What happens if I’m slow with feedback or decisions?

Your launch date moves by about as long as the decision waits, sometimes more. We flag decisions early and tell you what each delay costs in time. If you already know you’ll be stretched, start later rather than stall halfway.

Why a late answer costs more than a day

The four steps run in order. Design can’t finish until Discovery is agreed, and Build can’t start a screen until its design is approved.

Inside each step, the team plans the week around what’s been decided. When a key answer is missing, they can switch to other work for a while. But the work that depends on your answer still waits, and so does everything after it.

A few decisions hold up everything behind them:

• agreeing the plan at the end of Discovery
• approving the key screens before they’re built
• choosing between two approaches that change the scope
• giving access to an existing system or account
• signing off the finished product before launch

What we do when a decision is waiting

We tell you as early as we can that a decision is coming, and what it holds up. Each question comes with our recommendation and the trade-off, so a one-line reply often does it.

While we wait, we carry on with work that doesn’t depend on the answer. If that runs out, we’ll say so plainly: the project has stopped, and here’s what it’s waiting for.

What happens to the date and the price

The date moves. A design approval that arrives a week late pushes the build back by about a week.

A short delay moves the date, not the price. Long stalls are different. If a project stalls for weeks, the team may move to other work in the meantime. Getting them back can take longer than the delay itself, and picking up the context again takes time too.

LaunchPad is a fixed price for a fixed scope. Is the cost really fixed explains what it covers.

Making decisions easier

Most slow decisions aren’t hard. They’re waiting for a gap in a busy diary, behind the investor update and the school run. A few habits keep them small:

• Name one decision-maker. Two people with a veto is the commonest cause of delay.
• Decide in the demo. Something you can tap through is quicker to judge than a document.
• Take the recommendation when you don’t mind. Save your energy for the choices that affect customers.
• Keep a “later” list. A new idea parked for version two doesn’t hold up version one.
• Hand over authority when you’re away. Tell us who can answer for you, and on what.

If you know a busy patch is coming

Fundraising, a product launch, a house move, a holiday: you can see most of them coming. Tell us before we start, and we’ll plan the timeline around them.

Starting a month later with your full attention beats starting now and stalling halfway. A stop-start build costs everyone time, and it costs you the launch date you wanted.

If things change mid-project, tell us straight away. Sometimes a pause between phases is the cleanest answer. Can we pause the project explains how that works. For where your time is needed most, see how much of my time the project will take.

The non-technical founder’s build playbook puts it simply: founders who answer within a day keep projects on time more reliably than any process does.