How we work
From first email to launch in days, not months.
The exact process behind every project. Five steps, fully public, written down so you can hold us to it. Not a sales funnel — an actual delivery process.
4h
Quote turnaround after call
700+
Projects shipped
30 days
Free post-launch support
100%
Fixed-price quotes
The five steps
Same flow, every project
From a $1,500 speed audit to a six-week Hydrogen build, the steps don't change. The duration does.
Step 00
Day 0 · same day
Step 00 · Day 0 · same day
Book a free 30-min call
Pick a slot on the public availability picker. A Google Calendar invite + Meet link land in your inbox immediately. No sales pitch, no discovery deck, no 5-person agency intro call. Just you, me, and a 30-minute conversation about what you're actually trying to ship.
What you get from this step
- Confirmed Google Meet link via email
- Calendar invite with the Meet link embedded
- 24h reminder email so it doesn't slip your mind
Avoids:Most agencies make you fill out a 12-field intake form before they'll even talk to you. We don't — the first conversation is more valuable than any form.
Book a slotStep 01
Day 0 · the call itself
Step 01 · Day 0 · the call itself
Discovery call (30 minutes, honest)
On the call I'll ask about your store, your timeline, your budget bracket, and the specific outcome you want. Then I'll tell you whether I'm the right person, the wrong person, or a partial fit (e.g. 'I can do the theme but you'd be better off with X for the SEO piece'). I turn down ~20% of projects at this stage — saying no is how I sleep at night.
What you get from this step
- Written email summary within 4 hours of the call
- Honest fit assessment (yes / no / 'try someone else for X')
- Ballpark price range (not yet binding)
Avoids:Agencies dragging out 'discovery' for 2–6 weeks billable. This call is the discovery. It costs you nothing and tells you everything you need to know.
Step 02
Within 4 hours of the call
Step 02 · Within 4 hours of the call
Fixed quote & timeline
A written, fixed-price quote with milestone schedule and start date. No 'time and materials' surprises. The quote breaks down what's included, what's explicitly NOT included, the deposit structure, and the kill switch if either side needs to walk away mid-project. If something turns out to be harder than I estimated, that's my problem — your number doesn't change.
What you get from this step
- Fixed-price quote document (PDF + email)
- Milestone schedule with calendar dates
- Acceptance criteria for each milestone
- Stop-cost (what you owe if we pause)
Avoids:Surprise change orders. If you change scope mid-project I quote that addition separately, and you decide before agreeing. No retroactive billing, ever.
Step 03
Day 1 → launch
Step 03 · Day 1 → launch
Build with daily previews
I work on a private preview URL you can visit any time. Daily progress notes over email or your tool of choice (Slack, WhatsApp, Loom). You review continuously, not at the end — the worst day in any project is the day a client sees the final result for the first time. I surface tradeoffs as they come up so decisions happen in real time, not in a post-mortem.
What you get from this step
- Private preview URL (lives on a Shopify dev store)
- Daily progress notes via email
- Milestone demos before each invoice trigger
- Real-time decision log so nothing gets re-litigated
Avoids:Big-bang reveals where 60% of the work has to be redone. Daily previews mean course-correction is cheap on day 5; it's expensive on day 25.
Step 04
Launch day + 30 days
Step 04 · Launch day + 30 days
Launch & 30-day support
Cutover is scheduled for your slowest 2-hour window (usually 3am UTC on a weekday for most stores). I do the actual DNS / theme publish, run the smoke-test checklist, and stay on standby for 2 hours after go-live. For 30 days after launch, any bug I caused is fixed for free — no ticketing system, no support tier, just email me. After that we either drop off or convert to a small monthly maintenance retainer — your call.
What you get from this step
- Pre-launch checklist signed off (~17 items)
- Smooth DNS / theme cutover in your slowest window
- On-call monitoring for the first 24h
- 30 days of free bug fixes
- Optional maintenance retainer for ongoing care
Avoids:Black-Friday-eve disasters. Stores are most fragile in the 48 hours after launch. We watch them so you don't have to refresh the dashboard every five minutes.
Real timings
Build phase — how long does it actually take?
These are real numbers from past projects, not optimistic estimates. The clock starts on Step 03 (build) — Steps 00–02 add 1–3 days on top.
Speed optimization
3–5 business days
Theme development
5–7 business days
Migration
5–10 business days
Store build
10–14 business days
Custom app
2–4 weeks
Hydrogen / headless
4–8 weeks
Business days only. If you take 5 days to approve a milestone, the clock pauses; we don't pad estimates to cover for that.
What we won't do
The six things you won't see in our quotes
Every line item below is a thing we've refused on principle — even when it costs us a deal.
Time-and-materials billing
Every project has a fixed number agreed before work starts. We don't bill hours. If we underestimate, that's our problem.
Discovery decks + 6-week onboarding
No formal discovery phase. The free 30-min call is the discovery — anything more than that is billable consulting, not deliverable work.
Offshore subcontractor handoffs
The same person quoting writes the code, replies to emails, ships the launch, and answers the 30-day support email. Nobody you can't reach directly.
Big-bang final reveals
Daily preview URL, daily progress notes. You see the work as it happens, not at the end. Course-correction is cheap early and expensive late.
Retainers nobody can cancel
Ongoing-care retainers are month-to-month, cancel anytime. We earn the next month every month. No 12-month minimums, no lock-in.
Saying yes when we should say no
If you'd be better served by a different agency, platform, or doing it yourself, we'll say so. Roughly 1 in 5 calls ends this way. It's part of the process.
Common questions