Free Design Consultancy
30 Mins
Online
Thursdays, 3–5:30pm GMT+7
Five startups a week
Free
After months inside your own product, it gets hard to see what a first-time visitor sees. That's usually where we start.
Product and experience
Onboarding, key user flows, the moments where people hesitate or leave.
Story and pitch
Whether your deck and your product make the same promise.
Brand and first impression
What your visual identity signals, and whether it matches your ambition.
Website
Whether a visitor understands what you do, and what to do next, in under 10 seconds.
Structured, not a chat.
0–5 min
You show us A live demo, a walkthrough or the idea. Real screens preferred, no slides required.
5–25 min
We take it apart, where the product loses the user, where the story loses the listener, where the brand undercuts the claim.
25–30 min
Your first fixes
The two things to fix first, and in which order.
A written Friction Note, within 48 hours.
A one-page summary you can share with your team.
The three friction points we found, ranked by impact
The first fix, explained clearly enough to act on
What it would take to close the gap properly
Nothing, unless you want it to.
No obligation and no sales follow-up. Most founders take the Friction Note and run with it. If you want to go further:
Book a private session
A 45-minute follow-up to work through one specific problem in depth. Free for now, one per startup.
Work with us
We send a scoped proposal with a clear timeline and a price.
Built for founders who are about to be judged.
A good fit if you are
Preparing to launch, raise or pitch in the next 3 months
Pre-seed to Series A, with a product, a prototype or a clear idea
Ready to hear direct feedback
Not the right fit if
You want free design production. We diagnose, we don’t draw in the call.
You haven’t decided what you’re building yet
Give your founders a design review before they pitch.
We run a dedicated Design Minute for your program or school: up to five founders, one afternoon, online or on site in Phnom Penh. Each founder receives their own Friction Note. You receive a one-page read on where your cohort is structurally weak as a group.
No cost to the program. You bring five names, we handle the rest.
Reviewed by a designer, not a template.
Every session is led by Alexis de Coninck, founder of AC Design Studio. Sixteen years designing physical and digital products across Paris, Shanghai, New York, San Francisco and Jakarta. He brings the rigor of manufacturing, where mistakes are expensive, to digital products, where they are just harder to see.