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Discovering Irama Dining: A Penang Multi-Concept Gem
Sometimes the best brands reveal themselves slowly—first through one excellent meal, then through a portfolio you didn't see coming.
Updates
Brand observations, MVP progress, and market insights
19 updates
Fresh Intelligence From Markets Moving Faster Than Headlines
Four types of updates: BUILD (product development behind the scenes), REFLECT (strategic insights from founder patterns), ILLUMINATE (cultural stories connecting markets), and ANNOUNCE (company milestones). Not press releases. Not quarterly reports. Real-time observations running 3-5 minutes—quick enough to scan during coffee, detailed enough to inform your next conversation.
How Updates Differ from Insights
Insights are deep-dive research articles (8-15 minutes) analyzing brand ecosystems, competitive landscapes, and founder transformation arcs. Updates are real-time observations (3-5 minutes) capturing what we're building, what we're noticing, and what's shifting in Global South markets. Think of Insights as the research report; Updates as the field notes.
Mobile-First Image Optimization: We Do the Heavy Lifting
How we optimized images for 85-95% file size reduction and sub-1-second mobile load times using Sharp, WebP, and responsive srcset.
Build
Reducing Cognitive Load: Why We Redesigned Updates
Split hero panels and card grids. Every design choice targets one goal: reduce cognitive load on readers.
Build
One Click to Share: Native Sharing Across All Content
Native share buttons added to all content. One tap opens your device's share sheet—no URL copying, no friction.
Reflect
Why We Renamed Growth Signals to Transformation Signals
We renamed "growth signals" to "transformation signals" across the platform—because tracking revenue growth isn't the same as identifying succession windows or export readiness.
Reflect
Why Vertical Integration is the Secret Weapon of Global South Brands
When Fanagoria ships 800,000 bottles to China, every stage is controlled in-house. While Western brands outsourced, Global South brands retained integration—and that's now their moat.
Build
Toastmasters, Coffee, and Feature Shipping: The 30-Minute Build
Preparing a speech led to scoping, building, and deploying a new post type taxonomy—all in 30 minutes, before my coffee got cold.
Reflect
Backlog Breakthrough: The Solo Dev Liberation Moment
There's a special chaos when you're building solo. Today I actually looked at my backlog—and discovered what full-scale development mode feels like.
Illuminate
Finding Quanzhou in Penang: The Phoenix Mountain Temple Connection
A Penang temple built by coconut farmers from three different Quanzhou districts reveals hidden connections between UNESCO World Heritage sites and working-class migration.
Build
Why We Switched to a Monorepo
We migrated from separate repos to a unified monorepo structure. Schema changes that required editing 6+ files across 2 repos now happen in one place.
Build
Dark Mode is Here
Dark mode is live across the entire Brandmine platform. Automatic theme switching, WCAG AA compliant, zero JavaScript required—pure CSS with semantic color variables.
Reflect
Why We Chose Supabase: The Database That Grows With You
After evaluating several options, we chose Supabase—and 3 months in, it's proven to be one of our best technical decisions. Production-grade PostgreSQL without the pain.
Build
Bottom Navigation for Mobile & Tablet
Mobile navigation just got better. Persistent bottom nav bar, thumb-friendly 44px touch targets, automatic hide on scroll—context switching without scrolling to the top.
Build
Building Our Updates CMS: When You Build to Ship, Not to Plan
I set out to build a CMS for my team. In less than a day I had a polished system deployed—and discovered I was building it for myself.
Build
Install Brandmine: We're Now a Progressive Web App
Brandmine is now a Progressive Web App. Install to home screen, faster load times, offline browsing—for both our public site and internal Hub.