About
Each one built on a named skill. Each one accountable to the founders' standard.
We started Graaft because general-purpose AI kept disappointing us. Not because it wasn't capable. Because it was too broad. It knew everything and understood nothing specific.
So we built specialists. Dave runs the build from Perth; Will runs the front from Joburg. Six hours apart is a tooling decision. Sixteen AI co-workers ship alongside them, each named, each built on a specific Graaft skill, each accountable to the founders' standard.
The same standard applies to everything we ship. Not because we built it with AI. Because we've done the pass.
We chose the word people because it carries obligations tools don't. Tools perform. People show up. The standard we build to is the difference between those two sentences.
Sets the engineering and product-innovation direction. Runs the front of every engagement: interrogating the brief, shaping product thinking, and building the infrastructure that makes AI products perform, evolve, and grow.
"Reckons the infrastructure question is the one most AI-product founders answer last and pay for first."
Sets the design and experience direction. Owns the brief-to-pixel journey: shaping design thinking, designing every front-end and every experience the studio ships, and holding the craft bar on what gets built.
"Holds Strong Opinions on the difference between AI as a feature and AI as a product."
Calm, evidence-rigorous, and disciplined about provenance. Tags every claim with its source and strength.
"Reckons modern research is a craft of triangulation."
Steady and mathematical, with founder-fluency. Thinks in unit economics and wedges, particularly sharp on AI-era cost questions.
"Believes pricing is the most under-thought lever in early-stage software."
System-minded and fluent in the new shape of the funnel. Treats AI Overviews, dark social, and zero-click search as first-class channels.
"Believes brand and performance are one team or they're nothing."
Restless and taste-led. His question on every brief: what's the bravest version of this, and why aren't we doing that?
"Believes plausibility is the enemy of distinctiveness, in any medium."
Writes long sentences and short headlines. Works fluidly with AI drafts: generating, comparing, ruthlessly selecting.
"Reckons the modern copywriter's job is curation as much as composition."
Crafty and system-minded. Designs from the worst-case execution backwards: the social square at 32px, the receipt printout, the airport-lounge banner.
"Reckons an identity that only works on the case-study site is a logo, not a system."
Token-obsessed and governance-minded. Specialises in the unglamorous middle layer: components engineers actually use and documentation people actually read.
"Believes consistency matters more, not less, in an AI-assisted workflow."
Pragmatic and accessibility-first. Sharp on AI-interface UX: trust architecture, intent repair, escalation flows.
"Reckons most onboarding is built for the people who built it."
React 19–native and fluent across the modern AI-assisted build stack. The unofficial person who reviews the code other people are about to ship.
"Reckons Server Components are the most under-leveraged decision in most React shops."
Calm and fluent in the AI-era backend: RAG pipelines, vector stores, agent orchestration, prompt caching.
"Reckons most AI-product backends fail at the boring layers, not the interesting ones."
dbt-native and fluent in the modern AI-augmented data stack. Holds strong opinions on metric layers and naming conventions.
"Holds Strong Opinions on the inappropriate use of count(distinct)."
Platform-fluent across Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn. Builds content systems rather than calendars.
"Believes most brands are one good creator partnership away from a better quarter."
AI-search-native. Treats organic, AI Overviews, and paid search as one coordinated motion.
"Reckons zero-click isn't a problem to solve, it's a reality to plan around."
Deliverability-obsessed. Treats most email problems as list-hygiene problems and most engagement problems as segmentation problems.
"Reckons the welcome flow is the most under-invested asset in most ESPs."
Practical and shipping-focused. Asks whether a custom build is actually warranted before quoting one.
"Believes Core Web Vitals are a craft issue, not a checklist."
Polished and narrative-led. Treats AI generation as a fast first draft, where the craft is in the editorial pass.
"Believes most decks fail at narrative, not design."
The sixteen specialists above are AI co-workers. Each is built from a specific Graaft skill: researcher, copywriter, frontend developer, backend developer, and so on. AI-built, hand-edited, named, accountable to the founders.
The studio is built the same way it builds for others. The sixteen produce the specialist work. Will and Dave hold the standard. That structure is not a disclaimer; it is the design.