Naked Development

We paid $117,000 to Naked Development for a consumer app and marketing funnel. They missed every deadline, never staffed the contracted team, and delivered a codebase that would not build on iOS or Android. We had to hire a second firm just to assess the damage before remediation could begin. The marketing video was unusable by the time the app finally launched, as cultural references had gone stale during the delay. When we raised breach concerns, founder John Driscoll responded with legal intimidation rather than accountability. We issued a formal written Notice of Breach itemizing five specific failures. His response was a three sentence email. We are software engineers who have led teams of over 100. These were not minor issues. They were basic, objective engineering failures. We are aware of more than a dozen other former clients who experienced similar issues.

I hired Naked Development to build a new version of my mobile app in 2022. I paid $203,000 upfront (spread over six months, which was essentially everything I had saved from my first year in business). Their team told me confidently that the app would be ready 5 months later, in Fall 2022. What followed was nearly a year of missed deadlines, repeated “we’re almost there” messages, and declining involvement from their team. My very small internal team and I ended up stepping into project management, QA, and timeline-pushing roles because progress had stalled so badly. Every few weeks we would be told the same thing in different words, but without any real or functional progress being delivered. By mid 2023, after months of delays and vague updates, I decided to bring in new development teams to see if they could help take the project over the finish line. Multiple independent dev teams reviewed the codebase, and every single one independently concluded: the app was non-functional, unstable, not scalable, and could not be launched. They said it would crash immediately, could not support my user base, and had so many foundational issues that it would require a full rebuild. I didn’t want to believe that, so I hired a completely neutral third-party auditor with no connection to any agency and no incentive to win the rebuild. His assessment confirmed everything: the app could not be launched in any form, and the only option was to start over. After paying over $200K and losing almost a year of momentum, I was left with nothing usable. Once I factored in the cost of delays, internal resources, audit fees, and the eventual rebuild, the financial impact on my business has now exceeded $500,000. Because of this, I ultimately filed a lawsuit, which is a matter of public record (Superhuman Inc. v. Naked Development). After multiple failed attempts to resolve this privately, the case is now set for trial in February. While litigation is never something a founder wants to go through, at a certain point it became the only viable path forward based on the financial impact and the objective evidence. I strongly advise against hiring Naked Development. In my experience, the deliverables were never completed, the code was deemed unusable by multiple external teams, and the project was abandoned despite full payment. I urge any founder to conduct extensive due diligence and get independent technical reviews before engaging with any agency - especially this one.

Do not trust Naked development Irvine California. They're con men. They took us for over 25k. Don't trust them. They name drop and promise investors. 2yrs later and they have still not produced anything. They called the police when we went to their office (in order to weaponize these police against us). We are a minority on Startup. Very unsettling to say the least. Please Do not trust these people. We're not the only ones they have ripped off. If you have any questions please reach out to me.