After a bad design agency · Seed to Series B

“After four months of work, we’ve only got screens”

You are managing five tools instead of building. You do not need another promise. You need a structure in which the same failure cannot happen quietly.

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What the stalled months cost $226,800 to $378,000 a year Illustrative inputs, so swap in your own

The folder

It is all there in the shared drive. Sixty-something frames, neatly named. A style guide. A prototype that clicks.

Your trial-to-paid rate is the same as it was in spring. The invoices are paid. Your engineers have opinions about the handoff that they share mostly in private channels. And somewhere in your inbox is a proposal from the next studio, promising to get it right this time.

If you have been here, you can describe exactly what went wrong. That description is useful. It is the brief for what the next engagement has to make impossible.

Why “pick a better vendor” does not work

The natural reaction is to look for a better studio: better portfolio, better references, better chemistry on the call. Then the next project is scoped the same way, against screens and a timeline, and nobody is accountable for a number.

Talent was rarely the problem. The structure let the project drift without anyone being able to show it, with evidence, until month four.

Below are the four failures founders describe most often, and the structural term that answers each one. Each is something you can check in a contract, not a promise. None of it refers to any studio or agency by name.

  1. “Four months of work and a folder of screens”

    The work was scoped against screens, so screens are what arrived. Nothing in the brief said what they were supposed to move.

    Our answer is one number before the brief. Every engagement opens with a two-week Clarity Sprint that measures the metric your round depends on and puts an ARR figure on every fix. The scope is then set against moving that number, not against a screen count.

  2. “The number I agreed to was not the number I paid”

    A range in a proposal usually means the person quoting has not looked closely enough to commit. The final number grows into the top of the range, and then past it.

    Our answer is one price, with change orders priced before they start. You see the price and the deliverable before a single screen is designed. If something outside the scope comes up, it becomes a change order, priced separately and agreed before the work starts. It is never folded in afterwards.

  3. “They went quiet after we paid”

    The relationship was good until the money changed hands. Then the updates thinned out and the dates moved.

    Our answer is one output every two weeks, recorded. Each sprint has a fixed scope, one defined output and a recorded walkthrough instead of a status call. You can see what was done without having to ask. Feedback goes into one Figma file instead of five inboxes.

  4. “We never spoke to the people doing the work”

    Senior people sold the project. Someone you never met delivered it.

    Our answer is that the people on your first call do the work. Nobody junior takes over, which is why we take three projects at a time.

If you cannot say what went wrong

That tells you something too. It usually means the project had no structure that made failure visible: no agreed number, no regular output, no point at which you could say “this is not working” and show why.

The two-week rhythm exists to remove that. There is nowhere vague for a project to hide.

What the stalled months cost

Illustrative inputs, so swap in your own:

website visitors a month

Visitor-to-trial at %

An illustrative category figure of %

$ in annual revenue per trial, averaged across trials that convert and those that do not

We plan for closing 30 to 50% of the gap, not all of it, which gives a target of 1.95% to 2.25%.

0.45 to 0.75 points × 6,000 = 27 to 45 more trials a month

27 to 45 × $700 × 12 = $226,800 to $378,000 a year

That is $18,900 to $31,500 of new ARR a month. Four months spent on a folder of screens, at that gap, is $75,600 to $126,000 that never arrived, on top of the fees.

Put your own numbers into the conversion gap calculator.

Three questions about the last project

  1. What metric was the last project meant to move, and did anyone measure it afterwards?

  2. At what point did you first know it was going wrong, and what told you?

  3. Would a better studio have fixed it, or was the brief wrong from the start?

    If the brief was the problem, a new vendor working from the same brief will produce the same folder. Start with the number instead.

How the restart works

  1. A 30-minute call

    Bring the old files and, if you like, the old contract. A principal tells you what looks worth keeping.

  2. A two-week Clarity Sprint

    We audit the product as it is, including what the last engagement left behind, and rank what to keep, what to fix and what to drop, with a conservative ARR figure on each fix. €5,500 to €8,500, invoiced as one number. If it does not surface ten times its fee in annual impact, you get the fee back, under the terms in the agreement.

  3. The work, two weeks at a time

    A signed contract before anything starts, one price, change orders agreed in advance, and one recorded output per sprint.

What is different this time

BeforeAfter
A folder of screens and an unchanged rate A ranked list of fixes, each tied to the rate
A price range that kept growing One number, and change orders agreed first
Updates you had to chase A recorded walkthrough every two weeks
A team you never met The two people from your first call
Valeria Shumska and Ivan Kraskov, the two principals at Spirixx

Who does the work

  • Valeria Shumska

    Co-founder, Head of Product Strategy and Design

    MSc in computer engineering, 10+ years in systems and product design.

  • Ivan Kraskov

    Co-founder, Design and Communication Principal

    20+ years designing for startups and scale-ups, across product design, UX strategy and front-end.

You can bring the old files and contract to the call. A mutual NDA comes first if you ask. How that works.

FAQ

Can you take over a project another studio started?

Yes. The Sprint audits what exists first, so you pay to keep what works and fix what does not, rather than redo everything.

How do we know this will not go the same way?

Before the Sprint, you cannot know. After it, you have a written report, one price for what comes next, and two weeks of evidence of how we work.

Will you do some work upfront so we can judge the quality?

No. Unpaid work on your product would be a guess. The Clarity Sprint is the paid, guaranteed way to judge us, and you keep what it produces.

Do you take part in pitch processes?

No. We would rather spend that time inside your product, on a Sprint you can keep.

What happens if we want changes outside the scope?

They are priced as a change order and agreed before the work starts. The original price does not move.

Let’s start with the number this time

Bring the last project’s files if you have them. We will tell you what is worth keeping.

Tell us about your project and the number you’re trying to move. You don’t need a finished brief, just a specific problem.

You talk to Ivan or Valeria, not a salesperson. Write today and you hear back the next morning, Central European Time.

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