Home/The process

14 weeks. Six phases. One spreadsheet tracking every commitment we made on day one.

Most agencies sell you a kickoff and disappear. We sell you a Gantt chart, a Slack channel, and weekly Friday demos with running timestamps. If a milestone slips, you'll know on the morning it slips - not at the end of the project.

Duration12-16 weeks
Phases6
DemosEvery Friday, 30 min
ChannelShared Slack + Linear
On-time delivery94% (last 24 builds)
02 / Schedule

The whole thing, on one screen.

14 weeks, by phase. Demos every Friday. Two checkpoints where we both have to sign before we move on. No surprises in week 11.

Phase W1W2W3W4W5W6W7W8W9W10W11W12W13W14
01Discovery
02Architecture
03Design
04Build
05QA + launch
06Optimize
03 / Phase by phase

What actually happens, in detail.

Each phase has named activities, fixed durations, and a tangible deliverable. Here's the whole thing.

01
Weeks 1-2 · 10 working days

Discovery - we figure out what would actually move the number.

We don't open Figma in week 1. We interview your top 3 customers, dig through GA4 + ad data, and build a single-page document that says: here's the thing we have to fix, and here's what success looks like 90 days post-launch.

Stakeholder workshop (3 hrs)D1
3 customer interviews (45 min each)D2-4
Analytics + ad-data auditD5-6
Competitor teardown (top 5)D7
Conversion-rate baseline measurementD8
Brief doc written + reviewedD9-10
📋
You receive
A 12-page diagnostic brief
Named users, the 3 jobs the site has to do, baseline metrics, the 1 number we're committing to move, and a one-page success definition. Signed by both sides.
02
Weeks 3-4 · 10 working days

Architecture - structure before pixels.

Sitemap, page hierarchies, content outlines, and the actual question every page is answering. We'll walk through the whole skeleton in week 4 and freeze it before any visual design starts. Changes after this point cost time.

Sitemap v1D1-2
Page-by-page content briefsD3-5
Wireframes - all key templatesD6-8
User-flow walkthroughsD9
🟡 Architecture sign-off (checkpoint 1)D10
🗺️
You receive
Wireframes + sitemap, signed
Every page outlined with copy direction, hierarchy, and primary actions. This is the build contract - once you sign, we don't go backwards.
03
Weeks 4-6 · 12 working days

Design - three rounds, then it's frozen.

Hi-fi designs for every template in your sitemap. Three rounds of feedback baked into the timeline. After R3, the design is frozen. Anything that changes from there goes into a Phase 6 backlog so the build doesn't drift.

Design system tokens (color, type, space)D1-2
Homepage R1 → R2 → R3D3-7
All template designsD8-10
Mobile + tablet variantsD11
🟡 Design sign-off (checkpoint 2)D12
🎨
You receive
Frozen Figma file
Every screen, every state, every breakpoint. Versioned. Plus a brand mini-guide so future designers (yours or ours) keep things consistent.
04
Weeks 6-10 · 25 working days

Build - Next.js, hand-coded, visible to you in real time.

No drag-and-drop builders. We hand-write every component in Next.js, deploy continuously to a staging URL, and you can poke at it from day 1 of build week. Friday demos cover what shipped that week and what's coming next.

Component library + design tokens in codeW6
Homepage + service templatesW7
CMS (Sanity) setup + content migrationW8
Forms, integrations, analytics eventsW9
Cross-browser + cross-device passesW10
⚙️
You receive
Live staging URL, Slack-poke distance
A working site at staging.yourdomain.com - updated continuously. You'll see the build come together, not a black-box reveal at the end.
05
Weeks 11-12 · 10 working days

QA + launch - boring, on purpose.

We treat launch day as a non-event. By the time we flip DNS, the site has been crawled, audited, redirected, schema'd, and run through Lighthouse on five different connections. The drama belongs in the discovery phase. Not here.

301 redirect map + crawl validationD1-2
Schema, OG tags, sitemap.xmlD3
Lighthouse passes - all templates ≥ 95D4-5
A11y audit (WCAG 2.2 AA)D6
Final content + legal reviewD7-8
DNS cutover + post-launch crawlD9-10
🚀
You receive
A live site, plus 30-day support
Bug-free SLA: any defect found in the first 30 days is fixed within 48 hours, free. After that, a separate retainer or you take it from there - your call.
06
Weeks 13-14 + ongoing · optional

Optimize - the actual work begins.

Most agencies hand off the keys and go. We treat launch as week 1, not week 14. A 90-day optimization engagement runs A/B tests, reviews search performance, and iterates on the conversion paths against the live data. Optional, but most clients keep going.

Conversion baseline (post-launch)W13
A/B test plan - 3 hypothesesW14
Test 1 shipsD30
Test 2 ships + monthly readoutD60
90-day report - promise vs realityD90
📈
You receive
A 90-day report - and a verdict
We compare the success metric we committed to in Phase 1 against what actually shipped. If we missed it, the report says so. The number isn't moving on optimism.
04 / Principles

Three things we won't compromise on.

These show up in every project. Skip any one and the whole thing tips toward "another forgettable agency build." We're not interested in that.

P / 01

Commit to one number on day one.

Every project has a single success metric we put in writing during discovery. Not "engagement." Not "brand presence." A specific number. We're judged against it 90 days post-launch.

P / 02

Demo every Friday, even when it's awkward.

If a week's work is messy, we show the mess. Surprises in week 11 cost everyone money. The Friday demo is the cheapest insurance against that.

P / 03

Hand-coded, not assembled.

Every component is hand-written in Next.js. We don't ship Webflow or page-builder output for the same reason a custom home builder doesn't pour pre-fab walls - the joints are where quality lives.

05 / Track record

How well does it actually work?

Last 24 builds. Not curated. Not the highlight reel. The whole roster.

On-time delivery
94%
22 of 24 projects launched within 1 week of original date
Avg. conversion lift
3.4×
90-day post-launch vs pre-launch baseline (visitor → lead)
Lighthouse, all templates
98/100
Median score across performance, a11y, SEO, best practices
06 / FAQ

The questions everyone asks.

What if we're stuck in week 4 because we can't get sign-off internally?+
It happens. Sign-off delays are the #1 cause of slipped timelines. We build a 1-week buffer into every checkpoint. Beyond that, the project pauses (we work on something else) and resumes when you're ready. The phase fees are paid against milestones, not weeks, so you don't get charged for waiting on yourself.
Can we add scope mid-project?+
Yes - but it goes in a Phase 6 backlog rather than the current sprint. We've found mid-flight scope changes are the #2 cause of slips. Adding to the backlog is free; adding to the active build requires a written change order with revised scope and dates.
What does the 30-day post-launch SLA actually cover?+
Any bug - visual, functional, performance, accessibility - that wasn't intentional in the signed designs. Fix turnaround is 48 hours from report. New features and design changes aren't bugs and go through the change-order path.
Why Friday demos and not async written updates?+
Because written updates can hide problems and live screen-shares can't. Most weeks the demo is 15 minutes - sometimes 3. The point is making it impossible to drift quietly.
Can we run the optimization phase without you?+
Absolutely. About 35% of clients take the 90-day report path with us, the rest run their own optimization in-house. The codebase, CMS, and analytics setup are all yours and built to be handed off.

Ready to see your own Gantt chart?

Book the 30-min call. We'll send you a tailored 14-week schedule for your project - fees, milestones, deliverables, the whole thing - within 48 hours.

Book free 30-min consultationQ3 2026 · 3 of 8 build slots remain