Every project we've ever overshot, every revision cycle that dragged into round four, every "I just don't think it's quite right" email — they all trace back to the same thing. The brief was vague. The strategy was assumed. We agreed on aesthetics before we agreed on what the site was for.
So we built a one-page brief. Eight sections, no fluff, fillable in 30 minutes. It's the same one we send every founder before we kick off a project. Copy it, fill it, send it to whoever is building your site (us, a freelancer, an agency). Watch the timeline collapse.
1. The one-line version of your business
Not your tagline. Not your About page. Write your business in one sentence, the kind you'd send a friend over text. "We build [thing] for [audience] so they can [outcome]." If you can't write this in under 25 words, your website can't either.
2. Who is the page for, exactly?
Not "founders" or "small businesses". Be uncomfortably specific. Are they a 28-year-old SaaS founder in Bangalore raising a seed round? A clinic owner in Hyderabad with three locations? A solo creator with 12K followers and a course launching in 6 weeks? The more specific your audience, the sharper the design choices downstream. Designers can't write for "everyone".
3. What does "this worked" look like?
Define one primary success metric. Just one. Examples:
- 50 qualified waitlist signups in the first 30 days
- 10 demo requests per month from inbound
- 20% conversion rate on the pricing page
- Reduce inbound questions about pricing by 80%
If you can't measure it, the site can't be designed around it. Vague success ("look more professional") leads to vague work.
4. Scope, in pages and components
List the pages. Not the features. A real example:
- Home (hero, social proof, 3 features, testimonial, CTA)
- Pricing (3 tiers, FAQ, CTA)
- About (team, story, values)
- Blog index + article template
- Contact / Demo request
Five pages. That's a brief. "A website with all the pages we need" is not a brief, it's a wishlist that will end in scope creep.
5. Strategic differentiation
What does the site need to say that no competitor's site is saying? If you sell project management tools, "easy to use" is not a differentiator, every competitor claims that. Find the one true thing that's specific to you. Maybe it's a guarantee. Maybe it's the team's background. Maybe it's a price point nobody else can match. Whatever it is, the website needs to lead with it.
6. References, and anti-references
Three to five URLs you love, with one sentence each on what specifically you love. Not "the design", but "the way they handle the social proof section" or "how the pricing page builds trust". Then one or two anti-references — sites you'd hate to look like, and why. Designers calibrate faster from contrast than from agreement.
7. Constraints and non-negotiables
Budget. Timeline. Brand colors that are locked in (or aren't). Existing assets that must be reused. Tech stack constraints (does it need to integrate with HubSpot? Stripe? a custom backend?). Anything that, if missed, breaks the project.
8. The thing you're worried about
The single line that earns this brief its keep. What's the worst-case outcome? "I'm worried we'll spend 8 weeks and end up with something generic." "I'm worried the developer will disappear after launch." "I'm worried I'll hate the result and not know how to articulate why." Whatever it is, name it. A good builder will design around your fear.
Why most briefs fail
Most founder briefs we receive are 1,200 words on the company history and 30 words on what the site should do. The ratio should be inverted. Your builder doesn't need your origin story, they need to know what success means and who they're persuading. Cut everything else.
The other failure mode: briefs written to sound impressive. "Beautiful, modern, elegant, world-class." Those words mean nothing to a designer. They're not measurable, they're not specific, and they invite five rounds of revision because everyone's definition of "elegant" is different. Custom-coded sites can't be debugged with adjectives.
How we use this brief at studio10days
When a founder sends this brief, we read it once, write down our questions, and book a 30-minute call. The call exists to clarify, not to extract a fresh brief. By the end of that hour, we know whether we're a fit, what the project actually is, and roughly what it costs. That's the value of a real brief — it gets you to "yes" or "no" in one conversation instead of four.
If you're hiring someone else, send them this brief. If they ask for a longer document, that's a flag. If they say "we'll figure it out as we go", that's a bigger flag. Good builders want clarity. Bad builders want billable hours.
If you're filling this brief and realising you don't have answers to half the questions — that's the actual win. Fix that before any code is written.