I caught up with an old friend recently. It’s been a few years since we’d exchanged more than a funny link or book recommendation, and in follow up messages he asked a question that caught me off guard, in an interesting kind of way.

Which companies do you think are doing interesting work right now? 

Simple enough, on the surface, but when trying to think off the top of my head, no really ‘interesting’ companies came quickly to mind. Yes, there are lots of AI things going on, but the companies doing that work are more worrying than interesting.

And beyond AI shenanigans, when it comes to agencies, consultancies, products and start-ups more generally? They seem mostly to be churning the same slightly wonky business models, or racing to scale user bases on bad faith promises to be nice and caring, while clearly just gearing up for acquisition.

Maybe I was just having a skeptical day? Maybe it’s all the enshittification? Most likely, I think it’s a spot of fatigue, after 20+ years of expecting tech companies to constantly impress.

So, I nudged myself into thinking more broadly. I put ‘digital first’ companies to one side, and brought my attention to entities that have excited or conceptually encouraged me over the past few years, and to my delight, a whole load came flooding in.

Here’s the short list that came to mind when I changed my perspective from ‘(digital) companies doing interesting work’, to ‘who’s doing interesting (and exciting) work?’.

revivalprojects.com.au – This one inspired because I had a similar idea (as I’m sure 1001 other people have) when I lived in London. I wanted to get an arch in London Fields and fill it with salvaged materials from skips and building sites, and then to do renovations, furniture and garden studios. These people have actually done that and much, much more. I just love what they’re doing, their forceful and active campaigning, and their many strap lines, such as ’normalise resourcefulness’. I’d like to do similar one day, and to use the initiative as an educational space and framework for (resourceful) design thinking or something. 

ecococon.eu/gb – This should be the future of construction in my opinion. Age old, tried and tested ideas, with modern requirements and techniques. I think it’s the simplicity and blatant obviousness of the system that I like most. The company seems to have started by thinking about insulation (because it’s kind of insane not to, if you think even for a second about energy saving and creating low cost comfortable spaces), and then they removed everything but the essentials. The result: A sustainable, renewable, carbon-storing, easily replicable, easily workable, and simply beautiful construction system.

opensystemslab.io – Another company in the space building and waste reducing spaces, working hard to question and change pre-existing systems, and design whole new ones, rather than trying to squeeze innovation in where it’s not designed to fit (Remember, the purpose of a system is what it does, and the current architecture, planning and construction industries that are slow, wasteful, expensive, and exclusive, are operating exactly as they need to to maintain their dominance). OSL and its business model represent an exciting Trojan Horse style of innovation that we need to see more of.

theselfspace.com – ‘The world’s first on-demand mental health service on the High Street.’ What’s not to like in this. Developing new ways to approach an enormously underfunded need, and increasing access to mental health services.

thelongtableonline.com (the its wider network) – Local to my area in Stroud, and an amazing thing that everyone (of sound mind) is behind. It’s been through ups and downs of late, but looks to be fighting back and establishing a more sure footing for its operating models.

Interestingly, after positive thoughts about real world companies that are improving health and building stronger and more supportive communities, two digital companies did come to mind after all…

gentler.app – I only found this recently when it won the social impact Apple award. I downloaded at first just to see the UI, which takes a bit of getting used to, but over the last couple of days this app has really struck me as the kind of thing that more 30/40+ somethings should get into. It’s the most practical and supportive health app I’ve ever seen, as it focuses on sustainable fitness rather than fad-based trends or punishing short-term goals. For example, my landing page today says “do what feels good”. It sees my activity, knows my stats, and is encouraging sensible behaviour rather than pushing me to compete with myself or share with others. Brilliant. Oh, and the customer support is super fast and actually helpful. I had a small issue, and a human responded and resolved within 24 hours, over the weekend.

patreon.com – Not a new company, nor perhaps a very interesting one to most people, but their recent rebrand and strategy change had promise that caught my attention. That said, I think they’re still fumbling it a little and missing the chance to really pull audience from Twitter and Instagram, but I’m interested to see how it pans out. Essentially, it feels like they’re best positioned right now to redefine how we follow and engage with content creators in a way thats mutually beneficial. Helping creators to build sustainable audiences without ads or really intrusive personal data farming, and helping consumers to subscribe (and support) directly at the source.

Honourable mention to an industry that I wasn’t aware of but that’s recently gotten me interested: On demand tailoring. I’d love to test some of these services and look forward to seeing how some of the main players develop their products and brands. An exciting space for changing our relationship with fast fashion.

Anyway, that’s my little list of interestingness. It’s not exhaustive, but it was nice to think about. Give it a go. Who’s interesting you right now, beyond the obvious? Would love to see some lists from others.

Footnote. The last book recommendation from Jamie was This is the Voice by John-Colapinto which is well worth a read if you’re into linguistics and semantics and such. And mine to him was my current read, Ritual, by Dimitris Xygalatas.