Project Reset Call — 2025-12-16

Overview

Project reset call between ^[1] and ^[2] (Asymmetric) and ^[3] (client-side PM/fractional CTO). Purpose was to define a clear path forward after prolonged scope creep and stalled progress on the Bookly booking integration.

Attendees:
- Melissa Cusumano (Asymmetric)
- Mark Hope (Asymmetric)
- Chris Ostergaard (Asymmetric)
- Isahaque Mahmud / Eshock (Asymmetric, developer)
- Kimberly Gehrmann (external, client-side PM)
- Lisa Frommelt (La Marie Beauty)
- Katie Schueller (La Marie Beauty)
- Roxana Lopez (La Marie Beauty)

Key Decisions

• Technical report first, then scope/budget. Kimberly will deliver a written technical report by Dec 26 covering Bookly's capabilities, limitations, and open questions around the Bookly–WooCommerce–Square integration. This report gates the scope/budget conversation.
• Team sync moved to Monday Dec 29. The previously scheduled Tuesday Dec 30 team call is moved to Mon Dec 29 at 3 PM to allow time for Melissa to review the report and consult with Eshock before the one-on-one.
• One-on-one (Melissa + Kimberly) tentatively Dec 30 at 11 AM. This meeting will decide scope, budget, and timeline. Roxana is not included — this is a delegated-authority conversation between the two PMs.
• Two forward paths identified for Dec 30 decision:
  1. Launch with Bookly's default/plug-and-play features, then scope a separate SOW for custom work.
  2. Abandon Bookly for a fully custom build.
• Kimberly approved to email Eshock directly, CC'ing Melissa, for technical coordination.

Action Items

Technical Discussion

Bookly Investigation (Kimberly)

Kimberly conducted a deep-dive into Bookly's feature set. Key findings:

• Compound services may address the "variants" problem that had been a friction point.
• Custom service-specific forms can be created per service category (e.g., one form for all microneedling options), avoiding the "Flash Services" page problem where every possible service was exposed to clients at once.
• WooCommerce integration still needs investigation. Kimberly realized mid-investigation that the Bookly scope cannot be assessed in isolation — the Bookly–WooCommerce combination must be evaluated together. This is not yet complete.
• Add-ons audit needed. Bookly has many purchasable add-ons; Kimberly still needs to audit which have been purchased vs. which are available.

"Bookly is designed to be plug and play and support generic things. And that's not what Lisa wants. What she wants is something that's very custom." — Kimberly Gehrmann

Critical Blocker: Square API Credit Card Tokenization

Status: Not working.

The custom PHP integration built by Eshock to tokenize credit cards via the Square API through WooCommerce is currently failing. This is a go/no-go requirement: La Marie Beauty needs to save a card on file (charged $0 at booking) so staff can later charge cancellation fees.

• This is not a Bookly-native feature — the token flow runs through WooCommerce → Square API.
• Chris Ostergaard previously flagged this as not working before he left the project.
• Zapier was briefly re-enabled at some point and then turned back off; current state is no Zapier in use.
• Eshock's current blocked/unblocked status is unknown as of this call.

Required from Eshock: A summary (written or Loom) of all attempts, what was tried, what was ruled out and why, and whether he is currently blocked or has remaining approaches to try. This will inform the go/no-go decision on Bookly.

"If he is blocked, what I would find to be very helpful is a summary of his investigations just so I can know what he's tried, what he hasn't tried... it can also help me make the go/no-go decision." — Kimberly Gehrmann

Square as Source of Truth

Lisa's longer-term product vision (a separate SaaS product beyond the website) requires Square to remain the source of truth. Making Bookly the source of truth would conflict with that vision. This architectural constraint must be preserved regardless of which path is chosen.

Scope & Budget Context

• The project has been running significantly longer than planned; Asymmetric had hoped to close it before year-end.
• Lisa paid for two specific deliverables: the Bookly integration and a filter feature. The filter work has been blocked pending product data being fully loaded.
• The core tension: Bookly is a plug-and-play tool; Lisa's vision requires custom behavior. The project has been absorbing scope creep at the boundary between these two realities.
• Rox (Roxana) will not be able to maintain custom PHP code — Kimberly has accepted that ongoing technical ownership will not sit with the client's internal team.

Future Development Resources (Discussed, Not Decided)

• Kimberly has contacts with India-based dev teams at approximately $45/hr for custom work.
• Melissa noted that Asymmetric has an internal custom dev team (led by Dimitri) with existing project knowledge that could bid on future custom work.
• Any custom SOW is hypothetical until the Dec 30 scope decision is made and Lisa agrees to fund additional work.

Transcript Excerpts

On the core scope mismatch:

"There is a vision that Lisa wants, but there might be an upper threshold to what Bookly is able to accomplish with that vision. Thus, with Asymmetric, there's two options... One is to be like, we paid money, we did months and months of investigation, and we're not going to go live because it's not exactly what Lisa wants. I doubt that's the option she's going to pick." — Kimberly Gehrmann

On the tokenization blocker:

"If we can't do that — capture a credit card, charge it $0, but have it on file where we could charge them that cancellation fee — that's still critical. Like styling, to Lisa, critical perhaps. Not critical to we actually make this go live." — Kimberly Gehrmann

On the go/no-go decision ownership:

"You are not technical, but you are the senior person on this project. So therefore, you are relying upon Ishak to make that go/no-go decision to come to you... I'm going to take that on more as opposed to just relying on E-Shock." — Kimberly Gehrmann

Related

• ^[4]
• ^[5] (if exists)