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Product & Strategy

Product Discovery Decide Cheaply, Build Once

Product discovery is a short, paid engagement that turns an idea into a plan you can act on. In two to three weeks we define the users and their jobs, map the core flows, agree a scope you can defend to a board, produce clickable prototypes, and deliver a costed plan with the risks named.

  • Two to three weeks, fixed fee
  • The output is yours to keep
  • Includes what is explicitly out of scope
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How it runs · 5 steps

  1. Define users and jobs
  2. Map the core flows
  3. Agree the scope — and the anti-scope
  4. Build clickable prototypes
  5. Cost it and name the risks

Built with

  • Stakeholder workshops
  • User interviews
  • Job mapping
  • Figma prototypes
  • Clickable flows
  • Estimation
  • Milestone planning
  • Risk register

More in Product & Strategy

Questions first?Talk to an engineer

Discovery is the cheapest place to change your mind

Deciding in week two that a feature is not worth building costs a conversation. Deciding it in month five costs a sprint and the goodwill of everyone who built it. Discovery front-loads those decisions while they are still cheap to make and cheap to reverse.

Every discovery we run is priced separately from any build, and the output is yours — including the option of taking it to another firm. That is what makes the scope recommendation trustworthy rather than a sales document with a prototype attached.

The Problem

What this usually fixes

  • A scope nobody can defend

    The feature list came from stakeholder requests, and there is no shared basis for saying no to the next one.

  • Estimates built on assumptions

    A number was quoted before anyone examined the data model or the exceptions, so it will move — always upward.

  • Investor conversations without evidence

    The idea is explained verbally because there is nothing clickable, and every listener imagines a different product.

  • Risks discovered during the build

    The integration that will not work, the compliance requirement nobody raised — surfacing in month three instead of week two.

How We Work

The process

Each step produces something you can review — a document, an environment, or working software — rather than a percentage in a status report.

  1. Define users and jobs

    Who this is for and what they are actually trying to finish, stated concretely enough to rule features in and out.

  2. Map the core flows

    The two or three paths that carry the product's value, end to end, including where they touch systems you already run.

  3. Agree the scope — and the anti-scope

    A written scope with an explicit list of what is out of it. The second list prevents more disputes than the first ever has.

  4. Build clickable prototypes

    Usable for internal alignment, user testing, or an investor conversation before any production code exists.

  5. Cost it and name the risks

    Milestones, effort estimates, the assumptions each depends on, and a risk register stated plainly rather than discovered later.

What You Get

Why teams choose this

  • An estimate that holds

    Costing follows an examined data model and a written scope, so the number is a plan rather than an opening position.

  • Something to show

    A clickable prototype aligns a board, a user test, and an investor on the same product instead of three imagined ones.

  • Risks on the table early

    The integration that will not work is cheaper to find in week two than in month three, and discovery is designed to find it.

  • Portable, not locked in

    The scope, prototype, and plan are yours — including the option to build them with someone else.

Stack

Technologies we build with

Tools we have delivered production work on, not a capability matrix. We pick per project and will explain the trade-off behind each choice.

Research
  • Stakeholder workshops
  • User interviews
  • Job mapping
Prototyping
  • Figma prototypes
  • Clickable flows
Planning
  • Estimation
  • Milestone planning
  • Risk register
Technical
  • Architecture sketch
  • Integration audit
  • Data modelling
Industries

Who this is for

Valuable wherever the cost of building the wrong thing is larger than the cost of two weeks spent deciding.

  • B2B software
  • Fintech
  • Healthtech
  • Logistics
  • E-commerce & retail
  • Education
  • Manufacturing
  • Professional services
Questions

Product Discovery: common questions

Related reading

What do we actually receive from a discovery sprint?

Four documents and one prototype: a written scope with an explicit out-of-scope list, mapped core user flows, a clickable prototype of the paths that matter most, and a costed plan with milestones, effort estimates, and a risk register. All of it is yours to keep and to act on with any provider. The test we hold ourselves to is whether a different engineering firm could execute the plan from the documents alone.

Why pay for discovery instead of getting a free quote?

A free quote is produced before anyone has examined your data model, your integrations, or your exceptions — which is why it moves, always upward. Paid discovery replaces that guess with an examined estimate, and the two-to-three week cost is small against a build that gets scoped wrong. It also tests the working relationship on something small. If discovery goes badly, you have lost weeks rather than a quarter.

Do we have to build with you afterwards?

No, and the engagement is deliberately structured so that choice stays open. Discovery is priced as its own contract, the deliverables are yours by default, and they are written so another firm can execute from them. Some clients take the plan to an internal team; some use it to run a competitive tender. We would rather produce an honest scope you take elsewhere than a persuasive one you regret.

How is this different from AI consulting?

Product discovery answers "how exactly do we build this thing we have decided on" — users, flows, scope, prototype, cost. AI consulting answers the earlier question: "which of our problems is worth solving with AI at all", auditing workflows and data readiness across a business and ranking opportunities. If you already know what you want to build, start with discovery. If you have several competing ideas and no way to rank them, start with consulting.
Related

Services that pair with this

Have an idea and no costed plan?

Two to three weeks turns it into a scope, a prototype, and a number — and you keep all three regardless of who builds it.

Book a Discovery SprintSee Our Work