Your First 6 Months Playbook: A Visual Roadmap from Sign-Off to Live Product

Published

10 Jun 2026

Author

Akash Shakya

Table of Contents

The distance between signing a development contract and having a live product is not a straight line. It is a sequence of decisions, and this is the map.

Editorial note: Founder quotes throughout this article are composites drawn from multiple EB Pearls engagements. The numbers and decisions are real. Identifying details have been changed.

Why We Wrote This

Most founders sign a development agreement and wonder: what happens now? Nobody gives the founder a single, readable map of the entire journey. This playbook is that map, based on the delivery pattern across 600+ EB Pearls products.

Introduction: The Six Phases

Understanding the sequence before you start is the difference between navigating and being swept along.

McKinsey's research on large-scale IT projects found that on average they run 45% over budget and 7% over time, while delivering 56% less value than predicted. The primary cause is not technical failure but breakdown in governance, communication, and scope management across project phases. The playbook below is designed to prevent exactly those breakdowns. For more on this, see how locked scope accelerates shipping.

Phase 1: Discovery (Weeks 1 to 2)

1-2 wks

Duration

AU$3-8K

Cost

3

Deliverables

HIGH

Your time

Discovery is where the most expensive decisions are made. The Discovery Workshop produces: Locked Scope Document, Fixed-Price Proposal, and RAT design.

Non-Obvious Truth: Discovery Is the Highest-ROI Phase

A AU$5K workshop that catches a scope misalignment saves AU$30K+ in rework. A RAT that invalidates an assumption saves the entire MVP budget.

"We skipped formal discovery because we thought we knew what we wanted. By sprint 3, the developers had built a user registration flow with social login, email verification, and profile customisation. We actually needed a simple email/password signup. Three weeks of work we never asked for, because our brief said 'user onboarding' and the team interpreted that broadly. A 4-hour Discovery Workshop would have cost AU$3K and saved AU$18K." For more on this, see what discovery calls reveal.

Customer interviews completed (10 to 15 minimum)
Riskiest assumption articulated
Budget confirmed (build + 25 to 35% post-launch)
Decision-maker availability confirmed

Phase 2: Design (Weeks 2 to 5)

2-4 wks

Duration

15%

Of budget

3

Design deliverables

MEDIUM

Your time

User flow diagrams, wireframes, and high-fidelity mockups. Reviewed at two checkpoints. Your response time at these checkpoints directly affects timeline.

Common Mistake: Designing Everything Before Building Anything

Design the first 60% of screens, start building, design the remaining 40% in parallel based on what you learn.

Phase 3: Development (Weeks 3 to 10)

6-8 wks

Duration

65%

Of budget

1-week

Sprint cadence

MEDIUM

Your time

Development runs in one-week sprints following Pillar P04 (The Right Delivery) of Built to Last.

Non-Obvious Truth: Phase 1 Is the Highest-ROI Investment in the Entire Build

Sprints 3 to 5: excitement fades, integration complexities surface, founder starts having new ideas. Trust the process.

"In sprint 4, I was at a conference and saw a competitor demo a feature I loved. I messaged the team at 10pm: 'Can we add real-time notifications like they have?' The developer started working on it Tuesday morning, displacing the search functionality we had committed to. By Friday, notifications were half-built, search was untouched, and the sprint review was the worst of the project. One conference, one Slack message, one wrecked sprint."

Phase 4: QA and PRR (Weeks 9 to 11)

1.5-2 wks

Duration

15%

Of budget

PRR

Key ceremony

LOW

Your time

Reliability
Error handling, crash recovery, edge case coverage, load testing.
Measurability
Analytics, error alerting, logging configuration.
Usability
UX audit, accessibility, onboarding flow testing.
Scalability
Database performance, API response times, auto-scaling.

Phase 5: Launch (Week 11 to 12)

3-5 days

Duration

Monday

Launch day (always)

HIGH

Your time

Launch on a Monday. Always. First 72 hours: final deployment, smoke testing, monitoring confirmed, on-call identified. For more detail, see life after launch.

Phase 6: Post-Launch Iteration (Months 3 to 6)

3-4 months

Duration

25-35%

Additional budget

70/20/10

Sprint allocation

70% user-reported issues, 20% infrastructure, 10% new features. Shift based on retention data after month 4.

Full Timeline at a Glance

Phase	Budget and Key Output
Discovery (Weeks 1-2)	AU$3-8K \| Locked Scope + RAT
Design (Weeks 2-5)	15% \| Wireframes + Mockups
Development (Weeks 3-10)	65% \| Working product
QA/PRR (Weeks 9-11)	15% \| Production Readiness Score
Launch (Week 11-12)	5% \| Live product
Post-Launch (Months 3-6)	25-35% additional \| Retained users

Frequently Asked Questions

Can these phases be compressed?

Design and Development overlap by 2 to 3 weeks. QA runs alongside later sprints. These overlaps are already built in. Compressing further creates risk that costs more than it saves. For more detail, see sprint structure.

How much of my time will this take?

Approximately 200 to 300 hours across 6 months. Heaviest during Discovery (2 to 3 full days) and Launch (2 to 3 full days).

What if I am a non-technical founder?

Your role is product owner, not technical lead. Speak in user problems and business outcomes. A good team translates those into technical requirements.

What happens after month 6?

Scale stage of Built to Last. Sprint cadence extends to 2 weeks. Roadmap shifts from assumption-testing to growth-driving features.

How do I prepare for the Discovery Workshop?

Bring customer evidence, competitive analysis, and your constraints. The messier and more honest the inputs, the sharper the output.

Free Founder Resources

6-Month Visual Roadmap (PDF)
One-page timeline with milestones and decision points. For more on this, see the path to launch timeline.
Founder Time Budget Calculator (Google Sheets)
Estimate hours per week across each phase.
Sprint Report Reading Guide (PDF)
What each metric means and what to ask when it is off.

Final Thought

The first six months are not about building a product. They are about building a learning machine.

The roadmap is not a list of features. It is a sequence of decisions. Make them early, make them honest, and make them reversible.

Akash Shakya Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder

Discover app development insights and AI trends with Akash Shakya, COO of EB Pearls. Learn how we build successful digital products.

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