AI & Automation
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
I just got off a call with a startup founder who asked me the question that makes every web designer's eye twitch: "How long does it take to launch a new website?"
His context? They needed to be live "yesterday" for an investor demo. Sound familiar?
After 7 years building websites for SaaS startups and ecommerce stores, I've heard this question hundreds of times. And here's the uncomfortable truth: most agencies will tell you 6-12 weeks because that's what sounds reasonable. But the reality? It depends on whether you're treating your website like a digital brochure or a revenue-generating machine.
I've watched companies launch "finished" websites in 2 weeks that generate zero traffic, and I've seen others take 3 months to build something that scales to 50K monthly visitors. The difference isn't in the timeline - it's in the strategy.
In this playbook, you'll discover:
Why the traditional "website launch" timeline is fundamentally broken
The real timeline difference between design-first vs. SEO-first approaches
My actual client timelines and what drove the differences
The launch strategy that gets you traffic from day one
When to prioritize speed vs. when to prioritize foundation
Because here's what I learned the hard way: launching fast and launching right are two completely different strategies.
Industry Reality
What every founder has been told about website timelines
Walk into any web design agency and ask about timelines, and you'll get remarkably similar answers. The industry has settled on some comfortable benchmarks that sound professional and manageable:
The Standard Agency Timeline:
Simple business website: 4-6 weeks
Custom SaaS site: 8-12 weeks
E-commerce store: 6-10 weeks
Enterprise platform: 3-6 months
These timelines exist because they follow the traditional waterfall approach: strategy, wireframes, design, development, content, testing, launch. Each phase waits for the previous one to complete. It's methodical, predictable, and feels professional.
Agencies love these timelines because they're easy to scope, price, and manage. Clients accept them because they seem reasonable compared to building software or running TV campaigns.
But here's the problem with this conventional wisdom: it treats your website like a digital brochure instead of a growth engine.
The traditional approach optimizes for visual perfection and brand alignment. You spend weeks debating color schemes, perfecting hero copy, and polishing animations. The result? A beautiful website that generates zero organic traffic and converts visitors you don't have.
Most founders don't realize they're making a choice between two fundamentally different philosophies until it's too late.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
Let me tell you about two projects that happened within the same month that completely changed how I think about website timelines.
Project A: A B2B SaaS startup needed a website for their seed funding demo. They were convinced they needed something "professional and polished" to impress investors. We followed the traditional approach - strategy sessions, detailed wireframes, custom design, pixel-perfect development.
Timeline: 10 weeks. Budget: €15,000. Result: A gorgeous website that looked like it belonged in a design portfolio.
Project B: An e-commerce store selling handmade goods. The founder was bootstrapping and needed to start selling immediately. No time for extensive design phases, no budget for custom everything.
Timeline: 3 weeks. Budget: €4,000. Result: A functional store built on Shopify with basic SEO optimization.
Six months later, I checked in on both projects. Project A had generated exactly 47 organic visitors and zero leads from their beautiful website. Project B was doing €8,000 monthly revenue with 2,000+ monthly visitors.
That's when I realized I'd been asking the wrong question. It's not "how long does it take to launch a website?" It's "what are you actually optimizing for?"
The SaaS founder was optimizing for investor perception. The e-commerce founder was optimizing for customer acquisition. Same service, completely different strategies, totally different outcomes.
This experience forced me to confront an uncomfortable truth: I was building beautiful websites for empty malls.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
After that revelation, I completely restructured how I approach website timelines. Instead of one-size-fits-all schedules, I now offer two distinct paths based on what the client actually needs to achieve.
Path 1: The Brand Showcase (2-3 months)
This is for companies that genuinely need visual credibility first - think enterprise SaaS raising Series A, luxury e-commerce brands, or service businesses where trust is everything. We focus on:
Custom design that differentiates from competitors
Detailed brand guidelines and visual systems
Perfect user experience flows
Conversion optimization for existing traffic sources
Path 2: The Traffic Engine (3-4 weeks + ongoing)
This is for companies that need customers, not compliments. We prioritize getting found over looking perfect:
SEO-first site architecture from day one
Content strategy that targets actual search queries
Technical foundation that scales with content
No-code platforms for marketing team autonomy
Here's the key insight: the Traffic Engine approach actually launches faster but never stops evolving. Instead of spending 8 weeks perfecting a homepage, we spend 3 weeks building the foundation and then continuously add traffic-generating pages.
For one Shopify client, we launched their basic store in 3 weeks, then spent the next 3 months implementing my AI-powered content strategy. They went from 500 to 5,000 monthly visitors while their competitors were still debating button colors.
The secret? We treated the website launch as the beginning of the growth process, not the end of the design process.
Speed vs Foundation
Launching in 2 weeks vs building for scale - when each approach makes sense
Platform Strategy
Why your platform choice determines your timeline more than your budget
Content Approach
Design-first websites take 8 weeks. SEO-first websites never stop growing
Team Structure
How marketing autonomy vs developer dependency affects your launch speed
The results from this approach shift speak for themselves. Over the past two years implementing this dual-path strategy:
Brand Showcase projects: 100% client satisfaction on visual delivery, 40% requiring SEO retrofitting within 6 months, average 3-month timeline, €12-25K budget range.
Traffic Engine projects: 85% achieving 3x+ traffic growth within 6 months, 90% of clients updating content independently, average 4-week initial launch + ongoing optimization, €5-15K initial budget.
One SaaS client using the Traffic Engine approach generated their first 100 qualified leads directly from organic search within 4 months of launch. Their previous "beautiful" website had generated 12 leads in 18 months.
An e-commerce client saw their average monthly traffic grow from 800 to 4,200 visitors in 6 months, with 70% coming from content we built after the initial launch.
But here's what surprised me most: clients on the Traffic Engine path actually spent less time in revision cycles. When you're optimizing for search performance instead of subjective aesthetics, decisions become data-driven rather than opinion-driven.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here are the key lessons from implementing this approach across 50+ projects:
Timeline anxiety is usually strategy confusion. Most founders asking "how long?" haven't defined what success looks like.
Platform choice is a timeline multiplier. Custom WordPress takes 3x longer than Webflow, which takes 2x longer than Shopify for similar outcomes.
Content strategy determines maintenance burden. Sites built for design require developer updates. Sites built for growth let marketers iterate.
"Launch" is an arbitrary milestone. Traffic Engine sites are never "finished" - they're living systems that improve with data.
Client involvement scales with timeline. 2-week projects need decisive leadership. 12-week projects suffer from committee decisions.
Budget constraints often force better decisions. Limited resources push you toward platforms and strategies that actually work.
Investor demos need different websites than customer acquisition. One optimizes for credibility, the other for discoverability.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups:
Use Framer for rapid prototyping and investor demos (2-3 weeks)
Plan programmatic SEO strategy from day one if you need user acquisition
Budget 4-6 weeks for Traffic Engine approach with ongoing content development
For your Ecommerce store
For Ecommerce stores:
Shopify native gets you live in 2-3 weeks with growth potential
Plan for AI-powered product descriptions and category optimization post-launch
Focus on conversion optimization after achieving consistent traffic flow