For founders
What a $2,000 design sprint delivers, day by day
Five days from a brief to a clickable prototype and a one-page scope you can take to any developer. Not a mood board, not a deck of options: one flow, every state, tested by you on day four. Here is each day.
Prashant Kumar Singh · · 4 min read
In short
- Day 1: the one user job, written down and agreed. Day 2: flows on paper and the cuts decided. Day 3: screens in Figma. Day 4: clickable prototype, tested by you. Day 5: polish, a one-page scope, a build estimate.
- The output is a prototype any developer can build from and a scope any developer can quote from. You own both.
- $2,000, fixed. The free teardown comes first and is where the sprint's brief is written.
A design sprint is a week that ends with something you can click. Not a brand exploration, not three directions to choose between, not a slide deck about your users. One flow, designed to the last state, in a prototype you have already tested, with a scope document that any developer, including me, can turn into a quote. Here is what happens on each of the five days.
Day 1: the one user job
We write one sentence: who the user is and what they are trying to get done. Then the first result they should see, and what has to be true for them to get it. Everything in the sprint is tested against this sentence. If a screen does not help this person do this job, it is not in the sprint. Day one ends with the sentence agreed in writing and the free teardown's cuts confirmed.
Day 2: flows on paper, cuts decided
The flow is drawn as boxes before any pixels: every screen, every decision point, every error. This is where most of the cutting happens, because a flow on paper makes it obvious which steps are there for the product and which are there for the user. By the end of the day the flow is three to six screens and every one of them earns its place.
Day 3: screens in Figma
The flow becomes real screens, at real size, with real copy. Not lorem ipsum: the words a user will read, because the words are most of the design. Every state is drawn: empty, loading, error, success, the edge case where the data is missing. A screen with only a happy path is half a screen.
Day 4: clickable prototype, tested by you
The screens are linked into a prototype you can click through on your phone or laptop. You use it as if it were the product. You get stuck somewhere, or you notice the second step asks for something your users will not have, and I fix it that afternoon. Day four is the cheapest testing you will ever do, because the thing being tested costs nothing to change.
Day 5: polish, scope, estimate
The prototype gets its final pass. Then the one-page scope: the flow, the screens, the states, the data model implied by them, the integrations needed, and what is explicitly out. And a build estimate, which for a one-flow MVP is usually the $3,000 sprint. You can take the scope to any developer; it is written so that they can quote from it without a call.
| Day | Output | Your part |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The user-job sentence, agreed | Agree it |
| 2 | The flow on paper, cuts decided | Approve the cuts |
| 3 | Screens in Figma, every state | Read the copy |
| 4 | Clickable prototype | Use it, tell me where you got stuck |
| 5 | Polished prototype, one-page scope, estimate | Decide what happens next |
Who the sprint is for
Founders who know what they want to build and need it designed well enough to build or to raise on. Teams with an engineer and no designer. Anyone who has a feature idea and wants to know, for $2,000 and a week, what it would look like and cost before committing a quarter to it. It starts with the free teardown, which is where the day-one sentence usually gets written.
Questions people ask
- What does a design sprint deliver?
- A clickable prototype of one complete flow, with every state designed, tested by the client on day four, plus a one-page scope document and a build estimate any developer can quote from.
- How much does a design sprint cost?
- $2,000, fixed, for five days. The scope is agreed in the free teardown beforehand so the price does not move.
- What happens after a design sprint?
- You own the Figma file, the prototype and the scope. The next step can be a $3,000 MVP sprint with me, a build by your own team, or a quote from any developer using the scope document.
If you're a founder
Send the idea or the half-built product. The free teardown comes back with the day-one sentence drafted, and the sprint can start the following Monday.
If you run an AI lab or data team
A programme's guideline is designed the same way: one page, every state (what to do when the spec is ambiguous, when a test fails, when the environment breaks), tested on a small batch before volume.
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