← Blog 06 May 2026 5 min read Process

How we ship custom websites in 10 days (the real process)

"Ten days" sounds like a marketing line. It isn't. It's a constraint we built our entire workflow around, because for most founders, six weeks of agency theatre is what kills the project, not the design.

The web design industry has a quiet problem: most studios sell timelines, not outcomes. You sign a contract that says "8–12 weeks" and somewhere around week 6 you realise the homepage hasn't moved in a month and your launch window has slipped past the milestone you were actually trying to hit.

We built studio10days as a direct answer to that. Ten working days, idea to live site. Same custom code, same hand-crafted design, just compressed by removing the parts of the process that exist mostly to look professional.

Here's how it actually works.

Day 0, The rough message

It starts before the project starts. Someone sends us a voice note, a half-finished doc, a Whatsapp screenshot of a Notion page with three bullet points and a question mark. We read it, we don't ask for a brief, we book a 30-minute call.

The call has one goal: extract the signal. Who is this for, what are they trying to do, what does winning look like, what's not in scope. We don't take notes for show, we type messaging hypotheses live in a doc that becomes the working brief.

Day 1–2, Strategy and messaging

This is the part most studios skip and most founders think they don't need. They do. Before any pixel is moved, we lock the answer to four questions:

The output is a one-page doc the founder can paste into a deck, an investor email, or a hire request, and have it sound like them.

Day 3–5, Design system and key screens

We don't open Figma until messaging is locked. When we do, we build a custom system from scratch: typography pairing, palette, motion language, layout grid, component primitives. Then we design the homepage and one or two supporting pages in high fidelity.

By end of day 5, the founder has clickable mockups in their inbox with a Loom walkthrough. No 47-page brand guidelines deck. No mood board theatre. Just the pages they're going to ship.

Day 5–8, Hand-coded development

Code starts on day 5, in parallel with final design tweaks. We use Next.js, React, Tailwind, Framer Motion. No page builders. No bloated CMS. The site is fast because we wrote it that way, not because we optimised it later.

Daily Loom updates. Daily preview links. The founder watches the site come together, and catches anything that feels off while it's still cheap to change.

Day 9, SEO, schema, polish

This is the day most studios cut corners on. We don't. Schema.org markup, sitemap, robots, OG image, Lighthouse 95+, semantic HTML, alt tags, canonical URLs, mobile-first checks. Day 9 is for boring things that compound for years.

Day 10, Launch

Domain pointed. SSL provisioned. Analytics linked. Email forwarding set up. Lead capture wired. We hand over a live site that the founder fully owns, every credential, every account, every line of code in a repo they have access to.

Then we stick around for 30 days, free, in case anything breaks or anyone wants a copy tweak.


What this looks like on the calendar

For a typical Growth-tier project (5–6 page custom site, $300–420), here's the actual rhythm of a project, hour by hour where it matters.

Day 0, Tuesday afternoon

You send a rough message. Could be a Notion doc, a voice note, three WhatsApp screenshots, or a single sentence. We reply within 24 hours with a calendar link for a 30-minute kickoff call. No "fill out a brief" requirement.

Day 1, Wednesday

10:00 AM — Kickoff call. We extract: who you're for, what they're trying to do, what your unfair advantage is, what the site needs to do (sign-ups? bookings? credibility?).
11:00 AM — We send back a working messaging doc. One page. Headline, sub-headline, audience description, value props, words to own.
3:00 PM — You come back with feedback. We iterate.

Day 2, Thursday

Morning: messaging locks. We start sketching wireframes, layout structure, scroll rhythm. Afternoon: typography pairing, color system, motion language. End of day you get a Loom walkthrough of the design system in Figma.

Day 3, Friday

Morning: homepage hero is fully designed. We send it for fast feedback. Afternoon: design the rest of the homepage in detail. By 6 PM, full homepage in Figma.

Day 4, Saturday (yes, sometimes)

Buffer day. We use it for either extra design polish, supporting pages (about, pricing, contact), or absorbing an extra revision round.

Day 5, Monday

Morning: designs lock. Code begins — git init, Next.js, Tailwind, Framer Motion. The hero animation goes in first. Evening: first preview link in your inbox. The homepage is real.

Day 6, Tuesday

Supporting pages built. CMS hooked up if needed (Sanity or simple Markdown). Forms wired to a Google Sheet or Resend email.

Day 7, Wednesday

Mobile QA, edge cases. The "gear" — smooth animations, micro-interactions, hover states — gets layered on. Tested across iOS Safari, Android Chrome, desktop Chrome / Firefox / Safari.

Day 8, Thursday

SEO day. Meta tags, OG image, sitemap, robots, schema.org markup, alt tags, semantic HTML audit. Lighthouse run, target Performance ≥95, SEO ≥98, Accessibility ≥90.

Day 9, Friday

Final review. You get a Loom walkthrough of every page. Last revision round (usually small copy tweaks). We prep launch checklist: domain DNS, SSL, analytics, email forwarding, lead capture wiring.

Day 10, Monday (after the weekend)

Morning: domain DNS pointed to Vercel. SSL auto-provisions. Google Search Console submitted. Google Analytics live. Lead-capture flow tested end-to-end. Afternoon: handover call. Walkthrough of where to edit content, where leads go, how to read analytics. We hand over every credential.

The 30 days after launch

We stick around free for 30 days post-launch:

After 30 days you can either hire us for ongoing care ($35/month retainer) or run the site yourself. Either way, you walk away owning everything.


What 10 days isn't

It isn't a template flip. It isn't a no-code page slapped together. It isn't an excuse for under-thought work. The constraint is the point, it forces us to make decisive design choices, write fewer but better lines of code, and ruthlessly cut anything that isn't actually shipping the message.

We've done this for 15+ founders. None of them have asked for a longer timeline. Most have asked us to do their next thing.

The honest math: a website doesn't get better the longer you take. It gets better the more focused you are. Ten days is enough time to do real work and not enough time to overthink.

Got an idea you've been sitting on? Send us a rough message. We'll come back in 24 hours with a real plan.

Common questions

Can you really build a custom website in 10 days?

Yes. We've shipped 15+ founder sites this way. The constraint isn't speed for its own sake, it's removing the parts of agency process that exist to look professional rather than to ship work. Strategy, design, custom code, and launch all run in parallel inside a 10-day window.

What if my project is more complex than a 10-day site?

Web apps, dashboards, and full-stack products run on a within-a-month timeline under our Full-fledged apps tier. The 10-day promise is for marketing sites, landing pages, and brand sites of up to 5–6 pages.

Do I need to provide finished content and copy?

No. Send a rough message, voice note, or doc. We extract the messaging, write the headlines and body copy, and run it past you. Content is part of the build, not a prerequisite.

What happens after the site launches?

You walk away owning everything: domain, hosting, code, analytics, and SSL. Growth tier includes 30 days of post-launch support. Beyond that, ongoing partnerships are available on request.

Got an idea? Let's build it.

Send us a rough message, half-formed is fine.

Tell us your idea →