The engagement
Build it once. Then we run it.
Two phases and one relationship. Build installs the thing. Run operates it. You approve what publishes and you own what was built, in that order and from day one.
Phase one
Build
Build installs the specification, the guardrails, the production templates, and the publishing connections, and hands over the repository they live in.
It starts with reading what you have already published and interviewing you about the parts that are only in your head. That becomes a written specification: how you sound, which words are yours, which words are never yours, and what a good piece of work looks like when it is done.
What gets installed
- The brand specification
- A written file that a person or a model can both read. Cadence, vocabulary, the sentence shapes you actually use, and worked examples. It is the thing everything else is checked against.
- The blocked-term lists
- The words that must never publish, and the words that must. In a language-sensitive vertical this is the difference between compliant and litigable, and it runs as a check rather than as somebody remembering.
- The production templates
- Render templates for the formats you actually publish, so a piece of source material becomes the right aspect ratios without an edit pass.
- The publishing connections
- The channels wired up, scheduled, and tested end to end, in your accounts under your credentials.
- Foundrkit, the repository
- Foundrkit is the repository the Build phase hands over. It holds the brand specification, the blocked-term lists the pipeline checks against, the render templates, and the publishing config, all versioned in git. It is the thing the client keeps.
- The handover session
- A walkthrough of every one of the above, recorded, so the knowledge is not a person you have to reach.
How Build runs
- 01
Read what exists
Everything you have already published, plus whatever is in a folder nobody has opened. The specification is derived from your material, not from a template.
- 02
Capture what is only in your head
One working session, recorded. This is where the specification gets the parts your published work has never said out loud.
- 03
Write the specification and the lists
You read it, mark it up, and sign it off. Nothing is built against a draft you have not agreed to.
- 04
Build the pipeline and connect the channels
Templates, render config, and publishing connections, in your accounts. Tested with real posts before it is called done.
- 05
Hand it over
The repository, the walkthrough, and the documentation. At this point you could run it yourself, which is the standard the handover is written to.
Phase two
Run
Run operates that pipeline on a set cadence, with named approval gates before anything publishes and a written report on what shipped.
The distinction that matters: Run is not a retainer for availability. It is a commitment to a specific volume of specific outputs on a specific schedule, which is a thing you can hold somebody to.
What happens every cycle
- Production against the specification
- The scoped output produced and checked before it reaches you. Anything containing a blocked term does not get to the approval queue.
- Your approval gate
- A queue of finished work you approve or send back. Nothing publishes without passing through it. You can widen the gate for formats you stop needing to see; you cannot accidentally remove it.
- Publishing on the schedule
- Approved work goes out on the cadence in the scope, to the channels in the scope.
- A written report
- What shipped, where, and what the numbers did. Written, on a fixed rhythm, whether or not the numbers were good.
- Specification maintenance
- When you correct something, the correction goes into the specification. The system gets more like you over time rather than drifting away from you.
The split
What stays yours, and what stops being your job.
Stays with you
- The creative calls and the positioning
- What is true, and what you are willing to say
- Approval before anything publishes
- The accounts, the credentials, and the audience
- The specification, the source files, and the repository
Stops being your job
- Being the only person who can make the thing
- Remembering the cadence
- Reformatting one asset into six
- Catching off-brand language in a final review
- Deciding what to post on a Tuesday
Scope
What moves the number.
- How many surfaces you publish to
- Each channel is a set of formats, a schedule, and a connection to maintain. Three surfaces and nine surfaces are different engagements.
- How much source material already exists
- A client with three years of published writing and a shoot's worth of footage starts further along than one starting from a moodboard.
- How much language sensitivity the vertical carries
- Behavioural health, regulated finance, and anything with a compliance office need longer term lists, more review, and a slower gate. That is real work and it is scoped as such.
- Volume and cadence
- Weekly and daily are different commitments. So are five pieces and fifty.
- Whether you want Run at all
- Build ends with something you can operate. Whether we operate it is a separate decision.
Fit
Who this works for, and who it does not.
Works
- The founder is currently the only person who can produce the content, and that has become the constraint
- There is a real point of view already, even if it is only in their head
- Somebody can approve work within a couple of days rather than a couple of weeks
- The company intends to still be publishing in a year
Does not
- Nobody internally can say what the company sounds like or wants to be known for
- The real need is a campaign with an end date, not an operation
- Approval has to route through a committee that meets monthly
- The goal is volume for its own sake. This makes fewer, better things happen reliably, and that is a different objective
If you are in the right-hand column, the call will end with that said plainly rather than with a scoped proposal.
Terms
The parts people ask about after the call.
- Performance alignment
- Available where there is a metric both sides can see and agree the work moves. It is an addition to the engagement, never a replacement for it, and it is only offered where the attribution is honest.
- Change requests
- Inside the scoped cadence and formats, they are the job. New surfaces, new formats, or a materially different volume are a scope change, written down before the work starts.
- Notice
- Run is a rolling commitment with notice on both sides, agreed in writing at the start. Nothing auto-renews into a year you did not choose.
- Ownership
- Everything built is yours from the moment it exists, not on termination. The detail is on how we work, including what happens if the operator is unavailable.
Questions
Asked on most calls.
What does it cost?
It is scoped on the call, because the two things that move it are how many surfaces you publish to and how much of your existing material can be reused. There is no figure on this page, and there is no package tier you get sorted into. You get a written scope with a number on it before anything starts.
Can we do Build without Run?
Yes. Build ends with a handover session and a repository you own. Some clients take it in-house from there, and the documentation is written on the assumption that they might.
What happens if we stop?
You keep the specification, the source files, the render templates, the publishing config, and every account, because they were always in your name. Nothing is held in an account you cannot access. The handover package is described below and it is not a favour we do at the end; it is the same repository you have had access to since week one.
Do you work with our existing agency or team?
Often. The usual shape is that they keep the strategy and the client relationship and we run production underneath, white-labelled or co-branded. The specification is written from their standards in that case, not ours.
How much of my time does Run take?
The approvals, and whatever source material only you can produce. For most clients that is one session of recording a month and a periodic pass through the approval queue. If Run is taking more of your week than it gives back, the scope is wrong and we change it.
Is it AI writing everything?
Generation is one step inside the pipeline, and it runs against your specification rather than a blank prompt. Before anything reaches you it has been checked against your blocked-term list. Before anything publishes, a person has approved it. The parts that are judgement stay human, and the parts that are repetition do not.
What if the work is wrong?
It gets fixed, and the reason it was wrong gets written into the specification so the class of mistake stops recurring. That second part is the point of having a specification at all.
Thirty minutes, and you leave with your content scored.
No deck. We read your current content on the call, say what we would build, and say plainly if it is not a fit.