About me
I’m a designer, product leader and builder, currently growing ooda.run, working with selected clients through Near Future and running my personal design practice.
While I consider myself primarily a designer, in 2019 I founded Progression, the worlds first career pathway platform. We built a great team, raised over $6m from cool investors and ultimately got acquired in 2024.
Before all that I led consumer design at now foodicorn Deliveroo (LON:ROO) for a bit, powered £1.8m+ of donations for 300k+ NHS staff meals during covid, helped to build a bank for children that made ahem, headlines, published 6 issues and 15,000 copies of a sweary magazine for creative graduates that my dad disapproved of and organised a 30 day creative festival on a dime in the middle of Shoreditch. I also interviewed Goldie and watched him chainsaw a tree, which was nice.
I can mainly be found online on X/Twitter, Bluesky or LinkedIn or adding occasional longer updates on this site (see below).
I take on selected client work. If that sounds like something you’d be into, please drop me an email at [email protected]
Payin' the bills
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Ooda (2026–now)Building secure collaborative hosting for teams -
Near Future (2025–now)One half of a boutique AI Design consultancy -
Toy Studio (2024–2026)Noodling with wild abandon -
Progression (2018–2024)Founded the world's first career pathway platform -
Deliveroo (2015–2018)Led consumer design at the now foodicorn -
Osper (2012–2015)Helped build a bank for children
(and some other jobs before that)
Selected personal projects
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Look Normal (2026)Claude Code in disguise -
designtools.fyi (2026)Explore and compare emergent design tools -
Buzz Cut Coffee (2025)A half caff coffee brand -
Hack Weeks (2025)Supporting the human side of AI adoption -
Found Up North (2025)Community for northern founders -
Bub (2024)A birthday reminder bot that lives in Whatsapp
Recent writing, speaking, etc.
2026
- A mile wide (Aug)Two years after Toy, it's time to consolidate
- Tools for Others (Jul)We can now build tools. But what happens after we've got all the shaders we need?
- I love AI, but it still can't design for shit (Apr)Without a critical human eye, AI produces slop. The quality bar is yours to maintain.
- Strategy & Tragedy podcast with Steph Melodia (Mar)From Deliveroo to deliverance – entrepreneurship lessons on the Strategy & Tragedy podcast
- Life after Figma is coming (and it will be glorious) (Feb)As code becomes source of truth, design tools become interfaces on code, not the other way round.
2025
- Browser wars (Oct)Notes on chatGPT Atlas one day in
- Writing Blog Posts with Claude Code on iOS (Oct)Meta-blogging: Using Claude Code on my iPhone to write about using Claude Code on my iPhone
- Redrawing the Map: How AI Is Splitting the Future of Product Design (Sept)Why designers may face a choice between technical mastery and creative vision
- Designing closer to the edge (May)Will the process of designing in product teams finally get its upgrade?
- Lean In (May)A reflection on the importance of engaging with AI
- A(I) Hack Week (May)Just 6 guys and we're vibin' a good time
- The entrepreneurial escape hatch (Mar)On entrepreneurship in the age of AI
Show 45 older postsHide older posts
2025
2021
- Wait for it (Mar)It's amazing how fast things can happen when you've put in the time
- Distraction and Flow State (Feb)Perhaps we can't blame our phones...
- What did I work on last month? (Feb)And the value of building for fun
- Progression update: early vs late (Feb)A quick one about the A12
- Radio on the internet (Jan)On Spotify and the future of podcasting
- A birthday reminder (Jan)And the one job in my life that Facebook was actually good for
- Love it or hate it? (Jan)On Marmite and first time user experiences.
- Introducing the 500 word founder: Concise regular ramblings of an early stage tech CEO (Jan)
2019
- Growing at work – the importance of progression (Oct)A conference talk at Jam London
- Climbing your mountain (Sept)Talking about my personal journey at Jam Barcelona
- The power of naïve optimism (Sept)When is it OK to believe that everything will be OK?
- Am I a Junior Content Designer? (Aug)On writing becoming my highest leverage skill
- Lost, but making good time (Aug)Switching to sales as a non sales-person
- I have a co-founder! (Jul)It's taken a long time but is totally worth the wait
- Holding My Breath (Mar)The Alpha begins. What the hell happened for the last six months?
- Designing your Design Career (on Youtube) (Jan)A talk at Design Club in London
2018
- Startup Van Interview (on Youtube) (Dec)I was interviewed about bootstrapping and progression
- Progression update: From pilot to alpha (on the Progression blog) (Dec)Moving from Pilot to Alpha, and why
- Week 17: An Indian Summer (Oct)It's been a wild couple of months. Still haven't launched.
- Week 9: Revenue! (Aug)First paying customers! It's alive...
- On Focus (Jul)I’m struggling to stick to a plan…
- Week 5: Bad Goals (Jul)Becoming comfortable with doing lots of things I don't know how do
- Week 3-4: Progression (Jun)
- Week 2: Lifestyle business (Jun)
- Week 1: Doubling down on risk (Jun)
- Building conviction– how one false assumption changed my founder journey (May)My first 100 days as a (kind of) startup founder
2017
- ShellsuitZombie, this is the end. You’re all legends. (Dec)A letter to everyone that ever helped with our little creative graduate magazine
- Go out and empathise! (Nov)How we’re using Experience Principles to keep each other honest at Deliveroo.
- The Deliveroo Design process (on Youtube) (Sept)A talk at Ironhack in Madrid
- Deliveroo x Framer–One Month In (Mar)An honest look at how our design team is incorporating Framer into our workflow.
2016
2015
2013
2011
- Placement Man (Aug)He does the placements so you don't have to
- Skyping Vince Frost (Aug)An interview with British ex-pat design legend Vince Frost
- The great ape Dave Brown (Bollo) (Jun)An interview with Dave Brown, AKA The Mighty Boosh's Ape 'Bollo'
- Pool with Creative Review (Mar)The team behind one of the most successful non-celebrity twitter accounts in the UK