The Cosign

Undergraduates apply. One team wins. We build it — then hand you the keys.

Every season, one undergraduate team wins the thing a dev shop would bill $25k–$120k to build: their own app, game, or platform — designed and built by Outright Mental to the standard we actually ship at, for zero cash, up front and ever. At the finale we hand over the keys — the repo, the domains, the accounts, all of it. Then it happens again, the next season.

There’s a catch, and it’s the whole point: you’re not hiring us — you’re co-founding with us. Your project becomes a co-op, our build hours enter it as equity on the exact same terms your own team earns, and you hold control from day one. A cosign is what happens when someone with a reputation puts it on the line for someone who hasn’t built one yet. That’s the program, described exactly — and yes, we literally co-sign your charter, on camera.

Opening October 2026 Applications for the first Cosign open October 2026. The terms below are final — read them, then start your application whenever your team is ready.

New to the model? Cosign #0 — “Eight Hours, Eight Points” → is the origin story: where the one-hour-one-point arithmetic came from, the decade of receipts that proved it, the tradition it turned out to belong to, and the offer it became. It does the explaining so nobody has to do it cold — read it before the terms below.

The offer

What you get: A studio-grade build of your project — up to 300 Outright Mental hours — launch support, and full control from day one.
Cash price: $0. Not deferred, not discounted — the pay is equity points, not dollars.
What we take: Points at one hour = one point — the same founding rate you earn — and one membership vote.
What we never take: Cash, board control, IP assignment, veto rights, or preferred anything.
Who applies: Undergraduate founding teams of 2–5, any accredited school, all 18 or older.
Cadence: One Cosign at a time. Two builds in the first year.
Your books: Yours. The full ledger is visible to every member, always — and public to no one unless your co-op votes to publish it.

The two conditions

Every applicant agrees to two conditions before we score a single application. They’re the price of the Cosign, and they’re the heart of the charter your co-op signs at formation. Here they are, word for word:

1. Your project incorporates as a cooperative on the points model: one pool, hours × schedule rate = points, ownership = your points ÷ all points, the full ledger visible to every member.

2. Outright Mental’s contributed hours enter the pool on Schedule A1 — zero cash, 1.000 points/hour — logged on the ledger like everyone else’s, visible to every member.

In plain English:

One hour of work is one point. Ownership is your points divided by everyone’s points — recomputed every time anyone logs an hour. No founder multiple, no preferred shares, no side letters. If you can divide, you can read the cap table.
We earn at the same rate you do. Our build hours log at one point per hour with no cash attached — the same founding rate available to your team. We negotiate nothing, because there’s nothing to negotiate.
You keep control. One member, one vote, regardless of points. A team of 2–5 always outvotes our single vote. “We hand you the keys” is written into the bylaws, not just said out loud.
Your books stay yours. The full ledger is visible to every member, always — and public to no one unless your co-op votes to publish it. The one ledger we do publish is our own — the XJ founders pool, real hours and real points, so the model itself can be audited by anyone. The model is public; your numbers are yours.

How we choose

We publish the rubric because a score you can’t see isn’t a score. Here’s exactly how every application is weighed — weights and all — and the same rule that governs our paid research applies here: if a claim has no source, it doesn’t count.

Weight	What we're scoring	What earns the marks
30%	The idea deserves to exist	Sharp, specific, and buildable to done inside the hours — not a platform fantasy that needs a Series A before it works.
25%	The team will do the work	Real committed hours, logged on the ledger. A co-op runs on members, not clients.
20%	Co-op sincerity	You read the two conditions and you want the model — not a free build with the co-op part merely tolerated.
15%	The story carries an episode	Founders willing to be on camera through the hard parts, not just a highlight reel.
10%	Fit with the studio's soul	Something we can build without flinching — see the line below on who this isn't for.

What winning looks like

One Cosign runs about one academic year, end to end, and every stage is filmed as part of the season:

The Call. We phone the winning team — that’s the reveal, and it’s the clip.
The co-signing. Your co-op forms with counsel, the charter is signed on camera, and the ledger opens at zero.
The build. Up to 300 of our hours over the semester, with your team building alongside — design, content, QA, capture, marketing — every hour logged.
Launch. We ship: stores or web live, with a real launch push.
The Keys. Repo admin, domains, app-store accounts, infrastructure, credentials — transferred to you, on camera. We keep our points and our one vote, nothing else.

After the finale there’s a 90-day support tail — bug fixes logged at the same rate, capped — and then we contribute again only if your co-op votes to invite us.

Who it’s for (and who it isn’t)

Apply if

You’re a team of 2–5 undergrads with a project that’s yours and buildable to done
You want a co-founder who’s shipped for twenty-five years, not a vendor who disappears after the invoice
You want the model — arithmetic ownership, one member one vote — not just a free build
You’ll be on camera through the hard parts, because the honest version is the good one

Don't apply if

Your project needs a license we can’t get — holding customer funds, diagnosing patients, any regulated bar
It runs on gambling or engagement-bait — loot-box psychology, dark-pattern retention loops
We couldn’t demo it with a straight face to a room full of hackers on a Tuesday night
You want a vendor: a thing built, handed over, the invoice paid, the relationship closed. That’s real — it just isn’t this

Ready to apply?

Six questions and a 60-second video — about 30 minutes if your team already knows what it wants to build. One person reads every application and replies within two business days, including a no. No third-party form service ever sees your details.

Read the terms & apply ›

Questions people ask

Is this real? Who's behind it?

Fair question — you should ask it of any offer this good. Here’s everything you can check without taking our word for it:

A named human runs this. Nick Charney Kaye — one person, one studio — inventor on a granted U.S. patent, with 25 years of interactive and film credits you can click through.
The model is already on the record. We publish our own founders-pool ledger in full — every hour, every rate, every point — so the one-hour-one-point math is auditable with a calculator before you ever apply.
The origin is on film. Cosign #0 is where the model came from, the decade of receipts behind it, and why zero-cash-for-equity actually works.
There’s a real company behind it. Outright Mental Inc — a U.S. corporation, the assignee on that patent, the entity your co-op signs its charter with.
A person answers. Email hi@outrightmental.com — one human reads it and replies within two business days, including a no.

Want voices that aren’t ours? See People you can ask, below.

What do we tell our parents / professor?

Show them this page — it’s built to survive a skeptical read. Point them at four things:

The whole deal is two conditions, printed word for word (above) — no fine print underneath. One hour is one point; ownership is your points divided by everyone’s. If they can divide, they can read the cap table.
A lawyer wrote the binding version. The charter that puts those two conditions in force is drafted with counsel, and your team reads every line before anyone signs. This page isn’t the contract — the charter is.
You keep control. Governance is one member, one vote, regardless of points, so your team of 2–5 always outvotes the studio’s single vote. “We hand you the keys” is written into the bylaws, not just said out loud.
You don’t have to take our word for it. The founder’s record, the published ledger, and the People you can ask section are all on this page — the third-party anchors are just below.

Who owns the company and the IP?

The co-op does — and your team controls the co-op. The project, the code, the brand, the accounts: all owned by the cooperative your team holds the majority of. We never take IP assignment, board control, or veto rights, and at the finale we transfer every credential to you. What we hold is points and one vote, nothing that lets us overrule you.

So what does Outright Mental actually get?

Points, earned at the same one-hour-one-point rate your team earns, and one membership vote. That’s the whole compensation. If we log 300 hours and your team logs 500, we hold about 37.5% of the points and one vote among your team’s several — visible to every member who can divide. No cash, no control, no negotiation.

Are my books private?

Yes. The full ledger is visible to every member of your co-op, always — and to nobody else unless your co-op votes, one member one vote, to publish it. We never require disclosure, never ask for your numbers on camera, and the show displays the mechanism, never your percentages. The one ledger that is public is our own XJ founders pool — published so nobody else’s ever has to be. The model is public; your books are yours.

What happens after you hand over the keys?

The Keys ceremony transfers repo admin, domains, app-store accounts, infrastructure, and credentials to your team, on camera. We keep our points and our one vote, and nothing else. Then a 90-day support tail — bug fixes logged at the same rate, capped — and after that we contribute again only if your co-op votes to invite us, on whatever terms your members set. From the keys onward, the project is yours to take anywhere.

Is this an investment? Do I owe anything if it fails?

No cash changes hands in either direction — you never owe us money, and we never wire you any. Membership in a worker co-op with member labor is the tradition’s standard instrument, drafted with counsel and reused each season; you read the charter in full before you sign a thing. (This page isn’t legal advice — the charter is the real document.)

Who can apply?

Teams of 2–5 currently-enrolled undergraduates, all 18 or older, at any accredited school. The project has to be yours to build — your own work, not something your university or a past investor owns a piece of. That’s the eligibility bar; everything else is the rubric above.

What if our team falls apart mid-build?

The charter’s departure terms govern what happens to a departing member’s points, and the season’s episode ships regardless. A co-op that ends honestly is a stronger story than a faked finale — and we’ve committed to showing what actually happened, whatever it is.

What if we don't win?

One team wins per season, so most of a strong field won’t — and we won’t pretend otherwise. Three things stay true whether or not you’re the one: applying gives us no claim on your idea, your code, or your team — you keep all of it; one person reads every application and every team gets a real answer, including a no, within two business days; and your 60-second video and anything you send stays yours — we never use an applicant’s footage without your explicit say-so, and we pull it on request. There’s also a literal runner-up: if the team we pick can’t move forward — say a school’s IP policy encumbers their project in a way we can’t clear before the charter is signed — the Cosign passes to the next team in the ranking, honestly and on the record. If your idea is strong but isn’t the one, we’ll tell you why, and “apply again next season” is an invitation, not a brush-off.

People you can ask

Don’t take our word for any of this — the best check on a studio is someone who isn’t in it. This section is for exactly that: campus-adjacent references — faculty, entrepreneurship-center staff, voices from the co-op world — you can contact yourself.

Named campus references — a professor, an entrepreneurship-center director, a co-op-movement voice — go here as each person’s written consent lands. We don’t post someone’s name until they’ve said yes in writing. Until they’re up, the checks already on this page stand on their own: the founder’s record, the published ledger, Cosign #0, and a human who answers at hi@outrightmental.com within two business days.

The Cosign is a build-for-equity program. Membership in each project’s cooperative is earned through members’ own work and governed one member, one vote — it is not sold, and nothing here is an offer or solicitation to buy or sell a security, to invest money, or a promise of financial return. This page is not legal, tax, securities, or investment advice.