Before working with you, we didn't even have a designer: our developers handled UI/UX with the product team, and the results were decent, but they weren't getting us where we wanted to go. At a time when writing software is quickly becoming a commodity, the real differentiator is no longer knowing how to code, but building an experience people enjoy using — UI, UX, usability, attention to detail. Exactly the areas where AI still doesn't quite deliver today. To make that leap, we needed specialized expertise we didn't have in-house. I had some doubts at first. They were about how far the impact would reach: I wondered whether a designer's work would stay within the product or extend to our brand and how the market sees us. It was a bet. Less than 2 months in, I was convinced, because the impact went well beyond the interface. Thomas is our designer, and he's been with us for over six months. What sets him apart isn't so much the quality of his work, which we expected, but how he fit in as one of our own from the very first week. He's become our go-to person internally, a core part of the team, always willing to go that extra mile no contract can guarantee. A vendor does what you ask; Thom started coming to me with ideas for what we should do. And the moment multinationals started writing to tell us how awesome the product was, I knew Hooop had been the right choice. The difference from other platforms is where you start. Others start with skills: they find a profile that matches the brief on paper and hand it over. You start with the person and the cultural fit, and you feel it immediately when that person joins a team where culture isn't a poster on the wall, but how we actually work every day. You can assess a skill in a half-hour interview; cultural alignment is another story. And that's exactly what separates someone who follows instructions from someone who becomes part of the company. When you're building a company, the hard part isn't finding someone who knows how to do something. It's finding someone who wants to do it with you and in the way you've chosen to do it. That's where all the value you've brought us lives. People, not profiles (it's not just a slogan).