My last message (of the year)

Hey Oncer,

What a year it’s been! A lot has happened, and since many of you joined us halfway through, I thought it’d be fun to do a little recap and reflect on some personal learnings along the way.

Hope you’ll find something relatable—or even a lesson worth keeping!

January - February

We shipped Once UI 3 for Figma, our biggest update to the Figma library yet, and launched a brand-new Framer landing page.

Takeaway: Committing to an idea is a serious investment of time and energy. We spent too much time implementing an overcomplicated auth system, dashboard, and landing page when we should’ve focused on marketing instead.

March - April

We applied to a startup incubator with a design system management platform—but left halfway through. It just didn’t feel like the right fit.

Takeaway: Sometimes, leaving is the best choice. When something feels off, trust your gut. Don’t cling to something just because you’ve started.

May - June

We relocated to Austria, our neighbor to the north-west from Hungary. The move was smooth, and the new environment was so refreshing.

Reflection: Even the right decisions can feel hard at first. But give it time, and they’ll feel lighter.

July - August

We began work on Once UI for Next.js. After leaving the incubator, we were short a developer and took a few months to convince ourselves we could pull it off. I remember randomly blurting out at the grocery store to Zsofia: “You know what? I think we should just do it anyway.”

Reflection: You’re capable of far more than you give yourself credit for.

September

We launched Magic Portfolio—and to our surprise, it slowly gained traction, becoming our most successful project yet.

Reflection: To gain visibility, pour your heart into creating your best work. Go all in—more time, energy, and care than you’ve ever invested before. Then release it for free.

October - November

We built our first SaaS product, Enroll. It was frustrating at times, but incredibly rewarding in the end.

Reflection: There’s always a solution. I can’t even count how many times I thought, I’ve got no clue how I’m going to solve this. Now, looking back, I don’t even remember the problems—just the feeling of figuring it out.

December

We started working on the 0.5 release of Once UI, informed by first-hand insights from building our own products.

Reflection: Don’t shy away from unconventional angles. Once UI is different from other libraries, and the feedback so far proves its potential.

2024 was packed with highlights, and not all of them made the list. A few honorable mentions:

• Founding the Design Engineers Club

• Publishing my own portfolio site

• Launching our merch store

• Starting monthly Community Calls

• Helping ~100 creatives publish their portfolios with Magic Portfolio

And so much more.

Here’s to an amazing 2025—meet you there.

Best,
Lorant

Thanks for reading the Design Engineers Weekly.
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p.s. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you’d like to chat. Discord, LinkedIn and Threads are the platforms I currently use. You can start with something simple… for example, where did you hear about us? :)