Independent web studio · New York
We buildyour site first.You decide after.
Tell us about your business and we build you a real, working, animated draft of your website for nothing. That is one on this page, building itself. If you like yours, we finish it and look after it: we finish it for a flat fee and keep it running for a flat monthly one. If you do not, you owe us nothing and you keep the draft.
Lemonade sweetened with Grade A Dark and Robust Vermont maple syrup. Smorgasburg, every weekend since 2013.
This weekend’s standDraft · Vermont Maple Lemonade
Building…
Vermont Maple Lemonade
Real maple. No cane sugar. Smorgasburg since 2013.
linktr.ee/vmlThe before
Instagram is not a website
A bio holds one link and no hours, no location, no menu and no prices. Every question a customer has becomes a DM you answer by hand, or a sale you quietly lose.
You do not own the audience
Followers are rented. The algorithm decides who sees the post about this weekend’s market. A page you own shows up the same way to everyone who searches your name.
The story never gets told
The reason people should choose you is usually the part that fits nowhere: the farm, the method, the twelve years. A caption is 125 characters. That story is worth a page.
Vermont Maple Lemonade had 1,543 followers, thirteen seasons at Smorgasburg, and a founder’s story that had never been written down anywhere. That is the normal case, not the sad one.
Three steps.
One of them costs anything.
No deposit · no retainer · no hourly
You apply
A short form, or a fifteen minute call if you would rather talk. We want to know what you sell, who buys it, and what you wish the internet knew about you.
Costs you: nothing
We build the draft
A real page on a real link, moving, not a slide deck or a wireframe. Your words, your story, your prices. Usually within five days. You look at it on your phone and tell us what is wrong with it.
Costs you: nothing
You decide
Commit and we finish it, put it on your domain, and maintain it. Or walk away and keep the draft files. No invoice for work you did not ask to continue.
Costs you: a flat fee to finish, then a flat monthly fee, both agreed up front and only if you say yes
The work
A stand at Smorgasburg with 1,543 followers and no website.
We built Vermont Maple Lemonade a draft without being asked, then showed it to them. On their page an exploded cup assembles as you scroll. This is that cup. Keep scrolling.
0of eleven parts in place
- Built
- A full single page: story, flavors, market schedule, and an explainer for the maple grade they use.
- Motion
- An eleven part exploded cup that assembles as you scroll, and a pinned scene that morphs the drink through all seven flavors.
- Research
- Every fact sourced from their own channels, USA Today, the New York Post and Seven Days Vermont.
- Time
- One working session, start to live link.
Said plainly: this was speculative work, not a paid commission. It is a draft we made to show what a draft looks like. That is the whole business model, so it would be strange to pretend otherwise.
After it launches
Then somebody checks it. Every month. With receipts.
Most studios hand over a site and go quiet. Yours gets checked against a written rulebook, every month, by eight departments that each own one job. You get the findings and we make the fixes. Every finding names the exact thing it looked at, so you can go and check our work instead of taking our word for it.
Found
Titles, descriptions, structured data, sitemaps, and whether searching your name finds you.
Craft
Speed, the phone version, contrast, keyboard access, and anything that has quietly broken.
Money
Checkout, prices, stock, fees, and every step between a cart and a receipt.
Reach
What to post, what to send, the shot list, and whether your email actually arrives.
Customers
The questions you answer fifty times a week, bookings, and what people keep telling you.
Business
Margins per item, cash timing, and the renewal dates a business forgets until they lapse.
Trust
What your site claims about you against what you can actually back up, and what it collects.
Standards
The department that audits the other seven, so a finding you disagree with can be argued.
A real check, run on this page before it was published
seo-onpage (rulebook onpage-2026.09) status assessed 10 of 10 rules ran Nothing fired. Every one of the 10 rules ran and none matched.
Two runs ago it did not say that. It found two headings on this page in the wrong order, named them, and we fixed both. That is the whole point of running it on ourselves first.
Rules published with where they are wrong
Each published rule carries the case where it gives a false answer, written down before you ask. A check you cannot argue with is a check you should not act on. Read the rulebook.
Nothing about your business leaves your site
The checks run against your own pages and make no outside requests of any kind. There is no account to create and nothing to upload.
No model decides anything
The same page gets the same result tomorrow, and the reasons are the published rules rather than an opinion. When a check cannot read enough of a page, it says so instead of guessing.
Everything, and then we keep it running.
Design and build
Written, designed, animated and built for your business specifically. Not a template with your logo dropped in.
Your domain, set up
We buy it, point it, secure it and renew it. You never touch a DNS record.
Hosting and uptime
Fast hosting included. If it goes down at 2am it is our problem, not yours.
Edits, unlimited
New prices, new hours, a new flavor, a closed weekend. Tell us and it is done that day.
Works on a phone
Most of your customers are standing in a line looking at their phone. That is the version we design first.
Found on Google
Titles, descriptions, structured data and a sitemap, so searching your name finds you and not a delivery app.
Pricing
See your draft first. Then the exact number.
Starting-from minimums, so you can qualify us before we talk. The exact number is quoted after you have seen your draft and before a single thing is finished.
One time, quoted exactly after you have seen your draft
- The design, build and Google setup above
- Your domain, bought and configured
- Launched on your domain, usually two weeks from yes
- Hosting and edits are the monthly plan below
Pick either after launch.
Get a free draftAlready launched with us? Start your monthly plan:
Billed monthly, automatically, until you cancel. Checkout and your statement show Lark Dating, Inc., our other business, which takes Proof's payments for now. Cancel any time from Manage billing at the bottom of every page, or from the page you land on after paying, and you keep the rest of the month you paid for. Checkout charges the price it shows. If your site needs more than the base plan, we agree the extra with you before it is charged. Terms, including what an unlimited edit is.
- A real working page on a real link
- Your story, researched and written
- Yours to keep either way
Every business we take on
- Checkout, shipping and stock
- Order notifications to your phone
- Wholesale and catering enquiries
Added whenever you are ready, not up front
Apply
Tell us about your business.
What we will ask
The draft is only as good as what you tell us. Three questions do most of the work.
- Q1What do you sell, and where do people buy it today?
- Q2What do you find yourself explaining to every new customer?
- Q3What would you want a website to do that Instagram cannot?
Would rather talk? Email us a time and we will call you for fifteen minutes, no pitch deck. If we are not the right fit we will say so on the call rather than after an invoice.
Application received
Got it.
Your application is in. We usually reply within a day.
Why would you build something for free?
Because describing a website is a bad way to sell one. Showing you a real page about your own business, on your phone, in five days, is a much better one. Most people say yes once they can see it. The ones who do not were never going to be happy with an invoice either.
What is the catch?
There is not one, but there is a limit: we can only carry a few free drafts at a time, so we take on the businesses we think we can genuinely help. If we cannot, we will tell you quickly instead of stringing you along.
Do I own the site?
Yes. The design, the copy, the domain and the files are yours. If you ever want to leave, we hand over everything and help you move it. No hostage hosting.
What if I already have a website?
Then the draft is a free second opinion. Plenty of businesses have a site that technically exists and quietly loses them customers. We will show you what the alternative looks like and you can compare.
How fast can you actually go?
The draft is usually five days. A finished, launched site is typically two weeks from the day you say yes, assuming we can get photos and prices from you.