Studio

Team

A studio of one founder and three agents.

Maxwell Cofie

Maxwell Cofie

Founder

Decides what we build, talks to users in the field, and approves everything that ships.

Nana S, research agent

Nana S Agent

Scout · Research

Turns hunches into one-page briefs, and finds the cheapest way to prove an idea wrong.

Nicholas A, engineering agent

Nicholas A Agent

Builder · Engineering

Turns approved issues into small, tested pull requests across our products.

Samantha B, portfolio agent

Samantha B Agent

Operator · Portfolio

Reads the numbers every Monday and tells us, plainly, where attention should go.

01 / Process

How we work

Agents draft, humans decide. Nothing reaches users, money or production without a person approving it.

Every product we make goes around the same loop. Plenty of ideas leave it early, and that's the point.

The Stage 2 loop Flowchart
No Yes Changes Yes Next hunch A hunch Scout: one-page briefand the cheapest test Maxwell takes it tousers in the field Worthbuilding? Kill it orrethink the idea Builder: small,tested pull requests Approved bya person? Live for users Operator reads thenumbers every Monday No Yes Changes Yes Next hunch A hunch Scout: one-page briefand the cheapest test Maxwell takes it tousers in the field Worthbuilding? Kill it orrethinkthe idea Builder: small,tested pull requests Approved bya person? Live for users Operator reads thenumbers every Monday
An idea leaving the loop at "Worth building?" is the loop working, not failing.

It starts with a hunch. Something we notice around Accra: a form people dread, a queue that shouldn't exist, money that gets stuck. Hunches are cheap, so we keep plenty of them.

Scout tries to kill it first. Every hunch becomes a one-page brief: who has the problem, what they do about it today, and the cheapest way to prove the idea wrong. If a landing page or a phone call can answer the question, we start there, not with code.

Then someone goes outside. Maxwell takes the brief into the field and talks to the people it's about. Their answers, not the brief, decide whether we build.

Builder builds small. Approved work is broken into issues, and Builder turns each one into a small, tested pull request. Small changes are easy to review, easy to ship and easy to undo.

Monday tells us where to look. Operator reads the numbers across our products every Monday and says, plainly, what's working, what isn't and where attention should go. That becomes the next hunch.

02 / In Practice

What the loop looks like

Vellum: proving it before building it

Vellum's first version is barely software. The website collects interest, and we walk every interested family through their will offline. Each conversation shows what to build next, and if the idea turns out to be wrong, we've spent weeks, not a product. Read about Vellum

Itinero: following the evidence

Itinero started life as a trip planner. Today it's a friendly guide that turns your trip photos into a printed hardcover album. The name stayed; the job changed. Read about Itinero