Manifesto
How the work gets done.
Ten principles. They decide what ships, what gets charged for, and how the people who hand over their money and their data get treated. Every hard call comes back to this page.
- 01
Make things worth keeping.
If the person who paid for it would not be glad they did a year from now, we do not ship it. That bar is the only one that matters.
- 02
Software that does not poke you.
Apps should disappear into the work. No notifications begging you to come back. No streak shame. No dark patterns. The app is there when you need it, gone when you do not.
- 03
Local-first by default.
Your data lives on your device unless you opt in. When it does leave, it leaves encrypted with a key only you hold.
- 04
No advertising business model.
When a product costs money, the price is fair and it's for the product. The business never runs on selling a user's attention.
- 05
Think in years, not weeks.
Better a little slow and right than fast and forgettable. Chasing whatever's hot this month is how good ideas get watered down, so it doesn't happen here.
- 06
One thing well, then the next thing.
A focused tool that excels beats a swiss-army-knife that's mediocre at ten things. Each product earns its place by being the best at one job.
- 07
Talk to people like adults.
No manipulation, no gamification, no patronising tone. The writing assumes you are smart and short on time. The products assume the same.
- 08
Show your work.
Pricing is published. Limits are explicit. Roadmaps are public. The thing the user paid for is the thing they get, and they can always see why.
- 09
One studio. Solutions that stand on their own.
Intriguing Insight is the studio. The solutions it builds, BabyBlocks, Foundry, ScreenForge, each get their own voice, audience, and home page. The shared layer is these principles and the studio behind them. The reader and user always know which brand they are with.
- 10
If we got it wrong, we say so.
Mistakes get a public correction, not a quiet retcon. Outages get a postmortem. Incidents get a write-up. Trust grows when nothing is hidden.
If you only remember one thing
Make a book someone actually finishes, and an app they actually keep. The rest follows from that.