Two things I built that are still going.

POW XD is the studio I started in 2009. It has run alongside every job I've had since, which is deliberate. Working directly with founders keeps me close to the parts of the job that are easy to lose sight of inside a large organisation.

The work spans brand, digital product, ecommerce and fractional design leadership. Most of it starts with a business that knows something isn't working but hasn't yet decided what the actual problem is. That part, working out what's worth building before anyone builds it, is usually where I'm most useful.

I keep it small on purpose. When a project needs skills I haven't got, I bring in specialists I've worked with for years rather than carrying a payroll. It means the person you meet is the person doing the work.

UX Companion started as a simple problem. There's a lot of vocabulary in this industry, plenty of it used loosely, and no single place to look something up and get a plain answer.

So I built one. Each entry pairs a definition written in normal English with a short note on what it actually means for your work. It's the sort of thing I'd have wanted when I was starting out.

It gets used by students and practitioners, which is quietly one of the things I'm most pleased about.