What will they ask me? How much of my time will this take? What if I do not like what they build? What happens if something goes wrong after launch?
This article answers those questions for every project MUSHIN takes on, start to finish. If you are considering hiring a web designer and want to know what the experience actually looks like before committing to anything, this is for you.
Before anything starts: the free consultation
The first conversation is free and takes 30 to 60 minutes. You do not need to prepare anything for it.
The purpose of the call is straightforward: you talk about your business, what is working, what is not, and what you want your website to do. There is no sales pitch and no pressure to decide anything on the call. At the end you will have a clear sense of what a project would involve, roughly what it would cost, and whether it makes sense to move forward.
If you have already used the pricing calculator and have a number in mind, that conversation confirms whether the scope is right. If you have not, the call produces a recommended scope and a written estimate within one business day.
Phase 1: The audit (1 to 2 weeks)
Every project starts with a full review of where things stand before any design work begins.
This covers your current website (if you have one), your Google Business Profile, how your business appears in local search results, whether your information is consistent across online directories, and how your site performs on phones. You do not need to do anything to prepare for this. Access to your current website analytics is helpful if you have it, but not required.
What you receive at the end of the audit is a written report: specific findings, what is broken, what is missing, what is actively costing you customers, and a prioritized list of what to fix first. The report is yours regardless of whether you move forward with a full project.
If you commissioned a standalone audit and decide to proceed with a full project within 15 days, the full audit fee is credited toward the project cost. Nothing is lost.
Your time commitment in this phase: minimal. One email to share website access if applicable. The rest happens without you.
Phase 2: Discovery (half a day, on your schedule)
This is the most important phase of the entire project, and it is also the one most designers skip entirely.
Discovery is a conversation at your business. You talk about how things run, how your customers find you, what you are proud of, and what frustrates you. If you are open to it, there is time on site watching how the work gets done: how you talk to customers, how jobs get dispatched, what the rhythm of the business actually looks like. The things you do and say without thinking about them are usually the things that make your business worth choosing. The goal is to capture that before the design work begins.
This is not a formal interview. You do not need to prepare answers or bring materials. You just need to show up and talk about your business honestly. The more direct you are, the better the result.
At the end of discovery, a brand voice and messaging brief is written based on everything from that conversation. This document captures how your business should sound online, based on how it actually sounds in person. You review it and correct anything that does not feel right before anything else moves forward.
Your time commitment in this phase: half a day, at your location, on a day that works for you.
Phase 3: Design and build (4 to 12 weeks depending on scope)
This is where the site gets built. The timeline depends on how many pages your project includes.
A five to six page site takes four to six weeks. Larger sites with ten or more pages take eight to twelve weeks. If you need the site faster, priority delivery is available at a 25% surcharge.
The phase moves in stages. First, page layouts are designed and shared with you for review before any development begins. You see what the site will look like on a phone and on a desktop before a single line of code is written. If something looks wrong or does not feel right, that is the time to say so.
Once layouts are approved, the site is built. Content is written in parallel: every page, in your voice, based on the messaging brief from discovery. Photography is scheduled and shot during this phase if it is part of your project.
You receive updates through whatever channel works best for you: text, email, or the client portal. You are not left waiting for a final reveal. You see work in progress and can give feedback at each stage.
Nothing moves to the next stage without your sign-off.
Your time commitment in this phase: reviewing layouts and content when they are shared. Typically two to three rounds of feedback over the course of the project, each taking 30 to 60 minutes of your time.
Phase 4: Launch and handover (1 week)
Before anything goes live, you get a full preview of the finished site. Every page, every form, every image, working on your phone and on a desktop. You take as much time as you need to review it. Nothing launches until you approve it.
After launch, a walkthrough covers how to use the content editor, where everything lives, and how to make basic updates yourself. This is done in person or over video, not handed off as a manual to read on your own.
At handover, everything is transferred to you: design files, code, content, photography, domain access, and analytics access. Full ownership, no exceptions. There is no ongoing dependency on MUSHIN to keep your site running. If you ever want to take your files to another designer or developer, you have everything you need to do that.
Thirty days of post-launch support are included. If something breaks, looks wrong on a specific device, or needs a small adjustment after launch, that is covered.
Your time commitment in this phase: the final review and approval, plus one walkthrough session of roughly 60 minutes.
What you actually need to bring to this
The most common reason projects take longer than expected is not the design work. It is waiting on things from the client side.
Here is what you will need at some point during the project:
Login credentials for your current website, hosting account, and domain registrar if you have them. If you do not know where these are, that gets sorted out during the audit.
Any existing brand assets: your logo files, brand colors if you know them, any photography you already own. If none of these exist or none of them are usable, the project builds them from scratch.
Honest feedback when designs and content are shared. You do not need to know design terminology. If something looks wrong, say so. If the writing does not sound like you, say so. That feedback is what makes the final result accurate.
A designated point of contact. If approvals need to go through multiple people on your end, that adds time. One person with the authority to say yes is all that is needed.
What happens after the 30-day support window
After the post-launch support period, there are two optional paths.
Maintenance plans keep your site hosted, secure, and up to date. The Foundation plan covers hosting, backups, security monitoring, and two content changes per month for $150 per month. The Growth plan adds content updates and a monthly report for $300 per month. Annual billing saves one month of fees on either plan.
Managed hosting on European infrastructure is also available for clients who prefer not to handle hosting independently. The server runs through IONOS, a German provider subject to GDPR and European data protection law. What that means practically: your business data and your customers' data are not stored on US-based servers where it can be accessed by advertising networks or sold to third parties. Most American hosting providers operate under terms that give them broad rights to your data. European providers do not. If you have ever felt uneasy about where your business information ends up, this is the alternative.
If you prefer to handle hosting and maintenance yourself, the documentation and credentials handed over at launch give you everything you need to do that independently.
The honest version of what this takes from you
A full project from first conversation to launch requires somewhere between five and ten hours of your time spread across four to twelve weeks. Most of that is reviewing work and giving feedback. The rest is the discovery session.
That is it. The design work, the writing, the development, the SEO setup, the photography coordination, the testing, and the documentation are handled on the MUSHIN side.
If you have been putting off a website project because you assumed it would consume weeks of your time, that assumption is worth revisiting. The consultation is free and takes under an hour. That is the only commitment required to find out whether the project makes sense for your business right now.
