The two-week launch playbook
A day-by-day breakdown of how we take an Orbit project from brief to live site in 14 days. The exact process — what works, what we cut.
People ask how Orbit ships Launch-tier projects in 2 weeks. The answer isn't "we work faster" — it's "we pre-decided 80% of the decisions." Here's the actual playbook, day by day.
Day 1 (Monday) — Kickoff
30-minute kickoff call. Brand overview, project goals, audience, three examples of sites the client likes, three examples they don't. We walk through the template they chose and flag anything we'd want to customize.
End of day 1: staging URL live with the template pre-deployed. Client can click through a working version of their site with placeholder content.
Day 2–3 — Brand application
Logo, typography, color palette applied to the template. Content structure locked — we know what's on the homepage, what pages exist, what the nav looks like.
First design review at end of day 3. Client gets a Loom walkthrough (2 minutes) of what's on staging. They respond in writing. One round of revisions, tracked.
Day 4–6 — Content loading
Client provides content via a shared doc. We load it. Photography gets placed — either client-provided or licensed from a curated pool. Blog posts, team bios, service descriptions — all go live on staging.
If content isn't ready by day 6, project timeline extends. This is the #1 reason 2-week projects turn into 4-week projects, so we're strict about the day-6 deadline.
Day 7–9 — Integrations
Contact form → Resend + lead capture to DB. Analytics (Vercel). Any specific integrations the client needs (Stripe for a Launch-tier usually isn't needed, but booking / newsletter signup / calendar embeds might be).
SEO setup: structured data, sitemap, robots.txt, Open Graph tags per page. Performance pass — compress images, check Lighthouse scores, tune anything below 90.
Day 10–11 — Client review
Final review walkthrough. Loom from us, questions in writing from client. Last round of revisions. Usually small — copy tweaks, image swaps, one-off bug fixes.
Day 12 — QA
We run the full audit checklist (40 items). Anything failing, we fix. Cross-browser check. Cross-device check. Content spellcheck.
Day 13 — DNS cutover prep
Client updates DNS to point to our Vercel deployment. TTL propagation usually takes 1–4 hours. We prep backup, monitor.
Day 14 — Launch
Site is live. Client gets: production URL, staging URL kept for reference, GitHub repo access, admin credentials, analytics dashboard, launch checklist sign-off.
We check in at days 15, 22, and 30. Any issues, we fix them under the 30-day included support.
Why this works
No mystery. No mid-project scope changes. No "we forgot about this thing" moments. The template handles the 80%, the brief handles the 20%. Clients see their site working by end of day 1 and iterate on something real instead of Figma abstractions.
If you can write a clear brief, we can ship in 2 weeks. If you can't write the brief yet, we'll help you write it — that's what the discovery call is for.
