Lately, I have been incredibly busy attending, facilitating, and speaking at various industry events. Stepping outside the daily routine really made me reflect on what we have built, and I started to feel exceptionally good about our agency. Our humble, boutique agency…
The Corporate Temptation
There was a time when I seriously considered getting a job at a massive corporate company. The business where the entire Seedable team was working at the time was falling apart in the most unimaginable way possible. It is a whole other story, but if you know, you know.
I was tempted by the financial security. I knew I could get paid well, actually almost twice what I was making at the time. However, I stopped to think about all the learning and adapting I would have to do in a completely new corporate dynamic. Learning and adapting are things I can easily manage, and I genuinely enjoy them because I love a good challenge. What worried me was knowing that a corporate environment would mean proving my worth all over again.
In the past, I have not always had the best experiences in working for companies. I have felt betrayed and used when I least expected it, often when I was putting in the most effort and giving my absolute all. Was I really ready to open myself up to that level of vulnerability and dependency again?
Loyalty, Trust, and the Birth of Seedable Studio
Then I thought about my team and our clients. I felt a deep sense of loyalty towards them, and I simply could not imagine abandoning them just for money. I have never been driven solely by financial outcomes, and I do always question myself for that. Where would I be today if I had valued money over relationships, doing good work, and collaborating with people I genuinely like? Who knows…
What I know though is that I was lucky that Lowri was feeling exactly the same way about finding “another job”. She was heavily pregnant at the time, and feeling let down from the disappointments caused by agency life. So we started talking about what it would look like to start our own thing… When we took the idea to Perry, he happily jumped on board immediately, noting that he really did not want to work for giant corporate machines anyway.
This shared vision, along with the incredible faith of our investors and our team, is what made Seedable Studio happen. Our entire team chose to stay with us, every single one of them. We have not lost a single team member since we started, and I am incredibly proud of that record. If there is anything that keeps me grounded, it is knowing we must be doing something right if that is the case.
We are a young, small team, and I constantly come back to how wonderful that is. The recent events I attended underlined this reality for me, once again.
The Reality of the Corporate Race
I noticed there is an immense amount of pressure when you work within large, established companies. Because they face intense competition, they are almost always in a frantic race. They feel they must be the absolute first to adopt or release a feature, or they have to move at speed just to maintain their competitive edge. They are forced to adopt the latest technologies immediately, whether it makes sense or not.
Because the teams in these organisations are so massive, they usually end up disconnected or entirely dysfunctional.
The AI Pressure Trap
One major theme I kept hearing about at these events was the overwhelming pressure to use AI. Large corporations have massive budgets to waste on API tokens because, apparently, what matters most to them is just using AI at any cost. They do it simply to say they are in the AI game, up to date, and leading the market. To be honest, it makes no sense to me. If anybody wants to help me understand the logic behind that approach, please do.
Alternatively, big companies use AI to cut overheads or to churn more work. They pressure their creative teams to use it for design work while knowing nothing about their day to day worklife. Design leads become powerless to support their teams through these confusing times as they can see the team struggles having to force AI tools into their workflow. These CEO’s /CTO’s seem to fail to see how AI can actually cause more work in many scenarios, and they miss how unhappy and anxious their teams are about the entire situation.
I cannot imagine a world where I would not listen to our designers or developers. If they try a method I suggest and raise a genuine case about how it makes their lives more difficult rather than easier and more enjoyable, we change direction. Forcing tools over people seems completely mad to me.
Misaligned Values and Broken Culture
I also realised that large organisations suffer from deep misalignment and a severe lack of communication regarding core values. Team members regularly voice frustrations about the company vision, feeling unseen, and being forced to follow a workplace culture that no longer serves them. It was genuinely surprising to hear that there are still product teams out there struggling just to prove the basic worth of UX design to their managers.
I have been reading an excellent book on AI implementation recently, and it made something beautifully clear to me about team size.
Small Team Agility vs. Corporate Scale
- Decision Making: Being a small team means we can make decisions on the spot and start implementing them immediately. There are no long approval chains and no endless slide decks. There is only swift action.
- Problem Solving: If we spot a process issue, we flag it, tweak the approach, and move on in real time.
- Culture Integration: When it comes to our own AI culture and introducing new steps into how we work, the process is simple. We run a quick survey or have an honest chat during a morning standup. We gather feedback, analyse it, make a decision, and implement it. Job done.
Big agencies have scale, but small teams have agility. Right now, that agility is absolutely everything.
The disconnect between corporate leadership and hands on teams makes it far too easy for large companies to lose great people. They focus heavily on bottom line benefits rather than human beings. I am sure massive companies that truly care for their people do exist, but I am starting to see that they are exceptionally rare.
A Note for Designers and Developers
If you are a designer or developer in a small team and you are wondering what is next for you, or perhaps you are looking longingly at the massive portfolios of giant companies, please remember these realities.
If you are thinking about moving to a much larger company for a higher salary, be prepared for everything that comes with it. There is absolutely no judgment here. If financial growth is your primary drive right now, there is nothing wrong with that at all. However, it is always better to go into that environment fully prepared for the culture you will encounter.
We believe in building sustainable digital solutions while remaining a true, long-term technical partner to our clients. Our focus will always remain on making sure product ideas solve real problems and protecting the well-being of the humans who we build the technology for.
If you are looking for a team that values people and agility over corporate decks, talk to us about your project.
