How quickly can we launch a usable version for a fixed campaign date?
For initial screening—not a delivery promise—Wavesteam may target 3–10 working days for a campaign page or registration loop built on ready accounts, content, infrastructure, and proven services; 2–4 weeks for a lightweight mini program; and at least 6–12 weeks for a usable first release with custom transactions, a substantial admin system, or several integrations. The formal date follows a one- or two-day rapid discovery that works backwards from the deadline, essential journey, reviews, and dependencies.
| Route | Best fit | Main risk | Recommendation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Configure mature SaaS/tools | One-off campaign and standard process | Limited branding and rules | Prefer if it completes the event task |
| Add a module to an existing system | Accounts, payments, membership, and admin already exist | Legacy quality and competing release work | Inspect code and capacity first |
| Purpose-built MVP | Campaign logic will become long-term product capability | Review, integration, data, and scope | Use only when continuing value repays the build |
When planning milestones, resources, and acceptance, also compare How should missing mini-program content be diagnosed when the original team is unavailable?; the linked guidance adds context that should be considered in the same decision.
“Usable” names a user, channel, and completed task. A display-and-registration page is not equivalent to login, payment, promotion, refund, redemption, invoice, and analytics. One complete journey is more valuable than ten unfinished screens.
The short range assumes an existing domain and deployment pipeline plus mature form and notification capability. It excludes new payment-merchant onboarding, app-store or mini-program qualification waiting, and elaborate visual effects. A light mini program assumes few roles and standard interfaces. Migration, hardware, algorithms, security review, and multi-party procurement can extend the longer range materially.
On day one, separate essential event-day steps, work that can use a safe manual fallback, work that can follow later, and explicit exclusions. A registration loop might be landing page, form, duplicate prevention, confirmation, admin search, and export. Community, points, rankings, and automated marketing wait.
Map dependencies outside engineering control: entity and industry qualifications, WeChat or store review, payment onboarding, SMS sender, filing, content, privacy terms, third-party APIs, and the client's acceptance owner. Give every dependency an owner, latest date, and fallback. With a fixed date, scope and resources cannot both remain unlimited.
Do not remove payment verification, access isolation, backups, privacy notice, critical tests, or rollback to go faster. Reduce channels, capacity targets, automation, or scope and document temporary manual controls and retirement plans. Acceptance separates “deployed” from “ready for campaign load”: prove core tasks, no P0/P1 defects, valid production identity and certificates, traceable callbacks, restore and rollback, monitoring, and peak tests based on expected users and third-party limits.
Wavesteam produces the recommended route, exclusion list, dependency path, release plan, test and rollback gates, and a contractual date after discovery. Our service process is first-party guidance; the project plan and contract carry the actual commitment.