So yesterday I experienced an amazing real-world UX case of how bad UX is costing a smallish business a fortune in time, money, labour, and happiness. I normally rate these rodeos 4/5, but knowing it’s a 60-year-old lady on the bull, she deserves more than five out of five. So it’s Monday morning. My phone […]
Not hiring a designer is one of the most expensive cost-saving decisions a founder can make. They do look expensive… And jumping into development looks like speed. Lean team. Moving fast. Saving money. And then you ship — and the cracks show. Wrong assumptions baked into the product. Features nobody asked for. Users dropping off […]
Years ago in the early 2000s Apple changed my view on design and introduced me to design thinking. With a borrowed idea. Japanese kitchen appliances had been using magnetic cords for years. The thinking was simple — if someone trips over the cord, it releases. No pull, no spill, no mess. Apple had the same […]
Sitting in the morning, designing and planning my latest app, I realised it again. As a creator and founder, my biggest fear is running out of time before anyone gives a damn about what I built. That’s the real fear. Runway ending. Traction missing. A product that works — but for nobody in particular. And […]
Building the wrong thing. For the product owner — wasted sprints, missed market, team credibility gone. For the investor — burned runway, no traction, no exit. Same fear. Different seats. Same bill. And here’s what most investors don’t realise they’re funding when design is an afterthought — they’re funding assumptions. Unvalidated. Unchallenged. Baked into code […]
There’s a specific kind of stuck that kills startups. Not the dramatic kind where things blow up. The quiet kind where months go by, the team is busy, everyone looks productive, but there’s nothing to show for it. I walked into exactly that on an insurance project. The team had been at it for months. […]
Most corporate teams don’t have a design problem. They have a speed problem. Projects take months.Decisions take weeks.By the time something ships… the opportunity has already shifted. And everyone knows it. The Real Bottleneck Isn’t Design It’s not a lack of talent. It’s not a lack of tools. It’s the way work moves through the […]
Take a walk through any supplement store.Or scroll through cannabis brands online. Everything starts to look… the same. And somehow, every brand thinks they’re different. They’re not. The Problem Isn’t Design. It’s Fear. Most founders in these industries play it safe. Because: So they default to what feels “acceptable.” Clean. Neutral. Inoffensive. But here’s the […]
You don’t need another idea You already have one. Maybe more than one. The real problem is this: 👉 You don’t know if it will work. So you wait.You think.You tweak. You try to get it “right” before you start. And in the process… 👉 Nothing happens. The Trap Most People Fall Into They believe […]
You don’t notice it at first. The delays feel normal. A few meetings.Some feedback rounds.A bit more “alignment.” Another week goes by. Then another. And before you realise it, months have passed —and nothing meaningful has changed. The Lie We’ve Been Sold That good design takes time. That you need: It sounds responsible. It sounds […]