Last month’s Creative Mornings at the Mercantile Library was so refreshing. Thank you to Creative Mornings Cincinnati for organizing and Kristen Brademeyer for grounding the start of our day with a children’s book and sharing your growth path to Keep Cincinnati Beautiful.

One of the upsides about it getting darker earlier on these cold fall days is getting to see this interactive installation beating in action outside of our office. This was already a great piece, but seeing it as it was designed to be seen is clearly a superior user experience ❤️

Launch Scout turned sweet 16 this month!  Cheers to the founders, the teamwork, and the Busken Halloween cookies fueling us today. 🎃

We rethought how we start new projects: shorter discovery, tighter collaboration, and visible progress from week one. Here’s what it looks like in practice →

Rethinking Discovery: Learning Faster, Building Smarter

For years, discovery meant slowing down before you could speed up—two or three weeks of research, documentation, and setup before a single thing was built. Clients would walk away with plenty of insight and be ready to kick off the next step, but not much they could actually use yet. So we started asking: what if discovery wasn’t a waiting period, but a launchpad? From Two Weeks to Two Days Today, our discovery process runs three times faster than it used to. In just two to three days, we dive into the essentials: who you are, what you do, and where we can make the biggest impact first. Instead of trying to solve everything at once, we look for the most valuable chunk of work—something small enough to start now, but meaningful enough to create visible progress. By narrowing our focus early, we can start building sooner, validate assumptions faster, and adjust before time or budget are spent heading in the wrong direction. So, what changed? Over time, we realized that the most valuable insights don’t come from weeks of prep—they come from close collaboration and momentum. We stopped treating discovery as a standalone phase and started treating it as the first sprint of real work. By staying hands-on and making quick, informed decisions together, we uncover what matters most. By narrowing our focus early, we can start building sooner, validate assumptions faster, and adjust before time or budget are spent heading in the wrong direction.

launchscout.com

StartupCincy Week is officially underway! 🎉 We can’t wait to see what ideas, connections, and caffeine-fueled conversations this week brings. If you see Tim, make sure to say hey and share what you’ve been building!

Boo!  Sorry, we didn't mean to scare you. Today marks the annual tradition that long-time friend of Launch Scout Lauren Woodrick started many years ago. This dancing pumpkin person means the official kick off of spooky season.

Elixir Meetup = success! Thanks to everyone who joined us (online + in person), and shoutout to Brian Meeker for sharing his wisdom on testing. Janky tests, be gone! Bonus points for the adorable non-developer who joined us 🐾 .

Two days of storymapping magic!  Nothing beats in-person sessions for really diving into ideas… with a little help from our Chief Happiness Officer, naturally.

We're catching up with Chris Nelson after returning from this year's Elixir Conf, hearing about the keynotes from Chris McCord, Bruce Tate, and the other fantastic speakers in this year's lineup. We love the selfies Chris snags along the way. Hello friends! Justin Searls, Josh Wood, and Jason Stiebs

ElixirConf: We're ready for you! Join @superchris.launchscout.com this week on Thursday, August 28 for his talk "Extending Elixir with WebAssembly Components." We're looking forward to a great week with awesome people. https://elixirconf.com/talks/extending-elixir-with-webassembly-components/

Our output may be pixels and code, but our process is grounded in real space. A little tidying/coffee/prep before a client meeting day goes a long way. Our espresso machine is always ready for you ☕ (Unofficial barista is on rotation. Hope for Chris or Tim.)

We’re proud to have partnered with our client to deliver a high-performing MVP with zero bugs. Check out some of the work we’ve been doing: https://launchscout.com/our-work

This artwork went up recently in the alley alongside our office. College Hill CURC is doing a great job of bringing art to the exterior of buildings and businesses in the area. We are thankful to be able to enjoy them! Check out their projects here: https://chcurc.com/current-projects/

It's Cincy Ruby Brigade's turn for a summer break ☀️ Check back in August for the next Ruby Brigade Meetup!

Real users. Real feedback. Real results. See how we turned a clickable prototype into insights that made our product truly work for real people—and why user testing matters for building products clients (and users) love. https://launchscout.com/blog/the-process-of-getting-real-user-feedback

Stuck on a tricky tech problem? You’re not alone. Trevon from SafeWave was too — until we worked together to tackle it. Appreciate the kind words, Trevon!

Curious - what’s been your biggest tech headache so far this year? A) Streamlining workflows B) Engaging customers better C) Scaling up for growth Drop your vote or share more in the comments!

Cinci JS is taking a summer vacation this week ☀️ Check back in August for the next Cincinnati JavaScript Meetup!

When you're weighing the pros and cons of tool options and one person says, "You know what, let's just try to spin it up really quick and see how far we get."

Thank you to all who weathered the [literal] storm last week for @superchris.launchscout.com talk about helping teams adopt AI. What we liked best was that it felt like a true meetup. It ended with everyone sitting down, chairs turned toward the center, honestly sharing and listening to each other.

Tomorrow evening @superchris.launchscout.com will share his experience helping real software development teams effectively adopt AI on real projects. Listen and chat over some pizza at Alloy Development Co starting at 5:30PM! Register (it's free) here:

Beyond Vibe Coding: Lessons from helping teams effectively adopt AI

Chris will share our experience helping software development teams effectively adopt AI on production projects.

beyond-vibe-coding.eventbrite.com

Class reunion meets blind date: New friends, old friends, and a whole lot of good conversation. The team had a great time at last night’s Cincinnati Web/Tech Drink Up at Brewdog!

@superchris.launchscout.com will be sharing practical insights on how we're collaborating with tech teams in his in-person talk, "Beyond Vibe Coding: Lessons from helping teams effectively adopt AI," at 5:30 PM on June 18 at Alloy. Register at

Beyond Vibe Coding: Lessons from helping teams effectively adopt AI

Chris will share our experience helping software development teams effectively adopt AI on production projects.

beyond-vibe-coding.eventbrite.com

It’s Friday (finally!!), and around here, that means coffee—at least for some of us (we didn't know when we hired them, jk). We all have our go-to orders, and we thought it’d be fun to share a few. How do you take yours? Let us know in the comments!

Episode 3 of The Practical Product Designer is live! Watch as Kati Best creates a project from scratch, adds data points, and links users—all in under 15 minutes. Check it out here: https://launchscout.com/blog/practical-product-designer-ep3

We had a great time at Product Camp Cincinnati this weekend, listening to great talks and meeting new people. Thank you to Carlos Martin and the #ProductCampCincy2025 team for putting this event together!

We are getting excited for ProductCamp Cincinnati this Saturday. Pumped to sponsor this idea inspired unconference and thrilled to be in person. We are bringing a throwback "from the vault" for your enjoyment 😂 Find us there!

ProductCamp Cincinnati

cincinnatiproductcamp.com

Join us this Thursday, May 15, at 12 PM for the Cincinnati Ruby Brigade meetup.  More info at https://cincyrb.com/

Join us May 14th at noon for the Cinci JS meetup. Chris Nelson will be doing an encore performance of his Stir Trek talk. Let us know if you'd like to join in person at the Launch Scout office! meetup.com/cincinnati-javascript-user-group/events/303912536/ #CincyJS #JavaScript #DevCommunity

It has been fun to watch this paint can heart installation come to life outside of our office in College Hill. (Especially looking forward to seeing it light up at night!)