8. If I Were You: The Next 90 Days
The single most important thing
Get 5 EU web agencies paying at least €99/month for a hand-run monthly accessibility report before you build the product.
- Segment: agencies with 10–60 client sites on WooCommerce/WordPress, Shopify or Shopware, in one market (Germany/Austria or the Netherlands).
- Job: "Give me a monthly report I can send each client under my brand: what's wrong, the top fixes, a current accessibility statement, and a record of what we've done."
- How: a concierge MVP. Run axe-core with Playwright from the command line, do a short manual keyboard and screen-reader pass, and assemble the report and statement from templates. Charge from week 3. Automate only what you've done by hand at least 20 times.
Plan below assumes ~15 hrs/week. Full-time, compress it into about 8 weeks and double the call targets.
Week-by-week
| Weeks | Goal | Exit criteria |
|---|---|---|
| 1–2 | Setup and discovery. Pick the market. Sign the accessibility advisor (condition 1). List 50 agencies from partner directories. Book 20 calls. Ask: what are clients asking about the EAA, what do you do today, what would you charge a client monthly for this, what tool do you use now? | 20 calls booked, 10 done. Advisor signed. You can write the top 3 agency pains in their words. |
| 3–4 | Concierge offer. Draft the claims policy with the advisor. Build the report template (template-grouped top 10 fixes, "what we did not test", manual check notes) and one statement template in the market language. Offer 3 months at €99/month for up to 10 client sites. | 3 agencies paying. If fewer than 2 will pay, the pain isn't real in this market. Change market or agency type, not the pitch. |
| 5–6 | Deliver and learn. Run the first monthly reports by hand. Time every step. Note which parts agencies forward to clients. | 5 agencies paying by day 45 (condition 3). Each agency has sent at least one report to a client. |
| 7–10 | Build the thin v1 (web only): scheduled template-sample scans on axe-core, template grouping, multi-client dashboard, white-label PDF, statement generator (1 language), manual checklist with evidence capture, evidence file export. EU hosting, DPA, terms and report disclaimer. | Concierge agencies moved onto v1. Report assembly time per client under 10 minutes. |
| 11–12 | Prospect loop and decision. Add the free prospect scan agencies can send to leads. Publish the first enforcement-tracker post in the market language. Measure. | Full-time: 8 paying accounts, ≥$1k MRR. 15 hrs/week: 5 accounts, ≥$600 MRR. Every month-1 payer renewed. At least one agency on 10+ client sites. |
Kill criteria (write these down now)
If at day 90 you have fewer than 3 paying agencies, or any concierge agency cancelled after month 1 because "clients don't care", the wedge is wrong in this market. Don't add features. Change the market (DACH ↔ Netherlands) or the agency type (WooCommerce ↔ Shopify) once. If it fails twice, stop.
Time budget at ~15 hrs/week
| Activity | Weeks 1–6 | Weeks 7–12 |
|---|---|---|
| Calls and follow-ups | 7 hrs | 4 hrs |
| Concierge delivery | 5 hrs | 2 hrs |
| Building | 2 hrs | 8 hrs |
| Content (enforcement tracker) | 1 hr | 1 hr |
The one thing to stop doing
Stop aiming at small Shopify and WooCommerce stores.
Most of them are legally exempt (under 10 staff and ≤€2M). The rest already choose between overlay apps and $0–29 scanners, and they cancel after the first cleanup. Every hour spent on an app-store listing is an hour not spent with an agency that could bring 30 sites.
A close second: stop using the word "compliant", in the pitch, the domain name ideas, the landing page and your own head. The product monitors, prioritises and records. It doesn't certify.
What stays on the long-term roadmap (only after proof)
- Scripted checkout journeys and CI checks (Agency Plus).
- A second language and market.
- Direct plan for in-scope mid-size businesses without an agency.
- Partner-auditor referral network (referral fee revenue).
- Then, with a few hundred agency accounts: a quarterly e-commerce accessibility index, and possibly a US version for agencies that also serve US clients.