Start a conversation.
The useful first message isn't a brief. It's the thing that keeps going wrong: the double booking, the entries arriving by email, the spreadsheet three people are editing at once. Start there.
Setting up
The address isn't live yet: the domain is bought and the mailboxes are being set up. An enquiry form follows, the same kind we build for clients, writing into a database rather than firing off a mailto.
Studio
Johannesburg, South Africa
We're a small team and we take on work we can finish.
Put three things in the first message.
The thing going wrong
Not the solution you have in mind. The problem. "Two people booked the same camera." "Entries arrive as email attachments and I have to retype them." "Nobody knows which invoice numbers we've used."
Who has to use it
A desk assistant, a judge, a rider, a site supervisor on a phone with bad signal. The hardest person to build for is the one nobody mentions until the end.
The date that isn't moving
A closing date, a season start, an event. If there is one, it sets everything else, and we'd rather plan around it than discover it.