Before the studio I did research for early-stage teams that could not afford a research team. Fourteen studies in a year, nine startups, one playbook.

The format

• Five interviews, one usability test, one report, one week
• The report fit on two pages and ended with three decisions
• Every study was read out loud to the whole team

The number

Fourteen studies, nine startups, and one onboarding playbook that still gets forwarded to new founders.

The first screen is a promise. Onboarding is where the promise is kept or broken.

What it taught me

That I wanted to build the thing, not describe it. The next job was design, and the one after that was product.

How it ran

Every study had the same shape, so the founders knew what they were buying: five people, one afternoon of sessions, a two-page report on Friday and a call on Monday. I recruited from the team's own waiting list, which was free and honest, and I read the report out loud so nobody could skip to the conclusion. The playbook was the pattern that showed up in all fourteen: the first screen promised something the second screen did not deliver, and the fix was usually to delete the first screen.