On selectivity.
Why we turn down most of the work that comes through the door — and why the work we take on benefits from it.
We say no to roughly 80% of the projects that reach us. Not because we're precious about it, but because we've learned that the work we're most proud of came from a very specific set of conditions — and we've gotten better at recognizing when those conditions are present.
The case for friction
A studio that takes everything becomes a vendor. A vendor optimizes for throughput. We optimize for the work. The two are incompatible. Every project we take on gets a full team, real attention, and our actual opinion. That's not possible if we're running at full capacity with clients we're only partially bought in on.
Saying no also does something for the people we say yes to. When a client knows we turned down three other projects that month, they understand what it means that we chose theirs. The dynamic is different from the start. There's more trust, more access, and usually a better outcome.
What we're actually looking for
We're not looking for any particular industry or budget. We're looking for a specific kind of founder or team — people who have a strong point of view about what they're building, but enough self-awareness to know they need help articulating it. The best clients are the ones with strong taste and real stakes.
We're not looking for the easiest brief. We're looking for the one we'd regret not taking.
This approach has a cost. There are months where it's uncomfortable. But it's produced a body of work we can stand behind entirely, which we think is rarer than people admit.