Building web apps for startups is less about raw technical skill and more about preventing scope from quietly expanding until the budget is gone. Most projects fail in the planning phase, not the build phase. Here is the exact process I follow, from first call to handoff, with the artifacts I produce at each stage.
What discovery actually produces
I run a paid discovery session before any code is written — usually two to four hours across two calls. The output is a two-page brief and a milestone plan. Not a 40-page requirements document. Not a Figma prototype. Two pages.
The brief covers four things:
The one-sentence product — what it does and who it is for, agreed in writing so we have something to return to when scope creeps.
