Home / Who we turn down
Read this before you apply
We turn down most people.
We work with twelve businesses at a time, so we decline more than we accept. We do not take ecommerce, booking systems, medical, finance or supplements, businesses under two years old, or anyone who needs a guarantee of leads. Here is the full list, so nobody wastes a call.
Twelve is not a marketing device. It is how many sites one person can look after properly without the work getting thin. Saying no to the wrong ones is most of the reason the right ones get good work.
Hard noes
If you are on this list, please do not apply.
Not because your business is a problem. Because we would do a bad job, and taking your money anyway would be rude.
EcommerceShops, carts, checkouts, inventory, payments.
Booking enginesCalendars, live availability, reservations.
Medical and healthThe content needs legal review we cannot provide.
Finance and insurance productsSame reason. Regulated claims, real liability.
SupplementsAbsolutely not, and you know why.
Under two years tradingNo history to measure against, so we would both be guessing.
Apps, portals, member areasWe build one kind of website, extremely well.
Anyone wanting guaranteed leadsNobody can promise that honestly. Read the contract of anyone who does.
More than about 15 page templatesPast that it stops being the thing we are good at.
Multiple languagesSingle language sites only, for now.
Decisions by committeeThe owner needs to be on the call and able to say yes.
“Just one small extra thing”It is never small and it is never quick.
The one people argue with
If your category is already owned, we will say so.
Before we take anyone on, we run their three main topics across ChatGPT and Perplexity. If a national brand dominates all three, we will tell you on the call and we will not take the work.
That happens. It is not a sales technique and it is not us being precious. Moving an entrenched incumbent takes far more content, outreach and time than our standard programmes contain, and charging you $1,500 a month to slowly not achieve that would be theft with extra steps.
Most categories are not settled. Only about 15% have a clear AI winner and more than half have none at all. But we check rather than assume, and you find out on the call, not in month six.
What we do need
A real business, basically.
The actual bar
- Trading two years or more, with real revenue and real customers. Not an idea, not a side project.
- You own your domain and can get into the registrar. If you cannot, that is the first thing to fix, and it is worth fixing regardless of us.
- Twelve months of Search Console history you are willing to share, so there is something honest to measure against.
- A customer worth roughly $9,000 or more, or a breakeven of under two new customers a year. Below that the maths does not work for you, and you will hear it on the call rather than in month six.
- A category where people research before they buy. If your customers decide in ten minutes, AI is not in that decision and we are the wrong spend.
- The owner on the call. Not a committee, not a marketing coordinator relaying messages back to someone else.
- Someone who intends to still be here in month two. The free seat is not a free website. It is the start of something.
If the monthly fee is the thing you are weighing hardest, we are almost certainly the wrong call, and there are good people who build cheaper. No hard feelings, genuinely. We would rather you spent it well somewhere else than badly with us.
Still here? Good sign.
Four questions, about two minutes. We read every one ourselves and we reply either way.
See if you qualifyBefore you get in touch
The reasons not to hire us.
Every one of these is real. If one of them is a dealbreaker, it is better that you know now than in month three.
It is one person
No team, no cover, no 24/7 emergency line. If Faz is on a plane, you wait. Hosting is monitored and backed up, but at this price nobody credible is offering a two-in-the-morning SLA, and we are not going to promise one we would break.
There are no client case studies yet
Under this name, none. The evidence we have is our own properties and ten years of prior work. If you need to see three businesses exactly like yours with published before-and-afters, we cannot show you that today.
The AI part is slow and not guaranteed
The website is seven days. Enquiries usually move in month three to six. Being named in AI answers is slower and depends on your category. Anyone giving you a date is guessing.
We host it, and that is real leverage
If you stop paying, hosting winds down after 30 days. Your domain, content and old site are always yours, and the buyout is published, but the arrangement does mean we hold something.
We will say no to things you want
Shops, booking systems, member areas, “one small extra thing.” Our whole speed advantage comes from building one kind of site. If your list of exceptions is long, we are the wrong build.
It is not cheap
Eighteen thousand a year is a real commitment for a small business. There is a customer value below which this simply cannot pay for itself, and it is on the list above. That is a decline, not a negotiation.