Engagement flow
A Studio engagement is a fixed-scope project. Six phases, in order.
01 · Conversation
A 30-minute call. You describe what you’re trying to do; we describe how we’d approach it. The goal is two-way fit: is this the right problem for Studio (vs Strategy, vs a different agency, vs “don’t build this”), and is Studio the right partner for it.
Typical questions we ask:
- What does success look like at the end of this engagement?
- What’s the existing system (or absence of one) we’re replacing or augmenting?
- Who’s the day-to-day operator?
- What’s the budget envelope you’re working with?
- When does this need to be live?
No deliverable from this phase. Either we proceed to Scope, you take the conversation back to your team, or we refer to someone else.
02 · Scope
A scoping doc + SOW. We turn the conversation into:
- Fixed deliverables — specifically what gets built, listed
- Fixed timeline — start date, weekly milestones, launch date
- Fixed fee — one number, no T&M
- Out of scope — explicit list of what’s NOT in this engagement (the most useful section of any SOW)
- Signed SOW — DocuSign or e-sign equivalent
Scoping takes 3-7 days depending on complexity. We don’t bill for this phase up to a point — if we can’t agree on a scopable shape, neither side has lost much.
03 · Build
The build runs in a per-client sandbox at [client].standard-dev.com (e.g., oceanprosbh.standard-dev.com). You get a login from day one and watch the thing come together in near real-time.
- Weekly demo — usually 30 minutes, every Friday. Show what landed this week, surface anything that needs a call.
- Shared Slack channel (or your preferred async tool) — questions and decisions are async by default.
- No mid-build scope changes without a written change order. Studio engagements stay on budget because scope stays locked. If a feature shows up mid-build that wasn’t in the SOW, we either drop it, swap it for something already in scope, or write a change order with new dollars + new timeline.
The build environment is fully featured — Stripe is in test mode, calendars are in a sandbox project, emails go to a test address. Everything except the going-live switch.
04 · Launch
Ship to your domain. The launch phase covers:
- Production environment provisioning — your DNS, your CDN, your SSL.
- Production secrets — your Stripe live keys, your real calendar credentials, your verified Resend domain.
- Monitoring — uptime ping, error reporting, basic latency tracking. Alerts go to a Slack channel you control.
- 30-minute training session — operator-level walk-through of the day-to-day. Recorded by default so you can rewatch.
- Written runbook — Markdown doc covering deploy, monitor, common operations, common breakage modes.
Launch is one calendar day, usually a Tuesday or Wednesday morning so we have the week to spot anything that’s off.
05 · Maintain
Monthly retainer covering:
- Hosting — Cloudflare Pages or Railway, whichever the build uses
- Monitoring — uptime + error alerts, weekly health check email
- Small enhancements — up to a defined hour cap per month (typical: 1-3 hours), counted toward copy edits, minor UI tweaks, dependency updates
- Security patches — applied as needed without a separate change order
- Email support — 1 business-day response target
Pricing: $29-$149/mo depending on stack complexity. Some Studio clients self-host after launch (we hand off cleanly); a maintenance retainer isn’t required.
06 · Evolve
When something bigger comes up — new feature, new integration, new direction — we scope it as a new project on top of the existing build. Same shape: Conversation → Scope → Build → Launch. The maintenance retainer keeps running underneath.
Most Studio clients hit Evolve roughly every 6-12 months. Some never do (the original build is right-sized; maintenance is enough). Some hit it quarterly. We don’t push it.
Total timeline
A typical Studio engagement from first call to live:
| Phase | Duration |
|---|---|
| Conversation | 1 call (30 min) |
| Scope | 3-7 days |
| Build | 1-3 weeks (depends on shape) |
| Launch | 1 day |
| Maintain | Ongoing (optional retainer) |
| Evolve | When applicable |
From “first call” to “live in production” is usually 3-5 weeks total elapsed time.
Where to go next
- What we build — the four shapes we ship.
- Working with us — what to bring to the first call.
- Ocean Pro case study — a real engagement, start to finish.