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Clownmind
Programmes

Four programmes, each with a defined end and a written exit

Most of what clients need is one of these four. They are shaped so that value arrives before the invoice does, and so that stopping halfway still leaves you ahead.

  • Fixed milestone bands
  • Written rollback plans
  • You own everything
What we run

Programmes, not open-ended retainers

Each has a scope, a duration band and a definition of done that does not read 'the project completed'.

12–20 weeks

Replatform programme

Move platform without a trading day at risk. Parallel-run, route-level traffic shifting and a redirect map verified against live crawl data.

  • Platform selection support
  • Data migration rehearsals
  • Zero-loss redirect mapping
  • Staged traffic cutover
Scope this programme
6–10 weeks

Performance programme

Find out why the site is slow, fix it, and install the CI gates that stop it happening again next quarter.

  • Field and lab measurement
  • Critical path optimisation
  • Caching and edge strategy
  • Budgets enforced in CI
Scope this programme
16–28 weeks

Composable programme

Decouple in an order that can be stopped. Front end, then search, then content, then checkout — if checkout ever needs to move at all.

  • Architecture and vendor selection
  • BFF layer design
  • Strangler-pattern rollout
  • Team enablement
Scope this programme
Rolling monthly

Operate & scale retainer

Runbooks, on-call, peak rehearsals and a monthly forum where the roadmap gets re-argued against real data.

  • Incident response
  • Security patching cadence
  • Peak-load rehearsals
  • Monthly performance review
Scope this programme
Principles

The four commitments underneath every programme

Replatform without the horror stories

A staged migration plan with traffic splitting, redirect mapping and a rollback that takes one minute, not one weekend.

  • Parallel-run architecture
  • Zero-loss redirect mapping
  • Route-level traffic shifting
  • Data migration rehearsals

Performance as a contract

Budgets for bundle size, LCP and INP enforced in CI. If a pull request breaks the budget, the pipeline fails.

  • Lighthouse CI gates
  • Real-user monitoring
  • Edge caching strategy
  • Image and font discipline

Composable, in the right order

Front end first, then search, then content, then checkout. Each step delivers value before the next one starts.

  • Vendor selection support
  • BFF and API gateway design
  • Strangler-pattern rollout
  • Team enablement

Operations after launch

Runbooks, on-call, peak-season rehearsals and a monthly forum where the roadmap gets re-argued with real data.

  • Incident runbooks
  • Peak-load rehearsals
  • Monthly performance review
  • Security patching cadence
Business models

Four shapes of commerce, four very different builds

The architecture that suits a subscription brand will actively harm a wholesale business. We start from the model, not from the platform.

B2B

Trade accounts, negotiated pricing, approval chains

Company hierarchies, requisition lists, credit terms and quote-to-order flows. We build the boring machinery that lets a sales team stop taking orders over email.

  • Customer-group pricing
  • Quote and approval workflows
  • Purchase order and net terms
  • Rep-assisted ordering

D2C

Own the relationship end to end

Storefronts built for repeat purchase — subscriptions, loyalty, first-party data and a lifecycle programme that does not depend on rented audiences.

  • Subscription and replenishment
  • Loyalty and referral
  • First-party data capture
  • Lifecycle automation

Marketplace

Many sellers, one trustworthy experience

Vendor onboarding, split payouts, commission logic and the moderation tooling that keeps quality from sliding as supply grows.

  • Vendor onboarding and KYC
  • Split payments and payouts
  • Ratings and dispute handling
  • Catalogue moderation

B2B2C

Sell through partners without losing the customer

White-label storefronts, partner portals and shared inventory across a network of resellers, franchisees or clinics.

  • Multi-tenant storefronts
  • Partner portals and reporting
  • Shared inventory and fulfilment
  • Co-branded experiences
Platform depth

We are opinionated about platforms, and happy to argue

Choosing wrong costs a year. These are the four routes we take most often, and the honest reason we would pick each one.

Past the theme ceiling, without leaving the platform

Custom Online Store 2.0 builds, Hydrogen storefronts, Shopify Functions and the app work that starts once the defaults run out.

  • Hydrogen and Oxygen storefronts
  • Checkout extensions and Functions
  • Subscriptions, bundles and loyalty
  • Shopify Plus B2B implementation
  • Migration from Magento or WooCommerce

98

Median Lighthouse performance

Every platform engagement starts with the same question: what would have to be true for you not to replatform?

How we run migrations
How we work

Four steps, and you can stop after any of them

Every stage produces something you own outright. Nothing is held hostage to the next invoice.

  1. 01

    Framing week

    A paid week where we map the constraints, the existing systems and what success has to look like in numbers. You keep the output whether or not we continue.

  2. 02

    Architecture & plan

    A written technical plan with the trade-offs made explicit, a milestone schedule, and a fixed budget band for the first release.

  3. 03

    Build in the open

    Two-week increments, a preview URL from day three, and a Slack channel where your team can see the work rather than wait for a demo.

  4. 04

    Launch & operate

    Load testing, runbooks and monitoring before go-live, then a support window while your team takes the wheel — or a retainer if you would rather we kept it.

FAQ

The questions that decide whether a programme succeeds

Asked early, these are cheap. Asked in month five, they are not.

That is the standard we hold ourselves to, and across more than forty migrations we have not lost a ranked URL. It comes from exhaustive redirect mapping, a parallel-run architecture and daily index monitoring through the cutover — not from luck.

Frequently. We start with a two-week assessment rather than a promise: read the code, run the tests if there are any, and report honestly on what is salvageable. Sometimes the answer is that continuing is cheaper than restarting, and we say so.

Two full load rehearsals against production-shaped data, in July and September, plus a written runbook covering what breaks first and what to do about it. We freeze non-critical releases from early November.

No, and roughly half our clients should not. Composable adds operational surface. It is worth it when the front end is genuinely constrained by the platform, and it is an expensive mistake when the real problem is merchandising or data quality.

A configuration change that shifts traffic back to the previous route, taking under a minute. We rehearse it at least once before the first traffic split, because a rollback nobody has practised is a plan rather than a capability.

Not sure which programme you are actually in?

That is what the framing week is for. Five days, fixed fee, and a written answer either way.