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👋 Hey Growth Enthusiasts!
March’s here, and we’re questioning the “good enough” moments we’ve been letting slide.
This month, we’re looking at why brand trust now renews month-to-month, how climate tech like pHathom is quietly cleaning up real-world messes, and what it means to design AI and interfaces that don’t exhaust people before they ever get to the value.
Also on deck: why your brief probably smuggles in the solution, how a sharper story can unlock serious funding, and the Peak-End Rule tricks that turn a forgettable flow into one users actually remember.
Design the moments that actually stick.
🔥 Top News: What We’re Watching (and Side-Eyeing)
A rapid-fire digest of the stories catching our eye—plus our take on what they really mean for product, growth, and building things that actually work.
Your Brand Is on a Trust Payment Plan (8 min read)
Our 🎬 - Users are not giving brands unconditional loyalty anymore, they are renting it month-to-month and canceling as soon as your behavior stops matching your values slide. Trust now lives in receipts, not taglines, and B2B is even harsher because people believe employees, creators, and leaders with names and LinkedIn profiles more than logos with manifestos.
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Climate Tech That Actually Cleans Up Messes (7 min read)
Our 🎬 - pHathom is turning ports and pipelines into carbon sponges. As a past client we are very proud of, we are cheering on their $12 million seed round and the team that is trying to bolt real carbon removal onto the infrastructure the world already runs on.
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Your New UX Toolkit Lives Inside the Model, Not the Mockup (11 min read)
Our 🎬 - UX for AI is less about rearranging buttons and more about curating data, writing guardrails into context, and stress-testing model behavior like it is a slightly feral coworker. If you cannot explain how your product’s data, prompts, and evals work together, you are not a UX designer for AI yet, you are a stylist for whatever the model feels like doing.
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If Your App Exhausts People With ADHD, It Exhausts Everyone (10 min read)
Our 🎬 - This piece reads like a checklist of obvious things: clean layouts, fewer shiny distractions, clear cues that somehow still feel optional in most roadmaps. Design that works for ADHD users is just good design, but calling it accessibility finally gives teams a reason to prioritize the hard, boring cleanup instead of one more fun feature.
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🌱 What We’re Thinking About
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Most briefs don’t start with a problem. They start with a decision about what feels doable.
It’s understandable—solutions feel concrete, defensible, and easy to align around. But when a brief jumps straight to the answer, it often skips the harder work of naming what’s actually not working. In this piece, we reflect on why solution-first briefs are so common, what they quietly cost teams over time, and how a small shift toward problem-first thinking can open up better, more durable work.
Read the full story on Niftic.com →
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💻 Behind The Build
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How do you brand a team turning coastal bioenergy emissions into durable ocean carbon storage?
When pHathom came to us, their science was solid but they needed a clear, confident digital presence that matched the scale of their ambition, setting the stage for the $12 million in committed capital they went on to raise.
Check out this case study on Niftic.com →
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🍿 Design Snack: Make the Last Moment Count
Ever had a mostly “meh” experience but still walked away smiling because it ended on a high? That’s the Peak-End Rule: people remember the most intense moment and the ending way more than everything in between.
💡 Quick Tip: Design for a clear peak and a strong finish. Sprinkle in one delightful surprise during the journey, then close with a moment that feels rewarding, reassuring, or celebratory—users will remember that story, not the tiny bumps.
🔍 Real-World Example: Two post-purchase moments, same order, different memory.
The “Do” version ends on a high:
- “Something special is headed your way!” turns a receipt into a celebration.
- Clear thank-you copy makes the user feel seen and appreciated.
- A single, calm “Done” action lets the moment land.
The “Don’t” version fizzles out:
- A flat “Thanks for your order” disappears into a wall of products.
- The emotional peak of buying gets buried under more decisions.
- Feels like being pushed back into shopping instead of enjoying the win.
💭 Something to Think About: If users only remembered one moment and the ending of your flow, what would those be? Are they actually worth remembering?
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Strategy + Marketing. Growth-minded connector.
Dean is a growth-minded marketer who lives at the intersection of sales, storytelling, and strategic partnerships—helping Niftic get in front of the right people, for the right reasons.
When they are not crafting outreach or mapping funnels, you will probably find them on a football pitch, mid-play in a video game, or happily lost in a YouTube rabbit hole of social media drama, strictly for fun.
If it needs a new audience, they’re on it. If it needs a last-minute sub on the football pitch, they’re lacing up.
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🎶 In the Stack: Oboe
Experimentation should be fast, flexible, and focused on real growth—not buried under red tape.
Enter Oboe stage right. It’s lightweight, powerful, and lets our team (and our clients) run clean experiments without slowing down.
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👋 See You Next Month!
Keep growing, keep experimenting, and we'll catch you next issue. Got feedback or funny gifs? Hit reply—we read every single one.
– David, Remy, & Chris @ Niftic
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