Articles4 min read
· Janiré Castillo
The decision is documented. The reasoning is not.
Most project documentation captures what was decided. Almost none of it captures why. That gap is where client work quietly breaks down.
Six months into a project, someone asks why a particular choice was made.
You find the decision in Notion.
You do not find the reason.
That gap, between what was decided and why, is where a lot of client work quietly breaks down. Not at the time of the decision. Later, when the reasoning is gone and someone has to guess.
Decisions are easy to log. Reasoning is not.
Meeting notes. Slack threads. Email chains. Notion pages with every deliverable tracked.
The decision shows up in all of them. "We are going with option B." "Client approved the revised scope." "Switched from the original vendor."
What rarely makes it into any of them is the reason.
The constraint that made option A impossible. The client preference that came up on a call and never got written down. The tradeoff that seemed obvious in the moment and became invisible three weeks later.
The problem is timing, not tools
This is not a Notion problem or a project management problem.
The moment a decision gets made is rarely the moment anyone stops to document the reasoning. There is a conversation. Something gets decided. Everyone moves on.
The reasoning does not get lost because people are careless. It gets lost because capturing it requires stopping at a moment when stopping feels like interruption.
Marqo is built for that moment.
Marqo is on the App Store. Download on the App Store.
Three fields. That is the whole input.
Every decision in Marqo has three fields: what changed, why it changed, what it affects.
Log the decision. Fill in the reason. Note what it touches. Move on.
The why field is required. You cannot log a decision without it.
That requirement is intentional. Most documentation skips it. Most people wish they had it later.
Clients see the same record
Marqo turns any project into a read-only log your client opens in a browser without an account.
No login. No Notion account. No permissions to set up.
They see what changed, when, and why. In order.
A clear record they can return to without scheduling a call.
The log is the update.
Why I built it
I spent years doing client work.
The part that wore me out was not the decisions. It was re-explaining them.
A choice gets made for good reasons. The project moves forward. Two months later the client asks a question that makes it clear they do not remember the reason. You either reconstruct the context from scratch or let them re-litigate something that was already decided carefully.
I got tired of the second conversation being harder than the first.
Marqo started as a tool for myself. A simple log of what changed and why, kept in one place, available when someone asked.
Documentation that survives three months from now
Most project documentation assumes you still have the context.
Meeting notes assume you were in the meeting. Deliverable lists and status updates assume you remember what led there.
Marqo is for the moment three months from now when someone needs to understand what happened and why.
The decisions are already being made. They just need somewhere to land.
Marqo is on the App Store.
The reasoning
should not get lost.
Marqo keeps a structured log of client decisions: what changed, why it changed, and what it affects. Clients get a read-only view without a login.
- Three fields: what changed, why, what it affects
- Client read-only view, no login required
- On the App Store at $12.99 a month or $129.99 a year
Keep reading
4 min read
Why Your Website Isn't Converting
Most websites don't have a traffic problem. They have a clarity problem.
Read article →4 min read
Your Homepage Is Trying to Say Too Much
Most homepages do not fail because they are missing content. They fail because nothing is prioritized. Everything is there. Nothing is clear.
Read article →