Build the future of design tools with me

Modulz is a new design tool that helps designers collaborate with developers, without writing code. Join me as co-founder!

A screenshot of Modulz Composer

The vision

In almost any tech company, developers are the only employees with direct access to the product. If you want to get something done, you must either ask a developer…or learn to code.

This sucks because code is not exactly easy to learn. Not only that, but you must also download and install a bunch of software, then install the dev environment and spin up a local server before you can even get started.

Faced with these hurdles, designers have resorted to drawing pictures in an attempt to communicate their ideas. lol.

Even our most powerful UI design tools are just vector-based drawing tools, optimised for illustration. Rather than attempt to improve the workflow between designers and developers, design tools have just been making designers more efficient at drawing pictures.

In today’s world of animation, micro-interactions, responsive design, 3D, VR, AR and voice input, static images and image-based prototypes simply cannot accurately communicate design intent.

Modulz is a visual code editor that sits on exactly the same code developers write. Developers make their changes manually, in text editors. Designers make their changes visually, in Modulz. Then designers can submit their changes through the same channels as developers. Same code, different UI.

I want to help reduce bottlenecks by empowering designers, illustrators, content strategists, customer support, marketing and everyone working on a product to deploy their own work to production without any help. I want to help build a more inclusive web by automating and encouraging accessibility. I want to build a simple, accessible, intuitive tool. A tool for everyone.

My progress so far

I’ve been actively researching, designing, prototyping, building and promoting Modulz for the past 6 months. In that time, I’ve posted some screenshots, demos, blog posts and tweets.

• Modulz website
• Modulz Twitter
• A detailed overview of the vision and problem space.
• Early video demo of composing a view from imported React components.
• Video demo of the component editor.
• Video demo of previewing a design on multiple devices simultaneously.
• A Tweetstorm detailing my take on the future of design workflows.
• A popular Medium post I published outlining the problem I want to solve.
• A popular Medium post I published about design systems.
• Previews of a huge library of high-quality assets to ship with Modulz.
• Our open–source design system.
• Our design system’s Github (soon to be Gitlab?…sorry).
• A beautiful poem I wrote while I was drunk.

A bit about me

I’m Colm — a product designer from Dublin, Ireland. My friends call me ‘Moppy’ because I once grew my hair so long that I looked like a mop. But more relatedly, I’ve spent the past decade working in the tech industry.

My face. FWIW.

For the past five years, I’ve been working on and thinking about design tooling, specifically. I previously founded Plexi (another design tool), which was acquired by Marvel.

You can find me posting about design tools, design systems and CSS among other things on Medium, Twitter, Dribbble and Quora.

In general, I’m a super laid-back person. I work remotely and Modulz will be a fully distributed company. I’ve been really inspired by people like Joel Jascoigne, DHH, Jason Fried, Kate Kendall and Karolina Szczur to name a few.

I rarely ever encourage meetings. I never set deadlines. I actively try to communicate mostly asynchronously. I want to build a transparent, diverse, inclusive, helpful, sustainable business.

A bit about you

When this kicks off, I’ll be working ~60 hours every week. Of course, everyone’s situation is different. In the early days, you might work 25 hours/week for a while. You might need a small wage to tide you over until we raise funding. If you can go full-time from the start, great. If not, we can figure something out that works for everyone. There are ways we can offset the imbalance early on to keep things fair.

But I do need someone who is interested in focusing full-time on Modulz asap. I need someone who wants to scale an amazing product and grow a company.

I’m looking for a technical co-founder. A mid–senior level JavaScript engineer. Someone experienced with modern web stuff like React, React Native, ES6, Webpack, react-router, Redux, GraphQL, CSS-in-JS, Babel, Electron, Node.js etc. You might be more back-end-y or more front-end-y. Either is fine, we need both.

In terms of tasks, I’ve got things like design, styling, UI engineering and marketing covered. Your role early on might involve things like:

• Data structures
• API integrations
• Authentication and basic security
• Customising React plugins
• Lots of JavaScript

Aside from that, any of the following would be a huge bonus but none are at all necessary:

• A large platform in either the design or dev communities.
• Previous experience working at a small start-up.
• A penchant for writing

The deal

• Equal equity split between all co-founders. There will be 2–4 co-founders, depending on how things pan out.
• No salary early on. I’ve received small grants from both InVision and Adobe, so I can afford modest, temporary wages. When we raise funding, we can take a salary.
• As the company scales, your role would evolve into something like CTO or Head of Engineering etc.

“Modulz is full of interesting ideas. Can’t wait to try it out.” — Koen Bok

“Our workflows as digital designers don’t quite fit with traditional tooling. Terribly excited to see how Modulz redefines how we think about designing for screens.” — Adam Morse

“Who’s gonna win the design tool battle? I personally think Modulz will rise up and win a big part of the market.” — Benjamin Berger

“It’s exciting to watch a small group of people working on an idea which will fundamentally change a discipline.” — Tony Ennis

“With all of these new UI design tools coming out, I think Modulz looks the most promising.” — Steve Schoger

“Modulz is one of the most exciting design tools I’ve seen. This could completely revolutionise design workflows.” — Michael Dick

If you’re interested, shoot an email to colmtuite@gmail.com. Please provide a short intro to give me an idea of your background, experience, skills, interests and current work situation. Links to social media, portfolios, writing etc. would be awesome.

I will respond to everyone who gets in touch. Cheers!