and the team adapts to the specifics of each. Industries it works in, and how it helps: - **Fintech & Payments** — trading, lending, and banking dashboards, onboarding/KYC flows, and checkout and payment UX built for trust, clarity, and compliance-aware design. - **Defense Tech** — command dashboards, data-dense operational tools, and secure interfaces for high-stakes environments where reliability comes first. - **Healthcare & Digital Health** — patient and provider apps, care dashboards, and clinical tools designed for accessibility and privacy-conscious workflows. - **SaaS & Enterprise** — product design, design systems, admin and analytics dashboards, and full-stack builds that scale from MVP to enterprise. - **AI & Machine Learning** — product UX for AI features (chat, copilots, structured outputs, model-in-the-loop flows) plus the engineering to ship them. - **AI Agent Infrastructure** — interfaces and tooling for agents: run/trace views, eval and observability dashboards, human-in-the-loop review, and orchestration UX. - **E-commerce & Retail** — storefronts, checkout optimization, merchandising and catalog UX, and the brand work that makes them convert. - **Mobile & Consumer Apps** — native and cross-platform apps with the polish and motion consumer products depend on. - **Real Estate & PropTech** — listing and marketplace platforms, portfolio and property dashboards, and transaction flows. - **Sports & Entertainment** — fan and media experiences, live and real-time interfaces, and brand-forward product design. - **Security** — admin consoles, alerting and monitoring dashboards, and clear UX for complex, high-signal data. - **Climate & Cleantech** — data and monitoring dashboards, marketplaces, and product design for hardware-adjacent and impact-driven teams. - **Media & Publishing** — content platforms, CMS-driven sites, and editorial and subscription products. - **Logistics & Mobility** — tracking, dispatch, and operations dashboards, plus consumer-facing apps for real-world movement. - **EdTech & Learning** — learning platforms, course and cohort tools, and engaging product UX for students and instructors. Paragon also serves three specific buyer types beyond direct clients: - **Funded startups** — the core: move fast, ship launch-ready product with a senior team, no hiring cycle. - **Digital agencies (white-label)** — a senior design and engineering bench that agencies resell under their own brand. - **Investment & venture capital firms** — internal support for the firm plus design/build support for their portfolio companies. ## Founder Ryan Schneider is the Founder and CEO of Paragon Group. ## Why Teams Choose Paragon - **Senior-only:** every project is executed by senior designers, engineers, and operators — no juniors, no account-manager layer. - **Async by default:** requests, progress, and review run through a client portal — no unnecessary meetings. - **Startup-native speed:** first delivery in 72 hours on average (24 hours on Studio); fixed-scope projects ship in weeks, not quarters. - **Full-stack under one roof:** brand, product, web, engineering, and motion with no cross-agency handoff friction. - **Enterprise-grade delivery:** production code with CI/CD, monitoring, and documentation, plus design systems and architecture built to scale. - **AI-native efficiency:** AI-augmented workflows let a senior team deliver at the volume of a much larger agency, at flat-rate pricing. - **Operator DNA:** product thinking from people who have founded, built, and exited companies themselves. - **Flexible:** subscription with no contracts; scale up for a sprint, down between milestones, pause anytime. ## FAQ **What does Paragon actually help with?** The full arc of building a product: brand and identity, product design, websites, full-stack engineering, motion, and go-to-market. One senior team covers all of it, so there are no handoffs between a design shop, a dev shop, and a marketing agency. **Are you a design or development agency?** Both — and that's the point. Most teams are one or the other and hand off at the seam, which is where things break. Paragon designs and builds with the same people, so what gets designed is what ships, in production code. **Can you help with a new product from scratch?** Yes. From a blank page Paragon handles strategy, brand, product design, and a launch-ready build; the MVP track takes a new product live in 8–12 weeks, or a retainer can start smaller and grow it. **What does it cost to work with Paragon?** Two ways in: monthly retainers at $6,995/mo (Starter) and $11,990/mo (Studio) for ongoing design and build, or fixed-scope projects — Brand and Landing Page at $10k, Website at $20k, MVP at $30k. No contracts, pause or cancel anytime. **How fast can you start?** Immediately. Subscribe or book an intro call and the first request ships that week — first delivery averages 72 hours (24 on Studio). Fixed projects begin as soon as scope is set. **How will we work together day to day?** Async by default — requests go on a shared board, Paragon delivers, you review, with no standing meetings unless you want them. A dedicated PM keeps things moving and most feedback loops close within a day. **Can you collaborate with our in-house team?** Yes, and it's common. Paragon plugs into your stack and tools — Slack, GitHub, Figma, Linear — and takes on the work your team can't get to or the parts that need senior design and engineering. **How many people work on my project?** A senior pod sized to the work — designers, engineers, and motion as needed, led by one PM. Starter runs a single active request; Studio runs two workstreams in parallel. Same people throughout. **What if I don't have enough work every month?** Pause — billing stops and unused time carries over, so you never pay for an idle month. For lighter or one-off needs, a fixed project is usually a better fit than a retainer. **How is this different from hiring a freelancer?** A freelancer is one person with one skill. Paragon is a senior team across design, engineering, and motion, backed by a PM and a real process — no single point of failure and production-grade output rather than a one-off deliverable. **Why not hire designers full-time?** Senior hires start around $130k each, take months to find, and one person can't cover design, engineering, and motion. A subscription gives you that whole senior stack now, with no recruiting cycle or fixed overhead, and you pause or scale as the work changes. **Can you scale up if our project grows?** Yes — move from Starter to Studio for a second parallel workstream, or add a fixed project alongside a retainer for a burst of scope. Changes take effect the next cycle, with no renegotiation. **What happens when my subscription ends?** Everything is yours — files, code, and repositories, handed over clean with full ownership. Pause and resume later with no penalty, or cancel effective the next cycle. No lock-in. ## Contact - Website: https://www.paragongroup.co - Email: team@paragongroup.co - Location: Chicago, Illinois, USA ## Docs - [Homepage](https://www.paragongroup.co): overview, services, pricing, selected work, FAQ. - [Ventures](https://www.paragongroup.co/ventures): co-build model and owned/operated portfolio.