Practice · Sublime Security
I build the systems that scale my taste, execution and speed.
A written way to keep my taste, move faster, and still do the work myself. This is how I work at Sublime. Not a shipped product case.
01 · Understand the problem
The customer, at the moment they hit the product.
This is the part that has to be right. Get it wrong and I just build the wrong thing faster. Sessions, interviews, and whatever else stays honest.
I speak the frame through Wispr Flow (opens in a new tab). Always on. Faster than typing, and I get more of the problem out.
Watch and listen first
I watch Fullstory sessions. I listen to interviews. Tickets and Slack when they still sound like the customer, not a write-up of a write-up.
Let AI read the pile
I stand up a bot that watches Slack support and pulls in call transcripts, then surfaces themes and a few good examples of real pain for the project in front of me. It also points at the people worth talking to next, instead of sampling at random. That is how I catch a quiet drop-off, or the one person who contradicts the theme, without sitting through a week of support by hand.
Check it, then write rules
I check the cluster against the transcript, or the theme against the actual session. If it smoothed away the outlier, I send it back. A clean theme with no source is not a learning. Pain stays in their words until I decide I can rename it. Then I write the findings as rules. Rules are cheap to edit. A hosted prototype is not.
02 · Then I draw
Paper, then a preview the team can click.
Same loop most days, after the rules are written.
Paper, with agents
Paper (opens in a new tab) is built to be used with agents, so this is where I try ideas cheaply. Directions on a named axis. Prototype sits here.
Live preview, then comments
Cursor (opens in a new tab) builds it in the hosted Next.js design system. Prototype lets me explore more than one live version at once and send the team different options to gather feedback. They comment on the Vercel preview (opens in a new tab). Polish happens before I send the links.
Figma only for a case
Most work stays on the preview. Figma (opens in a new tab) if the surface still lives there, a spec or a marketing file. It is not the default.
03 · The skills
A repeating insight becomes a skill. These are the ones I reach for most.
The next review already knows that pain, and that bar.
Prototype
More than one direction, on a named axis, filled with the content that breaks them.
Layout
Structure first. Match what is already in the system before anyone dresses it.
Polish
Don't send a sloppy option out for feedback. It loses on execution and teaches nothing.
Nikki review
After comments, before I decide. It reports. It does not silently fix.
04 · Where this lands
This is the method behind the current Sublime work.
ASA Lesson Store is where it shows up in a shipped system.
Read ASA Lesson Store