Blog
Notes on deciding what to build.
I'm Fanni Csincsák, and most of this comes out of the work. I assessed 40 AI use cases inside a regulated European enterprise and roughly 1 in 10 turned out not to be AI at all. MIT’s Project NANDA put the share of generative AI pilots with no measurable effect on profit and loss at around 95%, across 300 disclosed deployments — a figure about return, not whether anything shipped. The gap between those two numbers is what the recent pieces are about.
The older ones cover startups, product decisions and the design principles underneath them, written when Olively was a product design practice.
Showing all 49 pieces
Everything else
The rest of the archive.
AI
Why most AI pilots never reach production
The number everyone quotes is 95%. What it measures is not what most people think.
AI
What an AI readiness assessment actually covers
Five things it should tell you, and the one question that does most of the work.
AI
What to ask before hiring an AI consultant
Seven questions, and what a weak answer to each one tells you.
AI
How to scope an AI pilot so it can actually ship
One number, one workflow, and a written condition for stopping.
AI
What AI consulting costs, and what changes the number
My prices are published. Here is what sits behind them, and what moves them.
AI
How to Build an AI MVP
Scope it around one measurable outcome, or it joins the 95%.
Startups & funding
How to Pitch Your Startup to Investors to Get Funded
The deck, the order, and the questions you should expect.
AI
Product vs Project Manager - What's the Difference?
One owns what and why. The other owns how and when.
Startups & funding
Strategies for Digital Startups to Grow in Recession
Downturns reset who you are competing against.
AI
How to Build a HealthTech MVP
What to scope in, and what regulation forces you to leave out.
AI
How to Build a Fintech MVP
What belongs in version one when compliance starts on day one.
Startups & funding
Making Remote Work Work for Your Digital Startup During Recession
What changes when budgets tighten and the team is distributed.
Startups & funding
How to get investors for your digital startup?
What investors check before the first cheque.
Design principles
Tesler's Law: Balancing Complexity in Product Design
Either the product absorbs the complexity or the user does.
Roles & hiring
Product Designer vs User Experience Designer - Which one do you need?
The titles overlap. The roles do not.
Design principles
Postel's Law in Product Design
Be liberal in what you accept, strict in what you send.
Startups & funding
How to boost sales for your digital startup business?
Most sales problems are product problems in disguise.
Design principles
Peak-End Rule in Product Design and Business
People remember the peak and the ending, not the average.
Teams & process
How to motivate your startup’s product team?
Ownership beats perks, every time.
Roles & hiring
Why do you need a UX or Product Designer?
Those decisions get made either way. The question is by whom.
Design principles
Parkinson's Law in Product Design
Work expands to fill the time. So does scope.
Design principles
The Pareto Principle in Product Design
A small share of features carries most of the value.
Teams & process
How to Increase Your Digital Startup's Performance (By Using the Right Management Framework) - Part 2
Part two: putting it into practice without stalling.
Teams & process
How to Increase Your Digital Startup's Performance (By Using the Right Management Framework) - Part 1
Part one: picking one that fits how the team already works.
Design principles
Occam's Razor in Product Design
The simplest thing that solves the problem usually wins.
Strategy
How to simplify digital products and increase value?
Cutting is harder than adding, and usually worth more.
Roles & hiring
What does a UX or Product Designer do?
Beyond screens: framing problems and making trade-offs.
Design principles
Jakob's Law: Why Users Expect Your Product to Work Like the Others
When to follow convention, and when to break it.
Roles & hiring
What is a User Experience / Product Designer Consultancy?
What you get, how it is scoped, and how to judge it.
Design principles
The Doherty Threshold in UX Design
Under 400 milliseconds, attention holds. Over it, it leaks.
Roles & hiring
Why Do You Need a Product Design Consultant to Achieve Business Success?
What an outsider buys you, and what it costs.
Design principles
The Power of Uniform Connectedness in Product Design
The strongest grouping principle, and how to use it.
Design principles
The Power of the Law of Pragnanz in Product Design
People resolve complexity into the simplest form available.
Design principles
The Law of Proximity in Product Design: Enhancing User Experience
Things placed close together are read as related.
Design principles
Power of Common Region in User-Centric Product Design
A shared background does what spacing alone cannot.
Design principles
The Law of Similarity in Product Design
Things that look alike are read as doing alike.
Design principles
Gestalt Psychology in Product Design
People see groups before they see parts.
Design principles
Miller's Law: Enhancing User Experience
What it says about memory, and what it is often misquoted as saying.
Design principles
The UX laws worth knowing, and when each one applies
Seventeen principles grouped by the decision each one helps you make.
Design principles
Hick’s Law in Product Design
Every extra choice adds time to the decision.
Startups & funding
As a CEO, This Is How You Can Completely Mess Up Research for Your Digital Startup Business
How founders distort their own research without meaning to.
Design principles
The Power of Fitts’ Law in Product Design
Size and distance decide how fast a target can be hit.
AI
Building Digital Products in a Recession
What still gets funded when budgets shrink.
Strategy
Ten Principles of Good Design: Business and Design Aspects
Rams' ten, read against digital products and business decisions.
Strategy
Mission-Driven Business: Integrating Strategy, Purpose, and Design Principles
A mission is only useful if it changes a decision.
AI
The Business KPIs That Matter in Digital Products
Most dashboards measure activity, not value.
Roles & hiring
What is User Experience (UX)?
A plain definition, and why the distinction matters.
Nothing matches that.
Your turn
Most of this comes down to one question.
Whether the thing in front of you is worth building. That's the conversation I have most often, and it usually takes twenty minutes.