About — the studio
Small on purpose.Senior by default.
Stepmade is a collective of senior designers, developers and strategists in Los Angeles. We got tired of the traditional agency game, so we built the studio we’d want to hire: no juniors learning on your dime, no layers of account management, and a stake in every project we take on.
- Based in
- Los Angeles
- Team
- Senior only
- Projects
- Ideally one at a time
- Model
- Everyone owns a stake
How a project runs
The same four steps whether we end up shipping a homepage, a piece of software or a company. The medium gets picked in step two, not in the proposal.
- 01
Listen
We meet the people involved and map the problem before anyone opens a design tool.
- 02
Define
We name the problem in one sentence and agree on what solved looks like. Then we choose the medium.
- 03
Build
Design and code move together, with you in the room. You see real work early and often, not a big reveal at the end.
- 04
Stay close
We launch, learn and keep improving. Owning a stake means we don’t disappear at handoff.
What we can build
Same people across every column. That’s the point.
Websites
- Strategy & messaging
- Brand identity
- Web design
- Development
- Launch & CMS
Products & software
- Product strategy
- UX & UI design
- Design systems
- Web & app development
- Internal tools
Services & systems
- Service design
- Journey mapping
- Onboarding
- Operations tooling
- Messaging & voice
Ventures
- Business design
- Naming & brand
- MVP build
- Go-to-market
- Our own: LinkPier
We build our own, too
We don’t just advise founders. We are founders.
LinkPier is a Stepmade venture: designed, built and backed by the same people who’d work on your project. Every lesson from running our own company comes with us.
VIEW THE LINKPIER CASE STUDY