14 August 2026 / 8 min read
Idea to trading in six months: a week-by-week breakdown
What actually happens in each stretch of a six-month launch, and the decisions that quietly decide whether the date holds.
- new ventures
- strategy
- product
Six months is a comfortable timeline for launching a real business, and a brutal one if the first six weeks are spent deciding things that should have taken days.
The short answer
Two months proving and shaping, three months building and preparing, one month launching and fixing. The build is rarely what runs late — the decisions are.
Weeks 1–4: proof and shape
- Write down who this is for and what they currently do instead.
- Talk to ten of them. Not friends.
- Decide what you are selling and at what price. A price forces every other decision.
- Check the name properly: company, domain, handles, trademark risk.
- Agree what launch means. A definition of done, in one sentence.
Deliverable: a one-page proposition and a price. If this slips, everything slips.
Weeks 5–8: brand and scope
- Identity: name, mark, type, colour, tone. Enough to be consistent, not a 90-page book.
- Scope in writing: every screen, every document, every integration named.
- Decide the platform honestly — builder, WordPress or custom. See website builder, WordPress or fully custom.
- Sort the boring things now: company, bank, insurance, terms, privacy.
Deliverable: a signed scope and a visual direction.
Weeks 9–16: build
- Build in slices you can look at, weekly. Nothing disappears into a black box for a month.
- Real content from week ten. Placeholder text hides most problems.
- Payments, emails and analytics wired early, not in the last fortnight.
- Search foundations as you go: structure, titles, sitemap, structured data.
Deliverable: a working thing, on a real URL, that you use yourself.
Weeks 17–21: prepare
- Test with strangers and watch where they stop.
- Fix speed on a mid-range phone.
- Write the launch content: the announcement, the first emails, the answers to the ten questions you will be asked.
- Line up the first customers before launch day. Launches do not create demand; they collect it.
Weeks 22–26: launch and hold
- Go live earlier in the week than feels comfortable.
- Watch behaviour daily for two weeks and fix the top three friction points.
- Then stop building and start selling.
What breaks timelines
| Cause | Fix |
|---|---|
| Undecided proposition | Force the price decision in month one |
| Scope creep | Written scope, changes cost time openly |
| Content | Assign an owner in week one |
| Approvals | One decision-maker, fixed review days |
| Integrations | Name them in scope, test them early |
What it costs
Anywhere from about £1,000 for a lean launch on a builder platform to £100,000 for a brand, custom platform and system together. The guided brief gives you a bracket and a timeline in a few minutes, and idea to launch explains how we run it.