What we believe. Specifically.
Most company values are wallpaper. Vague enough to be inoffensive. Generic enough to apply to any company on earth. These are the hills we’ll die on.
THE TOP TEN
1. Fun is a performance lever.
Not fun as in ping-pong tables and pizza Fridays. Fun as in: people do their best creative work when the process has energy, pace, and enjoyment. Grimly dutiful work produces grim results. If the room’s not enjoying the problem, the output will likely suck.
2. Strategy is about trade-offs → what you won’t do.
A strategy that tries to be everything to everyone isn’t a strategy. It’s a committee’s attempt to avoid a decision. The most valuable thing a strategist can do is help you decide what to say no to. That’s where competitive advantage actually lives → in the gaps you choose to leave.
3. Creativity is the last legal unfair advantage.
You can copy someone’s pricing. Their distribution. Their tech stack. You cannot copy original thinking. The sustainable competitive advantage left is the ability to think differently → and the systems that make it repeatable.
4. People make emotional decisions, then justify with logic.
This isn’t opinion → it’s decades of behavioral science research. And it changes everything about how you communicate, position, and sell. If your strategy assumes rational customers, your strategy is already wrong. About behavioral science →
5. AI is copilot, not replacement.
AI should do the boring bits so humans can do the interesting bits. We build AI into every engagement → not to replace the team, but to give them superpowers. Judgment, taste, and creative courage remain human. Everything else is fair game.
6. Direct feedback delivered kindly is a gift.
Not “let me soften this with three compliments first.” Not brutal honesty that mistakes pain for performance. Clear, specific, constructive feedback → delivered with respect and care. The fastest route to better work. The Australian in me finds this easier than most.
7. Constraints enable creativity.
Unlimited budget, unlimited time, no brief → that’s not freedom, that’s paralysis. The best creative work happens inside constraints. A tight brief. A real deadline. A specific audience.
8. Best ideas win regardless of source.
Don’t care if it came from the CEO, the intern, or from AI. If it’s the best idea, it wins. Hierarchy kills creativity faster than almost anything else. Being open to this isn’t easy. But it’s critical.
9. Default to action over analysis paralysis.
Prefer reversible decisions made quickly over perfect ones made slowly. Most decisions in creative work are reversible → you can always change the headline next week. You can’t get back the three months you spent deliberating.
10. Life’s too short for arseholes.
Self-explanatory. We work with good people on interesting problems. If it stops being that, something needs to change.
If you’ve read all ten and you’re nodding, you’re probably our kind of person.
How we use behavioral science →