About chalier.co
A studio of one, on purpose.
Elsewhere on this site you will read "we." Here is who that is.
Who you are dealing with
I am Patrick Chalier.
chalier.co is my studio, based in Lisbon and working with professional services businesses and independent specialists worldwide.
I have worked on the web since 1995, when much of the job was simply showing people what the internet was. I built sites, then spent years as a recruiter placing web talent, which is really a job about judging how people present expertise and earn trust.
When you work with chalier.co, you work with me: the strategy, the structure, the build, and the maintenance afterwards. There is no account manager translating between you and the person doing the work, because they are the same person.
I came back to building around 2018, and the two halves of that career turned out to be the same question: how does someone good at what they do make that obvious to the right person before they ever speak. That is the question professional services firms live with, which is why I work with them.
Why one person, deliberately
A studio of one is not a smaller version of an agency.
It is a different model, and for the right kind of project, a better one.
You get senior judgement on everything, not just the kick-off call. At most agencies, the experienced person sells the project and a less experienced team delivers it. Here, the person who diagnosed the problem is the person who fixes it, which means nothing is lost between the thinking and the doing.
The model has an honest constraint: capacity. I take on a small number of projects at a time, and I decline enquiries that are not the right fit, because the work only stays at this standard if the pipeline stays narrow. If we work together, that constraint works in your favour.
How the work runs
Strategy is signed off before design. Design is signed off before build.
Every engagement starts with the same questions: what does the practice need to be known for, who is the right client, and what must they understand and trust before getting in touch.
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The answers are agreed before design.
The answers are written down, agreed with you, and only then expressed in design and code. Design has a job to do; it is not the job.
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Your time is spent judging, not generating.
I do not send open-ended questions and wait. I send a recommendation, the reasoning behind it, and a request for approval or pushback. A short note arrives every Friday: what was done, what is next, and anything that needs your decision. No meetings held for their own sake.
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I maintain what I build.
A website starts ageing the day it launches, so the engagement does not end there. Changes go through me, one accountable pair of hands, which is how I can stand behind the site's performance for years rather than weeks. You own everything; I operate it.
Who this is for, and who it is not
I work with people who sell expertise, judgement, and trust.
Partners, founders, owners, and independent specialists whose clients form an opinion of them before the first conversation.
Law, consulting, advisory, accounting, and senior practitioners of every specialism.
I am the wrong choice if you want the cheapest possible website, a design refresh with the thinking removed, or guaranteed rankings. Plenty of providers sell those. I would rather tell you that here than discover it together three weeks into a project.
Where
Lisbon, Portugal.
Clients worldwide, in English and French. Comfortable overlap with UK and European business hours.
Start the conversation
If this sounds like the way you would want it done, tell me about the practice.
A direct reply within one business day, with an honest read on whether I can help.