SELECTED COMMISSIONS

Something worth building does not always need to become a venture.

Merlin takes on a small number of commissioned products, websites and digital experiences. The work is funded normally. What does not change is the selectiveness: Merlin says yes to the ones where the problem is interesting and it can materially improve the product, not simply execute the instructions.

Venture partnership: we share the business. Selected commission: you fund the work. Selection is common to both.

WHAT MAKES A COMMISSION INTERESTINGqualities, not categories

Not a checklist to satisfy. A sense of the work Merlin wants to be involved in.

A difficult product problem

Something where the right answer is not obvious and getting it wrong is expensive.

An ambitious digital experience

Work where the experience itself is the point, not decoration over a template.

A meaningful use of AI

AI that changes what the product can do, rather than a chat box bolted to the side.

Complex systems, simplified

Something tangled that has to become obvious to the people who use it.

UX and technology together

Products where the design and the engineering cannot sensibly be decided apart.

A technically unusual challenge

The kind of problem that does not have an established recipe.

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SELECTED COMMISSIONED WORK

IN PREPARATION

A curated selection of commissioned work is being prepared for publication here. Each will be reframed around the problem, the difficult part and the outcome, rather than duplicated from elsewhere. Only work that is approved for public use will appear.

HOW COMMISSIONED WORK WORKSno fixed packages

Tell Merlin what you are trying to build

Ordinary language. No brief document required.

Merlin works out whether it is a good fit

Honestly, including when the answer is that it is not.

Define the shape of the engagement

What Merlin owns, what stays with you, and what the work actually involves.

Merlin builds

With the level of product involvement the work needs, not a fixed package.

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Commission a project

Describe what you want built. It is a conversation, not a form, and it ends with a person either way.

Commission a project

Bringing a market rather than a budget? That is the venture route. Start a venture.