Early in Cosmic Velocity's journey, a client who would later become one of our biggest partners asked a question that resonated deeply:

How (and how fast) will we know we're succeeding, together?

These questions get to the heart of why organisations hesitate to work with external partners. Just recently, another potential collaborator chose to hire internally to "embed someone in the organisation." I felt that familiar tension in their words. Having been on both sides of this decision myself, I understand the instinct to keep everything in-house.

These conversations reflect persistent myths about external partnerships – myths I've watched dissolve as organisations discover a powerful truth: the choice between internal and external capabilities isn't binary. It's a set of possibilities waiting to be explored together.

Breaking down barriers, together

The concern about cultural fit is perhaps the most persistent one I encounter. "An external team won't understand our culture, our constraints, or our way of working." At Cosmic Velocity, inclusion isn't just a buzzword – it's how we connect. We immerse ourselves in understanding not just technical requirements, but cultural nuances, team dynamics, and organisational constraints. The same initially skeptical partner later noted:

You're not acting like consultants, you're acting like colleagues who bring rich and varied outside perspectives.

That moment of recognition felt like a breakthrough, we were creating something different.

Building knowledge, not dependencies

We need someone in-house to grow our knowledge base.

I hear this in almost every conversation, and I genuinely get it. Having run multiple design teams, I disagree with offering design capabilities as something special clients won't have, or an innovative product that we are about to give to someone, wrapped in agency brilliance. Instead, we focus on sharing methodologies, learning together, training the teams to successfully come up with and support the future product. Our company growth comes from variety and knowledge, not selling over-reliance.

Being the passionate nerds we are, we've turned knowledge transfer into an art form through paired design sessions, living documentation, and workshops that transform concepts into practical skills, often through play and fun activities people love. Those transform both their work and their lives.

The Cosmic Velocity team were fantastic to work with and I’d highly recommend them to any organisation looking to gain a deeper understanding of their users and the market. They were responsive, quick, and felt like a true extension of our team. The user research report which was delivered at the end of the project was instrumental in sharpening our business strategy. We still refer to it and use it as a key part of any new team member’s onboarding process.

Hannah Samano, Founder & CEO at Unfabled

(Female health and wellbeing startup)

And just like that, a client ended up using our research debrief deck as onboarding material. Another client invited us to help design their hiring process, and help hire their first designer. Together, we'd built a foundation for their future growth and added definition to their business.

Cross-pollination, complexity and making stuff

I feel the most innovative solutions often come from connecting the unexpected, from applying cross-industry, cross-market and cross-context knowledge. We recently helped a client break through a stubborn technical challenge by applying a solution from an entirely different industry. Instead of lengthy discussions and requirements boards, we built a working prototype in two weeks that answered our client's key concerns. The excitement when people saw their ideas taking shape was all worth it, not to mention the ability to test it with users using variables and close-to-life scenarios.

We treasure our action bias. This isn't about just moving fast, it's about moving thoughtfully, with clear success metrics and regular moments to ensure we're growing together - but still getting somewhere, where people can experience the products, fast.

We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Cosmic Velocity for their phenomenal support over the past 6+ months.
There’s simply no way we would have made the progress we have without their work. They quickly learnt a huge amount about the technical aspects of our domain, have collaborated closely and effectively with our developers, and brought fresh ideas and constructive challenge to our product decision making. Thank you!

Joseph Saxby
Founder & CEO, Spruce Energy

Working close to code

Our passion at Cosmic Velocity is building truly inclusive products—ones that solve real problems for diverse, wide sets of people. For these solutions to come to life at the quality and speed that we aspire to, we need to deeply understand how they'll be built and maintained. This is why technical knowledge runs through everything we do.

We spend time daily exploring new technologies—sometimes to improve our own workflows, sometimes to solve a client challenge, often just because we're genuinely curious. This isn't just professional development; it's about staying connected to the craft that makes digital experiences possible.

What people actually experience is a built product that works in their lives. We view our agency itself through this same lens. Our processes, our collaboration methods, our knowledge sharing—these are all products we're constantly building, testing and refining with the help of people and new technologies.

Responsible partnership

What if we go too far in one direction?

This statement from a client reflects a valid worry about maintaining control. We've developed a framework built on mutual trust that we share with customers from day one: regular working sessions, transparent metrics, documented decision making rituals, clear roles and involvement levels.

Thanks to the above, the answer to "when will we see the presentation from you" is never. We'll keep working together, co-creating, with full access to design files and complete research transparency. This isn't about avoiding structure, but about replacing formality with genuine collaboration. We enjoy and run Cosmic to build high quality inclusive products and teams on the basis of shared knowledge and trust.

They bring an incredible level of detail to every project, ensuring nothing is overlooked and delivering exceptional results. Beyond their technical expertise, Cosmic Velocity are outstanding stakeholder managers. They provide strong UX thought leadership, always pushing boundaries and challenging the status quo in a way that drives real progress. Their ability to balance innovation with business needs makes them a truly valuable partner.

Tom Rowe
Digital Optimisation Manager, Avanti West Coast

We're reimagining what partnerships look like: more integrated, more transparent, focused on mutual growth. We're doers who believe in meaningful work and nerds who love sharing knowledge. The question isn't whether to go internal or external. It's how we build the most capable, innovative team possible.

What are the best partnerships you have been a part of? Would love to hear what matters to you.