The worst brief we've ever seen was 47 pages. The best fit in a single email. It's not about length. It's about whether you have answers to seven specific questions.
We ask these in the first conversation with every new client. If you have answers, we can start work next week. If not, we start with a workshop to find them. Either way, no one can meaningfully start designing without these answers.
1. Why are we doing this
Not "we want a new website". But: what shouldn't this site allow to happen a year from now? Lose a funding round? Let competitors take our customers? Miss a new B2B segment? A concrete, measurable business goal. No answer here means the project will never end successfully — because nobody defined what success looks like.
2. Who's reading / watching / buying
Persona, not demographics. "Marketing manager at a 50–200 person company who hits her quota in Q1 and Q2" is a hundred times more useful than "women 30–45 in cities". The more specific, the less the agency guesses.
3. What have you already tried
This question saves months. If you've already spent $7,500 on a campaign that didn't work, the agency needs to know before the workshop. Not to judge. To not propose the same thing again.
4. Who decides
One person? CEO + CMO? Board at the end? Each shapes the process differently. Three iterations with one decision-maker takes two weeks. Three iterations with a board takes two months. Knowing this upfront sets a realistic timeline.
5. What "good" looks like to you
Three to five brands or projects you like — and why. "I like Stripe because the site tells you what the product is immediately" is a signal. "I like Stripe because it's minimal" says almost nothing. Reasons matter more than examples.
6. What you absolutely DON'T want
Often skipped, most time-saving. Concrete counterexamples ("we don't want to look like Booking", "we don't want stock photos") protect against directions that get rejected immediately.
7. When and how much
Timeline and budget. Even a rough one. Saying "budget is open" is worse than a number. Without a range, the agency guesses what you can spend — and either overshoots (your offer is out of reach) or undershoots (your business deserves more than minimum viable scope). A real range ("we have $10–15k") lets us propose the best version within those bounds.
What you get back
A good agency, after reading these answers, returns three things:
- A real scope — what gets built and what's NOT in the quote.
- A real timeline — accounting for your decision process, not the ideal one.
- Real risks — where the project could get stuck and what we'll do when it does.
How we start at Krowd
When someone reaches out with a good brief, the first call is 30 minutes. No sales pitch. Just seven questions and a short answer on whether the project is a fit. At Krowd Agency we work as an integrated team, so after one call we know if we have the people and competencies for your topic.
If you have an idea but lack one of the seven answers — write to us. We regularly run the workshop that finds them. Four to eight hours, ending with a finished brief.