Approach
Six phases, and you can stop after any of them
No discovery deck, no six week sales cycle, no proposal that hides the number on page eleven. The aim is to get you to a written scope you can say yes or no to, as fast as honesty allows.
- 01
Scoping call
30 minutes, free
You describe what is not working. The questions asked are the ones that change the answer: what happens today, what it costs you, what you have already tried, and what would count as fixed. You leave with a straight read on whether this is worth spending money on and roughly what range it sits in.
What you get- A verbal range
- A recommended next step
- An honest no if that is the answer
- 02
Discovery
One to two weeks, paid
A short focused pass over the systems, the data, the integrations and the constraints. For marketing work this is an audit of the account, the analytics and the site. For engineering work it is a review of the codebase, the schema and the infrastructure. It produces facts rather than assumptions.
What you get- A written technical assessment you keep
- A prioritised list of what to fix and in what order
- Credited against the build if you proceed
- 03
Written scope
A few days
Deliverables, explicit exclusions, a dated schedule and a fixed price. Exclusions matter as much as deliverables, because what is not in the document is what causes the argument in month three. You sign it or you do not, and either is fine.
What you get- Fixed price
- Dated milestones
- Explicit exclusions
- 04
Delivery
Per the schedule
Work ships continuously to a preview environment. You see real progress weekly rather than a status percentage, which means you can redirect early, when redirecting is still cheap. Scope changes are quoted as changes rather than absorbed silently and resented later.
What you get- A live preview URL from week one
- A weekly written update
- Automated checks gating every deploy
- 05
Hardening
Before launch, not after
Error paths, load behaviour, accessibility, security headers, mobile rendering and Core Web Vitals are checked and fixed before launch rather than logged as future work. This phase is in the schedule and the price, which is why it actually happens.
What you get- Field measured Core Web Vitals
- Accessibility pass at WCAG AA
- Security headers and dependency audit
- 06
Handover
At launch, plus 30 days
Repository access, infrastructure ownership, credentials and documentation transfer to you. Thirty days of support are included, covering anything that does not behave as specified. After that you take a maintenance retainer, hand it to your own team, or simply run it yourself.
What you get- Architecture and deploy documentation
- All accounts and credentials in your name
- 30 days of included support
What this rules out
Things that will not happen
Being specific about what a process excludes is more useful than another list of what it includes.
An open ended hourly meter on fixed scope work.
A proposal where the price is a range and the range is wide.
Work handed to a junior team you never met after the contract is signed.
A report full of charts that never mentions enquiries or revenue.
Access to your own repository, ad account or analytics gated behind a retainer.
A guaranteed ranking, a guaranteed conversion rate or a guaranteed result.
Questions
About working together
Why is discovery paid?
Because it produces something valuable whether or not you hire us. You receive a written technical assessment and a prioritised fix list that another provider could execute. Free discovery is either shallow, or it is real work being recovered somewhere else in the price. The fee is credited against the build if you proceed.
What happens if the scope changes mid project?
It gets quoted as a change and you approve it before anything is built. Absorbing scope silently is how projects run late and how relationships go bad, so changes are surfaced immediately rather than at the end.
How much of my time will this take?
Roughly two hours a week during an active build: one review call and asynchronous replies on decisions. Discovery is heavier, usually three to four hours of interviews spread over a week. Beyond that the aim is to need you rarely and only for decisions nobody else can make.
What if I am not happy with the direction?
You see working software weekly for exactly this reason. Redirecting in week two costs a few days; discovering a mismatch at delivery costs the project. If something is not right, say so at the weekly review and it gets changed.
Do you sign NDAs and work under our contract?
Yes to an NDA. Working under your master services agreement is usually fine and gets reviewed before signing. Standard terms cover ownership transfer of everything produced, so the intellectual property question is normally already settled.