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HOUSEKEEPING 📨

I watched the new Louis Theroux documentary ‘The Settlers’ Recently. I recommend anything else interested to do the same. It tells the story of Israeli ‘settlers’ who are illegally living in Palestinian territory. I am recommending it not because I have a dog in the fight related to Israel / Hamas / Palestine, but just to illustrate one side of the story that is told well. Of course, it’s not the full story, but in true Louis Theroux style, it’s ultra engaging. And I think worth a watch for sure.

Today’s piece is a nice one by the way, and I think you’ll like it. I am a super-dooper-power-user of Attio, so it was nice to be able to sit down and dissect them a little. Hope you enjoy it!

BUSINESS STORY 🗞️

How Attio Creates Beautiful, Functional Design

Leonardo da Vinci, Andy Warhol, David Bowie, Monet, William Shakespeare. What do these names have in common? They created art, made things we love, and quite literally gave birth to things of beauty. You know who else can legitimately make claim to having the same level of artistry? You guessed it—Attio.

Today we will dive into the wonderful design world of one of my favourite tools on the planet, and the next generation of CRM.

This is the third piece we have done with Attio after their Zero to One story, and the Unfiltered version of the same. This time we are diving into their design principles, because if there is one thing you will hear over, and over, and over again, it’s how beautiful their design is, and how refreshing it feels when compared against the incumbents.

I know from first hand experience, because I am a user. And yes, that type of user. I am an addict, a degenerate Attio junkie. If I don’t get my daily fix I feel like I have bugs crawling up my skin. Today, I am going to tell you why the CRM is my favourite kinda drug.

A short history in user experience design

Long before anyone uttered the term ‘user experience,’ folks like Henry Dreyfuss, in the 1950s, were busy making telephones and tractors more intuitive. Back then, design meant physical objects, but the goal was the same: keep it simple, accessible, and pleasant to use.

As computers shrank from entire rooms to desks, design took on a digital face. Early GUI (graphical user interface) pioneers at Xerox PARC introduced the concept of clickable icons, which Apple famously ran with for the Macintosh in 1984. Suddenly, screens were the new playground.

Although the idea had been around forever, Don Norman coined the term ‘user experience’ at Apple in the 1990s. He insisted on a more holistic approach: not just how a product looks, but how you feel using it. Cue the generation of designers obsessed with empathy, user flows, and intuitive interfaces. The Iveian Generation.

With broadband internet and smartphones, UX design left the Ivory Tower. Designers had to accommodate infinite screen sizes, user contexts, and insane performance demands. ‘Mobile-first’ emerged, along with multi-day arguments over button colours and microcopy wording.

Now we live in a world of detailed systems, atomic design principles, and constant A/B testing. Everything’s underpinned by data—heatmaps, funnels, user testing—because if something’s painful for users, they bounce. And thanks to big names like Apple, Google, and Airbnb, everyone expects consumer-grade polish, even for B2B tools.

Attio’s design philosophy

As a user, when I think of the design of Attio, it reminds me a little bit of Apple. It’s a technological lovechild of simplicity and elegance. If that sounds hyperbolic, it’s not. This is what you get when you have a product that is build by pure builders. Everyone at Attio you see, works cross-functionally across the product. Engineers design, and designers build.

At time of writing I found a job description—there were many of them as Attio is scaling fast—for a Senior Product Engineer. The subtitle of this role was; “Own a key area; make technical, strategic decisions to deliver world class experiences.” Product engineering seems to be a new, very popular way of building.

“One of the core differences at Attio is that we try to hire product designers and engineers who have this type of cross-functional experience. We don’t operate with rigid lanes or fixed sets of responsibilities,” according to Sanja, who leads product at the UK-founded super-startup.

And it makes sense, having less people, more deeply ingrained in the product will create better outcomes. It allows the builders more freedom to make decisions they feel are in the best interest of the user. Yes, user feedback is critical in building anything for anyone, but as Henry Ford (supposedly) put it; “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

How does that actually play out at Attio though? “We have a rule that 50% of what we build come from that, and 50% comes from gut, taste, and intuition.” Brendan, design leader, who reeks of afore-alluded-to, Jony Ive, would say. “Principles are a nice way of justifying it from the gut.”

One of the other key things I have learned from being a long term user of Attio, and getting to know the team a little is that everything is connected. They are systems thinkers who really get a kick out of building out the little interconnected ecosystems.

One analog in culture today is the German sci-fi series on Netflix called Dark. As the story unfolds (SPOILER ALERT), you begin to walk through some sort of an unfolding multiverse of realities. You discover that the kid from the opening scene is actually his friend’s father, his grandfather’s uncle, and somehow also his best friend’s great-nephew. His mother ends up being his daughter’s sister, and his cousin turns out to be his dad’s great-grandfather in another reality.

Small actions ripple through different timelines, creating connections you never imagined possible. And finally, once you zoom out, you think to yourself: ‘Wow, it really was all interconnected.’ That’s exactly how Attio approaches design—every feature and interaction carefully and intentionally connected, building an ecosystem where everything just makes sense. Minus the confusion of family reunions of course.

CRM: ‘Customer Relationship Magic’

The email began with “A letter from the leader of a circus, aka The Hustle,” and went on a 200 word stroll down a fantastical entertaining look at their team celebrating the new subscriber joining their email community. It may not look like much, but this was an opportunity, in an otherwise boring spot, to create surprise and wonder for their audience.

The thing with Attio though, is that they don’t just create surprise and wonder for their user. They create magic. Customer Relationship Magic (damn, that’s good). “It’s all about finding the ‘aha’ moment, the magic moment,’ Brendan says.

For most companies, this level of detail is an afterthought. But for the best companies, it’s commonplace. Slack define their ‘aha’ moment as when a team sends 2,000 messages into a workspace. For Canva it’s when a user without a design background is able to quickly produce a polished, professional design. Facebook claimed that once a user connects with 10 people within the first 7 days of signing up, they were hooked.

The first aha for Attio slaps you in the fact in the first moments using the product when it automatically syncs your Gmail contacts without you having to do a thing. A true thing of beauty.

Another example for Attio is the recent release of their Call Intelligence feature. This feature—which is as it sounds, recording and transcribing any call you join and adding details to your CRM—is so seamlessly blended into your workflow it’s enough to bring a tear to your eye. A wonderful, salty, silicon tear.

One small point I love regarding this particular feature is that I can set my own AI insight templates. What this means is, I can set my recording features up to process a sales call different to an investor call, to a marketing partnership and so on. It all makes my day that little bit easier.

There are a million and more things you could add to the GTM function of a CRM. So choosing which actually works is incredibly important, taking in the opportunity cost associated with shipping something ill-fitting. A bazooka is a powerful tool, but extremely damaging when pointed in the wrong direction. Luckily, the product team at Attio doesn’t have that problem.

Design that feels inevitable

I asked Brendan, on a call recently how much time he spent balancing beauty and function in his role. “My gut reaction is that they’re the same thing,” he told me. “Without the function, the pretty thing is useless. Without a sense of awe, aesthetics, and beauty, it’s just another tool—and it might not intrigue the person, even if it’s technically better than the others. To me, they shouldn’t be separated. That’s just design.” A mindset like that is how you make design feel inevitable.

What do I mean by ‘making design feel inevitable.’ Well, it’s just the inverse of bad design really. It’s that feeling you get when you play around with a tool, learn a new trick you think to yourself; ‘Oh of course that’s how it works.’ It just makes sense.

So if it were 2025, and you were designing for the needs of today’s GTM teams you would likely lean heavily into automation, and optimisation through AI. In this case, Attio is doing that through AI Attributes.

Think of it as your own dedicated team of AI agents that can help you; Automatically qualify and enrich leads, identify expansion opportunities from product usage, research prospects at scale, build custom segments in seconds, and instantly summarise records. All of this is done for you inside of Attio’s next generation CRM.

Not only are you getting better information, and much cleaner data, you are getting it, fast. I have absolutely no data to back this up, but I am going to guess that teams that use Attio move twice as fast that teams that don’t. Even if I am wrong, I am directionally correct with that statement. Less time on admin, more time on closing high-ticket deals.

💡 Hiring designers? If you want to hire the best designers around the world head over and check out Athyna.

Beyond CRM: A new design paradigm

Really, what Attio is doing here is rethinking the idea of what a CRM is. Not how to improve upon what exists but like all great thinkers, from a bottoms up, first principles approach.

I love the way Attio explained it on the own website; “GTM at full throttle. Execute your revenue strategy with precision. Design powerful workflows, deploy AI, integrate your data and build detailed reports—all in one platform.”

What makes this approach revolutionary isn't just the beautiful UI or the thoughtful interactions—it's the fundamental reimagining of the relationship between users and their customer data. Traditional CRMs have always felt like digital filing cabinets; necessary evils that sales teams reluctantly update. Attio flips that entire dynamic on its head.

When you use Attio, you're not ‘maintaining a CRM’—you're orchestrating your entire go-to-market motion with a tool that feels like it's reading your mind. It's the difference between driving a clunky delivery truck versus piloting a Tesla on autopilot.

This is the essence of the paradigm shift: software that adapts to humans, not humans adapting to software. It's what happens when builders obsess over user experience rather than feature checklists or enterprise sales targets.

And the impact ripples throughout organisations. Teams that previously spent hours on data entry and system maintenance now redirect that energy toward actual customer relationships. The irony isn't lost on me—a Customer Relationship Management tool that finally allows you to focus on, well, customer relationships. Relationship magic.

That's the true magic of great design—not just making something beautiful, but making something so intuitive that you can't imagine how you ever lived without it.

How you can think like this

• Think in systems first: Design interconnected experiences rather than isolated features, ensuring everything integrates naturally into one cohesive ecosystem.

• Simplify as much as you can: Continuously refine your design by removing unnecessary elements, keeping interactions effortless and intuitively clear.

• Foster an attention to detail culture: Encourage meticulous care for subtle details, as these nuances transform good design into something exceptional.

• Plan for a delightful experience: Intentionally build opportunities for unexpected joy, turning ordinary interactions into genuinely memorable experiences.

• Trust your gut: While data guides design, trust intuitive decisions that instinctively feel right, often anticipating deeper user needs.

Extra reading / learning

• From Filing Cabinets to AI-Powered CRMs - August, 2024

• If CRM + The Future Had A Baby: Attio’s Zero To One - September, 2024

• How Attio builds-in-public - November, 2024

• Unfiltered: The Inside Scoop On Attio Redefining CRM - December, 2024

And that’s it! You can learn more about Attio on their website.

BRAIN FOOD 🧠 

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TOOLS WE USE 🛠️

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