Four stages, agreed in writing before we start, so nothing surprises you at the end. Design, building and media work run side by side.
We start with the business, its customers and the problem worth paying to solve.
We sit with the owner or whoever runs the day-to-day, look at how things work now, and question our own assumptions before anyone writes a plan.
Scope, price and design direction, agreed before anyone writes code or designs a screen, because changing direction costs least here.
For tech: the pages and screens, how the data fits together and an outline you can click through. For media: who we are talking to, what we say, and where and when we say it.
Design, building and content happen side by side. You review working pieces at every milestone, so you never wonder what we are doing.
If something's not working, we'd rather find out early. If something's working better than expected, we want to know fast so we can build on it.
We ship it, get the word out, then watch what customers actually do and fix what slows them down.
Most of the value comes in the months after launch. With a care plan, the team that built it keeps improving it.
A product and its brand should feel like they came from the same mind. When what a company builds and how it talks about itself don't match, customers notice.
The first version of anything is wrong in ways you can't predict from a brief. Get it in front of real users fast, then improve from there. Polish in the wrong direction is still wasted polish.
Most products have too many features. Most brands have too many words. Most campaigns have too many messages. Cutting is harder than adding, and almost always the better move.
The way a button feels when you tap it is part of the brand. The way an email subject line reads is part of the product. One team does both, so nothing gets lost in a handover.
If we think your idea has a flaw, we'll tell you. If we think a feature will hurt the product, we'll push back. Yes-people are pleasant in meetings and disastrous in projects.
Analytics tell you what happened. They don't tell you why, and they don't tell you what to make next. We use data to inform decisions, not outsource them.
We don't separate the product from the story it tells. Both have to be excellent, or neither one works.The Ax3 Media studio principle