First in line for the encoder MVP.
We're running a small cohort of broadcast and OTT engineering teams deploying MpegFlow before GA. Free during beta, founder- direct, real influence on what ships next. Three to five teams, not fifty.
Free during the program
No card, no contract complication during the beta window. When the program ends and you continue using us, we negotiate a real contract. Not before.
White-glove onboarding from the founder
We don't hand you to a support tier. The person writing this page debugs your first encode with you. Direct line, fast turnaround, your stack-specific quirks get attention.
Real influence on the roadmap
If the encoder behavior you need isn't there, we put it on the roadmap and tell you when it lands. Design partner asks beat random feature requests in our prioritization.
Direct line to engineering
Shared Slack channel or equivalent. You ask in the morning, you get a real answer by afternoon — not a ticket triage layer.
A real production workload
It doesn't need to be huge. One internal-tool encode/day, or an archive-migration backlog, or a single rendition pipeline you'd otherwise have on MediaConvert. The bar is "you're running real work," not "you're processing a million minutes."
Honest, regular feedback
What works. What doesn't. What you'd build differently. We have a 20-minute biweekly check-in scheduled with each design partner; you keep us honest about whether we're actually shipping useful product.
Patience with rough edges
We are pre-GA. Things will break. Things will be missing. You are not a customer in the procurement sense; you are a partner. Expect to email the founder when something is wrong; expect to get a real fix the next day.
Permission for an eventual reference
Once you are deployed and happy, we will ask for permission to mention your team in a case study or as a logo. Anonymized first. Named only when you explicitly approve. You have unilateral say on this — but the ask is part of the deal.
| Dimension | Strong fit | Less strong fit |
|---|---|---|
| Industry | Broadcast, OTT, archive, cable news, sports, premium VOD, post-production at scale | Consumer UGC, social-media short-form, ad-tech video |
| Volume | 10K – 1M+ transcoded minutes / month | Under 1K minutes / month — managed services fit you better today |
| Stack today | FFmpeg directly, AWS Elemental, Bitmovin, Mux, custom encoder pools | Off-the-shelf YouTube/Vimeo embed flow |
| Team shape | One or more engineers who own video infrastructure as their primary responsibility | Dev team where video is one of many concerns and isn't sized for direct-to-engineering collaboration |
| Compliance posture | Comfortable working with a pre-SOC 2 vendor under NDA, with our compliance roadmap (audit window opens 2026 Q4) on the table | Strict procurement that requires SOC 2 Type II before any vendor onboarding |
| Use cases that fit best | VOD ladder generation, archive migration, multi-region delivery, broadcast workflow orchestration | Live ingest at scale (live ships Q3 2026 — earlier-stage design partner there) |
01 / Apply
You reach us via the contact form below or by replying to the email if we've already reached out. We'd like to know your team, your volume, and the workload you'd deploy first.
02 / Intro call (30 minutes)
The founder walks through where MpegFlow is today, what we'd ship for you in the first month, and the limits of where we are pre-GA. You walk through your workload and constraints. Either side can decide it's not a fit.
03 / Mutual NDA + design-partner agreement
One-page DPA on top of a short MNDA. Free for the program duration; commits both sides to the cadence and the eventual-reference question. We can use your existing template if you have one.
04 / White-glove onboarding (2-4 weeks)
The founder helps you wire your first workload. We pick a small piece of real work — not a synthetic test, but something that produces output you actually use. The bar is shipping real video.
05 / Cadence (ongoing)
Biweekly 20-minute check-ins. Shared Slack channel. Quarterly review of what shipped, what didn't, what to ship next.
06 / Graduation
When the encoder MVP graduates to GA and your workload is comfortably running, we negotiate a real contract — pricing, SLA, the rest. The design-partner program ends; you become a customer (or you don't, and we part ways with no hard feelings and a real reference).
Encoder MVP ships this quarter (2026 Q2). Live streaming, captions, and DRM packaging are on the roadmap for Q3–Q4. SOC 2 Type II audit window opens 2026 Q4. Self-hosted distribution productized in 2026 Q4. We are pre-GA, pre-revenue, and small — three to five design partners is what we can absorb without dropping quality. If the timing doesn't fit your urgency, we'd rather you wait six months and join GA than deploy us ahead of where we're ready.
Apply to the cohort.
Reach us via the contact form with topic "Beta access". Tell us your team, your volume, and the workload you'd deploy first. We reply within 24 hours.