How it runs
Six to eight weeks. About four hours of yours.
The most common reason a good business puts off a new website is not the money, it is the fear of a six month project that eats their evenings. This one has three approval gates and a feedback round. That is your part.
In order
Every step, and what it costs you.
The call, and the harvest
One hour on the phone about your best customer, the work you want more of, and your proudest job. Then everything usable gets harvested from wherever you already are: photos, reviews, accreditation files, claims. Real assets always beat generated ones.
Your time · One hour on the phone
The film direction menu
Three to five one-line concepts, each anchored in something real about your business, with your proudest job among them. You pick one. Nothing is generated before you have chosen, because choosing the film silently is the single most expensive mistake there is.
Your time · Ten minutes, reading five lines
Brand and typography
Your logo gets pixel-sampled for the palette and a knockout version is built so the mark sits properly on dark surfaces. Then a private page renders your real headline in five or six type systems. You reply with a letter.
Your time · Five minutes, picking a letter
The opening frame
You see the film's first frame as a still before any video is made. If it is wrong, it is two credits to change, not a day's work.
Your time · Two minutes, yes or no
The structure and the words
Pages get laid out, service by service, and the copy is written using the phrases your buyers actually use. Nothing gets invented: any claim that cannot be verified comes back to you as a question.
Your time · Answering a short list of questions
The film gets made
Segments are generated one at a time, each chained from the last frame of the one before, each inspected frame by frame before the next is built. The film comes to rest exactly where the page asks you to get in touch.
Your time · Nothing, unless you want to watch
Live for the first time
The site is deployed to a permanent address the first day it builds properly, and it is redeployed at every milestone. You get one link that works from then on, never a temporary tunnel that dies overnight.
Your time · Nothing
Your feedback, in plain words
Say 'this bit feels cheap' or 'that photo is wrong' or 'we do not do that any more'. Translating plain words into design decisions is the job. Two rounds are in the price.
Your time · About two hours across two rounds
Driven like an adversary
The finished site is driven through a real headless browser: console errors, contrast against the film's worst frames, four screen widths, reduced motion in both directions, phones checked for zero video bytes, Lighthouse run repeatedly. You get the results, including anything that is not perfect.
Your time · Nothing
Domain, handover, homework
Your domain is attached and verified over HTTPS, the share card is checked by actually looking at it, and you get the off-site search homework in writing: the things only you can do, in order of what pays back fastest.
Your time · One short call
Three gates
You approve before it costs anything.
The three decisions that are expensive to reverse are the film direction, the opening frame, and the typography. Each of those is put in front of you before any work is built on top of it.
That order is not a nicety. A previous build had its film made before anyone asked what kind of film it should be, and the whole thing was remade. The gates exist because skipping them cost real money once.
Fair questions
About the timeline.
Four hours really?
Roughly. One hour on the first call, about twenty minutes across the three approval gates, an hour or so answering questions about your own business, and two hours of feedback. You do not write copy, you do not fill in a content spreadsheet, and you do not chase for updates.
What if I go quiet for two weeks?
The build waits and the timeline moves. Nothing gets guessed at to keep a schedule, because a guess in your copy is worse than a delay.
What if my business changes mid build?
Tell me. Changing a service or dropping one is a normal week's work. Discovering it after launch is the expensive version.
Can I see it while it is being built?
Yes, and you will. The site goes to a permanent address in about week five and every milestone after that redeploys to the same link.