How we work ·

Trial to Learn. Demo to Decide.

We do not sell you a plan. We build a small piece of the real thing, show it to you working on a date we agreed at the start, and you decide what happens next.

See how it went for one artist ↓

01 · What happened

A show closed, and nothing had to be fixed

Sara Paula Hoffman is a painter and sculptor, and we built her website, paulagallery.com. This summer three of her works hung in a gallery show. One sold. When the show ended, the other two came home to her studio.

While they were in the show, they were sold the gallery’s way. Her site showed the gallery’s price for them, and anyone who asked about buying one was sent to the gallery rather than to Paula. When the show ended, all of that had to be undone at once, and only for those two works.

On her site, that took one change. The show price came off, and the two works were back at her own price, with questions about them coming to her again. Nothing else had to be put back, and not one of the other works on her site changed price by a dollar.

That only sounds easy. Most websites would have changed each painting’s price itself, and someone would have had to remember to change it back, and to get it right. On Paula’s site, a gallery’s price is kept as its own note, with a start date and an end date, attached to the work but separate from it. Taking the note away cannot disturb anything else. We settled that months earlier, in a trial, when no show was on the calendar and there was no reason yet to think it would matter.

She does not have to watch the dates, either. Once a day the site checks the gallery’s listings and the show’s dates, and when something needs deciding it sends her a note. It never changes a price on its own.

Something changed that nobody planned for, and the way it was built held.

AT THE GALLERYBACK AT THE STUDIOSHOW PRICESHOW PRICESHOW PRICETHE SHOW · THE GALLERY’S DATES1 ONE SOLD DURING THE SHOW2 THE SHOW CLOSES · ONE CHANGETWO COME HOMEHER OWN PRICEHER OWN PRICE3 QUESTIONS COME TO HER AGAIN4 THE REST OF HER WORK · NOT ONE PRICE MOVEDONE SHOW, START TO FINISH · ONE CHANGE AT THE CLOSE, AND NOTHING ELSE TO PUT BACK
Fig. 01 · One show, start to finish · the red square is the one change at the close

02 · How we work

A trial, then a demo, each with a date

The trial

Built to find something out

A trial is a small piece of work that answers one question about your business. Before we start, we write down what we expect to find, and what result would tell us we were wrong. Then we build the smallest thing that could give either answer. A trial that could only ever say yes would tell you nothing, and cost you the same.

The demo

Built so you can decide

A demo is the thing itself, working, and you open it and use it yourself, on a date we agreed at the start. Beside it we tell you plainly what we learned, including what went against us. Then you choose: keep going, change direction, or stop. Stopping is a perfectly good answer, and at this size it is a cheap one. That is why we keep things this size.

DAY 1DAY 10ONE TRIAL · ITS DATE AGREED AT THE STARTWE EXPECTWRONG IF1 WRITE DOWN BOTH POSSIBLE ANSWERS2 BUILD THE SMALLEST THINGTHAT COULD GIVE EITHER ANSWER3 SHOWN WORKING · YOU OPEN IT YOURSELF4 THE AGREED DATE · YOU DECIDEKEEP GOINGCHANGE DIRECTIONSTOPCHEAP, AT THIS SIZEA TRIAL, THEN A DEMO, THEN YOUR CHOICE · STOPPING IS A FINE ANSWER, AND A CHEAP ONE
Fig. 02 · A trial, then a demo, then your choice · the red square is the date agreed at the start

03 · Why we work this way

The last one took a year and shipped nothing

Nearly every small business we sit down with tells us some version of this.

They hired someone, and plenty happened. There were meetings, research, a plan for the year and some genuinely good-looking slides, all made by capable people working hard. But at the end, the thing they had paid for did not exist, and the money was gone.

Nobody lied. The trouble is that nothing in that kind of arrangement names a date on which something has to work. Without that date, nobody is ever obliged to find out whether it does, and the work can carry on, in good faith, for a very long time.

A plan can go on forever. A trial ends on a date.

THE LAST ONEA TRIALDISCOVERYSESSIONSREADOUTROADMAPPHASE 5THE BUDGET · NEARLY GONETEN DAYSNO DATENO END1 SOMETHING WORKING2 THE DATEWITHOUT A DATE, NOBODY HAS TO FIND OUT · WITH ONE, SOMETHING HAS TO WORK BY THEN
Fig. 03 · The last one, and a trial · one has no date, the other ends on one

04 · What we built for Paula

Four things we hold to, and what each one looked like

These four come from a short statement software people wrote in 2001, the Agile Manifesto. Most of the industry quotes it and few follow it. Here is what each one meant for one artist’s website.

  1. 01

    She keeps working the way she already works

    Paula does not fill in forms. When she agrees a show with a gallery, she writes the email she would have written anyway. Her inbox is read at the start of every working session, and a person turns what she wrote into the change on her site. One day a program may read those emails for her. If it does, it will get the change ready and stop, and a person will still say yes.

  2. 02

    The site describes itself

    What search engines read about her work, and what AI assistants quote, is produced from the same list of works the site itself shows. Nobody keeps those descriptions up to date by hand, so they cannot quietly fall out of date. Even the case study was written after the site went live, from the site.

  3. 03

    A person makes the call

    Every day the site compares what the gallery lists with what her own site shows. When the two disagree, it could simply pick one. It does not, because why two prices differ is a matter between Paula and her gallery, and no program knows which one is right. It points out the difference and leaves the decision to a person.

  4. 04

    Built to change

    Not every new piece belongs to a series, so the home page changed to lead with her recent work, and a piece no longer needs a series to go online. And when her first show closed, the two works that came home went back to her own price in one change, because that had been planned for long before anyone needed it.

01020304GALLERYHER SITESHE WRITES THE EMAILA PERSON MAKES THE CHANGEONE LIST OF HER WORKSEVERYTHING ELSE MADE FROM ITTWO PRICES DISAGREEA PERSON DECIDES WHICHTHE SHOW PRICE, KEPT APARTONE CHANGE TAKES IT AWAYWHAT EACH OF THE FOUR MEANT FOR ONE ARTIST’S WEBSITE
Fig. 04 · The four, as they look on her site · each red square is a place a person decides

What it is not

A treadmill with a nicer name

Short rounds are meant to lower the risk, not to squeeze people. There are no scores, no meetings anyone dreads, and nothing carries on just because it is on the calendar. If there is nothing worth finding out this week, we will say so. The whole arrangement is there so that being wrong is quick and survivable, because most of what a project costs is not the building. It is the months before anyone finds out it is not working.

Trial to learn · Demo to decide

Book a Wednesday.

Bring the thing that is not working. We will tell you what we would build first, what it would teach us, and what would make us tell you to stop. If none of that is worth a week of your money, we will say that too.