Ship It Live — $1,999 flat
Design + build + deploy · kickoff in 24h · limited slots
Ship It Live · directory sprint
A directory people search and submit to, live in 14 days.
Every listing its own indexable page, search that actually filters, and a way to charge for the top spot from day one.
Quick answer
A searchable directory website can be designed, built and live in 14 days for a fixed $1,999, covering listing pages, categories and filters, search, a submission form, moderation and paid featured placements. It is built for SEO from the start, because directories earn their traffic from search.
The plan
Day one to day 14, written down.
You get this schedule before you commit, not after. If a phase slips, that is mine to absorb — the price and the date were agreed before anything started.
- 1
Days 1–2
Structure
What a listing is, what fields it has, and how people will search for one. Get this wrong and every listing page is wrong, so it comes first.
- 2
Days 3–7
Design
The listing page and the browse-and-filter experience. Both are designed for search traffic landing cold rather than for someone starting at the homepage.
- 3
Days 8–12
Build
Listings, categories, search, submissions and payments. SEO structure — schema, sitemap, canonical URLs — is built in rather than added afterwards.
- 4
Days 13–14
Seed and launch
Your initial listings loaded, submissions opened, and the site live with every page indexable from day one.
What $1,999 gets you
Everything needed to launch — nothing padding the invoice.
Who books this
Built for
Operators of a niche nobody has catalogued properly yet
Communities whose best resource is currently a spreadsheet link
Founders who want an SEO asset that compounds instead of a landing page
Real situations
Five ways this shows up, and what actually fixes it.
Not hypothetical — the shape of the problem before someone books this sprint, and the specific part of the build that resolves it.
Situation 1
The best resource in the niche is still a shared spreadsheet link
A community's most valuable resource — a list of vetted providers, tools or resources — exists as a spreadsheet passed around in a group chat, uncatalogued and unsearchable.
That list becomes a real directory with categories, filters and one indexable page per entry, searchable properly for the first time.
Situation 2
A niche nobody has properly catalogued yet
An operator sees a gap where no dedicated, well-organized directory exists for their specific niche, leaving searchers piecing together information from scattered sources.
Listing pages built to rank, with schema and fast search, turn that gap into an SEO asset from the day it launches.
Situation 3
Wants an asset that compounds, not another landing page
A founder has built landing pages before that stop earning attention the moment ad spend stops, and wants something that keeps attracting organic traffic on its own.
Every listing is its own indexable page with structured data — an SEO asset designed to compound rather than a one-time campaign page.
Situation 4
No way to charge for visibility within the niche
A directory concept has an obvious audience but no built-in way to monetize the businesses that want to stand out within it.
Paid featured listings and sponsored placements are wired through Stripe from launch, not added as an afterthought once traffic exists.
Situation 5
Launching with zero listings and wondering why it doesn't rank
A previous directory attempt launched empty, hoping submissions would arrive on their own, and it neither ranked nor converted because there was nothing in it yet.
The honest starting point: come with the first fifty entries, even self-sourced, because an empty directory ranks for nothing and converts nobody.
The honest part
When 14 days is the wrong answer.
A fixed deadline only works when the scope genuinely fits inside it. These are the cases where I will tell you so rather than take the booking.
Directories with no initial listings. An empty directory ranks for nothing and converts nobody — come with the first fifty entries, even if they are scraped from your own research.
Full booking or transactions between users, which makes it a marketplace rather than a directory. That is a different sprint with a different number.
User reviews at scale with the moderation operation that inevitably follows. Simple ratings fit; a review platform does not.
Inside the 14 days
- Listing pages built to rank — one indexable page per entry, with schema
- Categories, tags and filters that match how people actually search
- Fast search across the whole directory, including on a phone
- A submission form, with moderation before anything goes live
- Paid featured listings and sponsored placements, through Stripe
- An admin view to approve, edit, feature and remove entries
- Sitemap, meta and structured data on every listing, generated automatically
- Source code, design files and 30 days of support at handover
Quoted as one number before day one. A week running long is mine to absorb.
Outside the line
- Directories with no initial listings. An empty directory ranks for nothing and converts nobody — come with the first fifty entries, even if they are scraped from your own research.
- Full booking or transactions between users, which makes it a marketplace rather than a directory. That is a different sprint with a different number.
- User reviews at scale with the moderation operation that inevitably follows. Simple ratings fit; a review platform does not.
Real work, sized and priced separately. You hear it before you book, not at handover.
Questions
Before you book
Yes, when the listing structure is agreed on day one. Directories are structurally simple and content-heavy, which is exactly the shape that fits a two-week sprint — the long pole is your listings, not the build.
Other sprints
14 days from now, this could be live.
A 30-minute call decides whether the scope fits. If it doesn't, I'll tell you what would.