The 30-day rule
Why we won't take you on if we can't ship something live in 30 days.
Most agencies pitch 'transformation'. We don't. We pitch one working thing in 30 days, then another in 60, then another in 90. By month four you've got a fleet.
Why 30 days
Because 30 days is the longest you can keep a business owner's attention on a single bet without something live to look at. Past 30 days, doubt creeps in, the project becomes 'that AI thing we're paying for', and momentum is gone.
If we can't get something running in 30 days, we shouldn't have taken the engagement. So we don't.
What 'shipped' means
- It runs in production, on real data, for real customers or real internal users.
- It moves a number we agreed on at the start.
- It can be turned off in 5 minutes if it goes wrong.
That's the bar. Anything less is a demo and we already wrote about demos.
— Aaron Manton, AI Operator Club