Notebook / Service as Software

How we prepare a proposal (and why we left Word).

This week we wrote Kenea's first commercial proposal for a real project: a website for getaways with your dog. The first three versions came out of Word and did not work. This is what we changed and the rules we kept.

Author: Alfonso del Busto · Published: 18 September 2026.

What did not work

Versions 1, 2 and 3 were generated with a Word library and converted to PDF with LibreOffice. The result: seven pages, two or three of them half empty, and an 8 or 9 point body so that everything would fit. The document explained a lot and showed little. There was not a single image of the product we were offering. Read the way the client would read it, the question was obvious: what exactly are you selling me, and what does each option cost?

What we changed

We moved the template to Typst, a typesetting system compiled from a plain-text file, like code. The whole proposal is a 200-line .typ file and one command. That let us fix rules that Word broke by the third edit:

• Seven fixed pages: cover, user journey, what the end customer will see, what the administrator will see, what is delivered, investment and what happens after launch. Each page has a one-line headline and a single idea.
• Real screenshots, not drawn mockups. We run the application locally with sample data and photograph it with an automated browser, on desktop and on mobile. If the product changes, we capture it again; we never retouch by hand.
• Three options in one matrix of fifteen rows with ✓ and —, a shaded column for the recommended one, a large price and VAT always visible. Nobody has to read three paragraphs to know what each option includes.
• A “what it does not do” section. In this project the website records the exit towards the hotel but neither charges the stay nor confirms availability. Saying it first avoids an awkward conversation later.
• 10.5 point body, line icons from Lucide and a rule we now apply to everything we print: a page whose lower third is empty is a defect, not a style.

The quote is a separate document

The proposal persuades; the quote commits. That is why they are two documents. The quote has two pages: the first with issuer, client, purpose, line items, taxable base, itemised VAT, total and payment terms (40 % to start, 40 % when the journey is ready for review, 20 % at launch); the second with ten numbered conditions, no small print, and the acceptance box. Amounts are rounded to the cent on each line, not at the end, so the three payments add up to the total. It is valid for thirty days.

What we learned

That format is not cosmetics. When the template forces every page to carry one idea, half the text disappears and what was missing shows up: the image of the product, the price of each option and the list of what the client has to bring. The template lives in our repository, each proposal is a copy with new data, and earlier versions are archived in our SharePoint. The next proposal will take an afternoon, not a week.