thoughtbot is a design and development consultancy. Companies work with thoughtbot to help them kick off their businesses by validating and building out their new, risky product ideas, but we also help with hiring, building out teams and culture, and other internal matters. I worked on one person startups to Fortune 500 enterprises, universities, and non-profits. This was always in small, purpose-built teams, selected to fit the needs of each project. I engaged in full, end-to-end partnerships with the companies I worked with: helping companies de-risk their ideas so that they could find product-market fit, build MVPs on that, and learn.
I've worked with clients like Houseparty (now acquired by Epic Games), True Botanicals, Bulletproof Coffee, the San Mateo County of California, and more, to build validated MVPs—helping these organizations improve their internal experiences (in the case of my work with San Mateo county), grow their offerings, or just get off the ground altogether!
Another thing that's unique about thoughtbot is that designers are expected to perform as front-end developers as well—I've worked in a range of codebases: React Native, ReactJS, Rails, and more. Everything we design, we are expected to implement. Designers are brought on from thoughtbot to help companies build out design teams and practices—I worked with our clients to provide a source of mentoring, cultural development, and kickstart design hiring.
I've helped True Botanicals—increasingly outgrowing off-the-shelf tools like Shopify—become a true software company, with their own, custom codebase to match; I've designed & developed Houseparty's desktop experience, bringing React expertise to the team; worked with Bulletproof Coffee's own Bulletproof Labs to design the first software solutions that will help towards their new venture as a biohacking gym.
Unfortunately, the pandemic created challenges for thoughtbot, and the SF office my team and I worked out of had to be closed.
