A lot of businesses put off getting a website because they think they need to walk in with a finished brief — pages mapped out, copy written, a logo ready to go. None of that is true. A first conversation works better as a conversation.
What actually helps before we talk
Three things make the first call genuinely useful, and all three live in your head already:
- What your business actually does, in your own words — not a polished pitch, just the plain version
- Who typically buys from you, and how they usually find you today
- What you want a visitor to do after landing on your site — call, message, book, buy
That's it. Everything else gets figured out together once those three are clear.
What you don't need yet
Skip the pressure to have these ready — they come later, if at all:
- Professional photography (there are good ways to work without it early on)
- A finished logo or brand colors (a rough sense of your style is enough to start)
- Exact page copy written out (that's part of the work, not a prerequisite for it)
- A page-by-page site map (this gets shaped around what you actually need)
If you've been putting off getting a first website because the "prep work" felt like a project on its own, it isn't one.
Examples are more useful than briefs
If you've seen a website you like — a competitor's, a business in a different city, even a different industry entirely — bring that. It's much easier to say "something like this, but not that part" than to describe a design from scratch. Screenshots, links, even a photo of a page you liked on your phone all work.
What happens after the conversation
Once we understand what your business does and what you want the site to achieve, the next step is shaping that into an actual plan — what pages you need, what the homepage should say first, how someone gets from "just looking" to "contacting you." See our full process for what that looks like step by step.
Nothing moves forward without you seeing and agreeing to that plan first — a discovery conversation isn't a commitment, it's just the starting point for one.
If you're not sure you're ready
You don't need to be. The point of the first conversation is to figure out what "ready" even means for your business — not to pass a test before it. If you can describe what your business does to a stranger, you already have what you need.