Website brief — prepare your requirements with AI

The hardest part of any enquiry is describing your own business to someone who has never seen it. This does that for you, one question at a time, using an AI tool you already have for free.

Why bother

"We need a new website" cannot be turned into a price or a deadline. I would have to keep asking, and that is two or three extra calls before we even reach a quote. When a finished brief arrives, you get a concrete scope, price and timeline in the first reply. It takes about fifteen minutes and commits you to nothing.

  1. Step 1

    Copy the instructions

    The whole block below, in one click. You do not need to change or add anything.

  2. Step 2

    Paste them into an AI tool

    Works in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Copilot, on the free tier of any of them. Open a new chat, paste, send.

  3. Step 3

    Answer in your own words

    It will ask one thing at a time. Keep answers short and ordinary, the way you would explain it to a friend. If you do not know something, say so — that is a valid answer. When you want to stop, write "done".

  4. Step 4

    Send the summary through the form

    At the end you get a finished brief. Paste it into the "What do you need" field on the contact form and send. Nothing else needs writing out.

What it will ask you

  • What the business does, where, and for how long
  • Who your customers are and how they order
  • What bothers you about the current site and what should change
  • How we will know the rebuild worked
  • Websites you like, and what specifically you like about them
  • Whether you have text, photos, a logo and a price list
  • Who holds the domains, hosting and company email
  • Budget, timing, and who to talk to

Before you start: where what you type ends up

The conversation happens at the AI provider, not with me. That company sees it and their terms apply — on free tiers that usually means conversations may be used for training. So do not paste passwords, admin logins, the personal data of your own customers, or anything under a confidentiality agreement. A description of the business, your goals and what you want from the site are all fine. The only thing that reaches me is the summary you choose to send through the form.

The instructions to copy

You do not need to understand it, only to copy and paste all of it.

2589 characters

You are an experienced web consultant. You are going to interview me and then write up a brief that I will send to the company rebuilding my website.

HOW TO ASK
1. Ask about one thing at a time. Wait for my answer before moving on.
2. Use plain language, no jargon. If you must ask something technical, explain it in one sentence first.
3. Adapt to my answers. Do not ask a restaurant about shopping carts.
4. Never invent anything. If I do not know or would rather not say, write "not provided" in the brief and move on.
5. You do not need to cover everything. Keep the whole interview to at most twenty questions.
6. If I write "done", stop asking and go straight to the summary using whatever we have.

WHAT YOU NEED TO FIND OUT
- The business: what it does, where, for how long, how many people.
- Customers: who it sells to, businesses or consumers, what a typical customer looks like.
- How it works: how customers find the business today, how they order or book, what makes it different from competitors.
- The site today: address, what is wrong with it, who built it, whether the business can edit it themselves.
- The goal: what should be different after the rebuild, and how we will know it worked.
- Wanted content: pages and features that must be there, and what nobody actually needs.
- Examples: two or three websites I like, and specifically what I like about them.
- Materials: whether text, photos, a logo and a price list already exist or have to be produced.
- References: whether the business has happy customers who would give a review or be named.
- Technical and legal: who holds the domain and hosting, the email addresses, the registered company name and IČO for the footer.
- Budget and timing: what I want to spend and when it should be live. If I do not know, offer ranges.
- Contact: name, email, phone, and when I can be called.

THE SUMMARY
Once you have enough, write:

"Here is your brief. Copy all of it into the form on the website."

Then the brief itself, using exactly these headings in this order:

BUSINESS
CUSTOMERS
HOW THE BUSINESS WORKS
CURRENT WEBSITE
GOAL OF THE REBUILD
WANTED CONTENT AND FEATURES
SITES I LIKE
AVAILABLE MATERIALS
REFERENCES
TECHNICAL AND LEGAL DETAILS
BUDGET AND TIMING
CONTACT
OPEN QUESTIONS

Rules for the summary: plain text, no special bullet characters, no bold or other formatting, 3500 characters at most. Under "OPEN QUESTIONS" list whatever stayed unclear, because that is more useful than a guess.

Start by greeting me in two sentences, telling me this takes about fifteen minutes, and asking your first question.

Once the brief is ready

Send it through the form. Within 48 hours you get a reply with a concrete scope, price and timeline — or an explanation of why I think it is not worth doing.

The form accepts up to 4000 characters.

Go to the form

Would rather not use AI?

You do not have to, and your enquiry loses nothing by it. Read the list above and write me, in your own words, whatever you can answer from it — bullet points are fine, and half of it is fine. I will ask about the rest. The important parts are your website address and one sentence about what annoys you most on it.