2026-06-09 — Advisor Prep Brain Dump

Raw thinking dumped here so the three advisor briefs in Classic City/Advisor Briefs/2026-06-09/ can stand on their own without losing the kernel.

The core problem — finding a developer-designer combo person

I have three core phases to website projects right now, because of the shift in process this past year. Not all projects follow this, but a thinner process is becoming more and more common:

• ~10–15% on discovery — collecting info, sitemap work
• ~40–60% on design + build at the same time, using my style guide structure
• The remainder is QA

In the last few projects I've cut QA time way down because I require all clients to submit tickets through marker.io and be hyper-specific. I've been able to dump 85% of their QA requests into AI and just have it run through them. Rounds of QA don't matter as much anymore if that process is followed.

The crux: I'm running all of this right now.

These 5–15-page websites for clients whose core need is "our site is old, we just need it to look better and work well" — that's what this process is for. It's not for the CMO with lots of content who needs to think about design architecture; that person needs a 4–6 month build. Design matters, structure matters, dev matters — but for the folks I'm typically selling between $15K and $25K, they're looking for a better experience.

I, Chris LaFay, can get pretty much everything I need out of a client in a discovery session — that's the 10–15%. About an hour and a half, very commonly. Then during the build, with design and dev collapsing into one, I need a person that can fit into that role so I can just hand off the brief: discovery recording, brand style guide, current site, the 5 inspiration sites — go build, using the tool I've created to expedite.

It's a one-person job now for these websites, and I think I can scale it. The clients' problem is NOT that they want a DIY solution. The DIY solutions before were Wix and Squarespace. Now the DIY solutions are still Wix and Squarespace — but also AI-built websites that all look the same. To edit them you still have to chat, and busy business owners don't want to chat about updating their site. They want it done and to hop into a CMS.

That could change in a couple of years, I know — but right now this market segment is ripe for the taking. I just can't do all of it from 0 to 100%, and it's not sustainable.

The question: Where do I find somebody who:

• Understands AI enough and is playing with it enough
• Can do design
• Understands dev enough to know when to custom-build a block vs. SCSS-edit one
• Knows to keep AI inside its lane (using SCSS variables, not hardcoding)
• Knows when to edit the parent template vs. the individual client's

…that doesn't cost me $100/hr but isn't necessarily overseas either.

I'm more than willing to keep doing discovery + sales. I need somebody I can pass off to.

What I just realized about my business shape

Two core project types right now:

• Retainers — Andrew (lead dev) is basically doing all of it
• Projects — I, Chris LaFay, am doing pretty much all of it

The reason: the work we were passing to Samson (jr dev) — he's just not getting it done. What Samson takes 4–6 hours on, Andrew knocks out in 45 minutes.

I'm trying to solve the project side with some kind of senior developer who understands design. There's a guy named Sam who I think would be great. His rate is $125/hr. That's fine — on $15K projects that only take a person ~40 hours, the margins support it.

It also doesn't help Andrew, who's dying right now — 30–35 hours a week, can't work Thu/Fri because of his kid, and Mon–Wed he's on calls almost all day. He's basically doing all his actual work at night.

The Anil Gupta playbook (potential adaptation)

Anil told me how he hired his salesperson: found an "agency owner" — basically a freelancer with a company name. Said: "I see you're making $100–120K/year grinding really hard. I have a sales playbook. I'll be your biggest client, pay you $5K/mo, you run my playbook 10–15 hrs/week, and you get commission on top of what you sell."

It's lucrative for the freelancer — you cover 60% of their salary for not much work, and they get commission upside. It's happened twice for Anil that within 12–18 months the freelancer is making vastly more from Anil than from their own agency, because they like working with the team.

I'm wondering if I can do something similar with this dev-designer role: "Let me pay you $X thousand a month to do these builds — here's your hourly rate for retainer work." I'd start offloading from Andrew onto this person and scale that way. Requires finding somebody who doesn't actually like the sales side of running their own business — which, honestly, is most people in that position.

GTM thinking

In reality, I'd love a marketing push where the primary sales objective is to close a $15K website build. The ones I've gotten (all warm leads through somebody I know) have closed so fast:

• Used the style guide with someone else's styles embedded as a sales demo. People have bought on the spot.
• Sold one on a 30-minute call. Sold a second one. A month ago sold a pair of websites to the same person — gave a discount, charged $26K instead of $30K, closed within 7 days.

This idea — get into a website quickly for a decent amount of money with a tried-and-tested system — is something people are looking for. I don't know how cold prospects would react. So far it's all been folks with some kind of connection to me.

If I knew what my go-to-market was going to be — and I'm getting close — me and Chris Dubois have the LinkedIn newsletter rolling well, with a style and structure I can replicate. That's getting fed into a content machine I've created that should spit off other LinkedIn content, possibly other newsletter content. Content strategy is hopefully about to go ham. I just need the right CTAs to funnel people through, and to test.

Networking strategy is also decent:

• Agency lunch clubs — invite my agency friends, force them to bring a friend, which introduces me to new people
• Ones I like → invite to content day, where we do free video recording and give it to them. Those are the people who might send projects/leads.
• The ones I really like → co-host content day, so they bring their people, and I meet potential clients while making value for the video subject.
• Even better: find Atlanta events and bring my content day shoot to the event instead of sponsoring. No tapping my network — meet 10–15 new people, pay out ~$700, call it a day.

Retainer pricing reality

My minimum retainer is $2,500/mo right now. Most people don't need design + dev help at that level.

If avg site = $15–25K and min retainer is $2.5K/mo, that's people spending ~$30K/year on growth. That's not happening. This isn't working.

I built a page on classiccity.com for care plans. First two tiers are all Mickey's stuff (docs on margins exist). The third tier adds actual development time for us — that's where we're making the most cash, but it's probably the least popular.

I like the idea of being able to offer a $500/mo tier — 4–5 tweaks to the site, lets me stay in their ecosystem after launch. $6K/year for maintenance after a $15K build. Those numbers make sense to me. I don't know if they'll make sense to the market.

Pressure-tested twice:

• The Georgia State Election Board contract
• The TexBuilt conglomerate

Sent both emails about it. Neither responded. It's not the highest priority on their list either, so I should actually talk to them on the phone and get their opinions.

We also have Lumberock who I'm pretty sure will do something longer-term. Lumberock is part of a larger community conglomerate, and they said a lot of the sites under that parent company desperately need help. We really like their marketing person — there are opportunities there.

What's going out for advisor review

Three one-pagers in Classic City/Advisor Briefs/2026-06-09/:

1. Hiring the dev-designer combo (includes Anil playbook + Sam @ $125/hr + Andrew capacity)
2. GTM for $15K builds (content engine + networking system)
3. Care plan / retainer redesign ($500/mo hypothesis + what's failed to land)

Lumberock conglomerate is referenced inside #2 as warm-pipeline context — not its own brief.