What inspired us to build Flint? The problems we first-hand experienced and the rise of AI-powered IDEs.

Having spent years evangelising meticulously structured design & development processes, we found ourselves questioning long-held beliefs after witnessing what tools like Vercel, Lovable, and Replit can do.

Seeing a complex prototype materialise in hours instead of days challenged our preconceptions. For a long time, we obsessed over even a single screen, to perfect every layer in design and development. Yet, we've had to confront an uncomfortable truth: some of the processes we've advocated might soon be obsolete.

The gap between idea and implementation is closing fast. The barriers that once separated "idea people" from "builders" are vanishing. This won't eliminate the need for deep design expertise - if anything, it makes understanding user needs even more crucial to develop that "product gusto" to come up with solutions that stand out. Technical acumen remains essential, too, as these tools still struggle with human-experience-infused decisions like making trade-offs or determining how long a wonky solution will remain viable. But, going from 0 to 0.3 - 0.5, building a prototype and getting it into the hands of users is no longer the hard part.

So we leaned in. We embraced the tools, reimagined our workflows, and kept a clear-eyed view of their limits. The journey has been fun so far- sometimes we were amazed by the results, other times, we found ourselves in heated debates in a chatbox. Ultimately, this wave of change inspired us to focus on building practical, problem-solving products like Flint - tools that address real-world problems we've experienced firsthand.