Principles that
guide us
How we think about design, business, and building products that matter. These aren't just words on a page—they're decisions we make every day.
Design Philosophy
How we approach visual design, user experience, and interface craft
Start with constraints, not possibilities
Constraints fuel creativity. By eliminating gradients, we make bolder color choices. By limiting complexity, we create clarity. The best designs emerge when we work within intentional boundaries.
Design is how it works, not just how it looks
Beauty without function is decoration. Every interface decision must serve the user's goal. Visual appeal should emerge from purposeful interaction patterns, not arbitrary embellishment.
Brutalist honesty over decorative complexity
Show the structure. Expose the grid. Use bold borders and sharp edges. Authenticity resonates more than polish. Raw, intentional design communicates confidence and respect for users' intelligence.
Solid colors create stronger decisions
Gradients hide uncertainty. Solid colors demand commitment. When you can't blend two options, you're forced to choose the right one. This constraint elevates every design decision.
Accessibility is not optional
Design for everyone or design for no one. High contrast ratios, semantic HTML, keyboard navigation, and screen reader support aren't features—they're fundamental requirements of ethical design.
Every pixel should earn its place
Question everything. Does this shadow serve a purpose? Does this animation guide attention? If a visual element doesn't improve usability or communicate meaning, remove it ruthlessly.
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
— Steve Jobs
We Believe
- →Constraints spark creativity
- →Shipping beats perfecting
- →Open source multiplies impact
- →Users validate assumptions
- →Quality compounds over time
We Don't Believe
- ×More features = better product
- ×Perfect planning prevents execution
- ×Complexity demonstrates expertise
- ×Theory beats real-world testing
- ×Lock-in creates sustainable business
Business Philosophy
How we build sustainable products and serve our developer community
Ship fast, iterate faster
Perfect is the enemy of shipped. Launch at 80% and improve based on real user feedback. The market rewards speed of learning, not theoretical perfection. Momentum beats meditation.
Open source beats closed gardens
Transparency builds trust. Shared code accelerates everyone. When developers win, we all win. The future belongs to communities, not monopolies. Give freely and growth follows.
Developer experience is user experience
Happy developers build better products. Frustrating tools create frustrated teams. Invest in DX like you invest in UX. Great documentation, clear APIs, and smooth workflows compound over time.
Documentation is a feature, not an afterthought
Undocumented features don't exist. Code speaks to machines; docs speak to humans. Write the docs first, build the feature second. If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it deeply.
Free forever means free forever
Build trust through consistency. No bait-and-switch pricing. No feature hostages. When we say free, we mean it. Monetize value-add services, never core functionality. Integrity over revenue.
Build tools we'd want to use
Eat your own dog food. If you wouldn't use it, don't expect others to. The best product teams are their own first customers. Internal pain drives external polish.
“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
— Alan Kay
MVP Philosophy
How we think about building, validating, and shipping minimum viable products
Minimum Viable ≠ Minimum Valuable
MVP doesn't mean broken. It means focused. Ship the smallest version that delivers genuine value. Cut features ruthlessly but never cut quality. Minimum scope, maximum craft.
Focus on the 20% that delivers 80% of value
The Pareto principle is your compass. Identify core value propositions and nail them completely. 80% coverage of 100% features is worse than 100% coverage of 20% features.
Perfect is the enemy of shipped
Done beats perfect. Shipped beats polished. Real users expose real problems that you'd never predict in isolation. The sooner you launch, the sooner you learn, the sooner you win.
Start with the problem, not the solution
Fall in love with problems, not solutions. Validate pain points before building features. The best MVPs solve obvious problems in new ways, not new problems in obvious ways.
Validate with real users, not assumptions
Your intuition is a hypothesis, not a fact. Ship prototypes to actual humans. Watch them struggle. Listen to their silence. Data beats opinions. Behavior beats surveys. Reality beats spreadsheets.
Speed of learning > speed of building
Fast code without insight is just fast failure. Optimize for information gain, not feature count. Run experiments, measure outcomes, kill what doesn't work. Learning velocity compounds.
“If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late.”
— Reid Hoffman
Code Philosophy
How we write maintainable, clear, and purposeful code
Code is read 10x more than it's written
Optimize for clarity, not cleverness. Future developers (including yourself) will thank you. Readable code is maintainable code. Write for humans first, compilers second.
Explicit is better than implicit
Magic creates confusion. Be direct about intent. Clear function names, obvious data flows, and transparent abstractions beat clever shortcuts. Boring code is reliable code.
Optimize for deletion, not addition
The best code is no code. Every line is a liability to maintain. Before adding complexity, ask: can I delete something instead? Simple solutions compound over time.
Make illegal states unrepresentable
Use type systems to prevent bugs, not just document them. Design APIs where invalid operations are impossible. Compile-time safety beats runtime error handling.
Duplication is better than wrong abstraction
Don't force patterns prematurely. Repeat yourself until the right abstraction emerges naturally. Wrong abstractions are harder to fix than duplicated code. Wait for clarity.
“Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.”
— Martin Fowler
Collaboration Philosophy
How we work together, communicate, and build high-trust teams
Async by default, sync when needed
Respect deep work time. Default to written communication. Schedule meetings only when real-time discussion adds clear value. Time zones shouldn't block progress.
Documentation beats meetings
Write it down. Decisions made in meetings evaporate without documentation. Written context scales infinitely. Good docs prevent repeated questions and enable autonomous work.
Trust scales better than process
Hire great people, then get out of their way. Micromanagement kills momentum. Trust creates ownership. Autonomy attracts talent. Process should enable, not constrain.
Disagree and commit
Debate ideas vigorously, then align completely. Lingering disagreement after decisions is toxic. Commit fully even when you disagree. Unity of execution beats perfection of planning.
Feedback is a gift, not an attack
Critique work, not people. Assume good intent. Directness builds trust. Withholding feedback is unkind. Growth requires uncomfortable conversations. Make feedback normal, not scary.
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
— African Proverb
Product Philosophy
How we build products users love and problems worth solving
Fall in love with problems, not solutions
Your solution is a hypothesis. The problem is the truth. Stay flexible on how, stay rigid on why. When you love your solution too much, you stop listening to users.
Build for power users, design for beginners
Make it simple to start, powerful to master. Onboarding should be effortless, advanced features shouldn't compromise simplicity. Progressive disclosure is your friend.
Every feature has a cost
Features aren't free. They add complexity, maintenance burden, and cognitive load. Before saying yes, consider what you're saying no to. Subtraction can be innovation.
User feedback is a compass, not a roadmap
Listen to problems, not solutions. Users know what hurts, not what heals. Ask 'why' five times. Build for the pain beneath the request, not the request itself.
Distribution beats features
The best product that nobody knows about loses to the good product everyone uses. Build sharing into the core experience. Word-of-mouth is your sustainable moat.
“Make something people want.”
— Paul Graham
Performance Philosophy
How we prioritize speed, optimization, and exceptional user experiences
Fast is a feature
Speed isn't a technical detail—it's a user experience multiplier. Every 100ms of latency costs you users. Performance is the most underrated feature you can ship. Make it feel instant.
Measure before optimizing
Gut feelings lie. Profile, don't guess. Premature optimization wastes time. Identify bottlenecks with data, then fix what actually matters. Measure twice, optimize once.
Progressive enhancement beats graceful degradation
Start with core functionality that works everywhere. Add enhancements for capable devices. Don't build for the best case then patch for the worst. Build up, not down.
Loading states are part of the design
Don't leave users wondering. Skeleton screens, progress indicators, and optimistic updates aren't nice-to-haves. Perceived performance often matters more than actual performance.
Performance budgets prevent regressions
Set limits and enforce them. Bundle size, time to interactive, core web vitals—track what matters. Features that break the budget don't ship. Make performance non-negotiable.
“Performance is not just a metric, it's a user experience.”
— Addy Osmani
Ready to build with these principles?
Explore our component library built with these philosophies at its core. Every component. Every pattern. Every line of code.