annual insights
Studio Report 2025
smalltribe is a design and technology studio partnering with ambitious companies and startups. With this report, we want to reflect on 2025, document what we worked on, what went well, what didn’t, and what we learned along the way.
Over the years, reading similar reports from other studios has always been both inspiring and insightful for us.
Since transparency has been one of our core values from the very beginning, sharing our own experiences felt like a natural next step.
Whether you run a studio yourself, work as a freelancer, or are simply curious about how we operate and think, we hope this report offers useful insights, honest reflections, and maybe even a bit of encouragement.
Forward Festival Berlin
We attended the Forward Festival in Berlin, a conference focused on design, creativity, and culture. It offered space to step back, listen, and recalibrate our thinking.
Benefits we gave ourselves
In addition to our new studio, we want to ensure that we create a work environment that helps us achieve a good balance.
Italy Offsite
One week, 2,000 km by car, many dogs, good food and wine. A pause to talk, reflect, plan, and explore what’s next.
Partners & Friends
Collaboration is not a fallback for us, but a deliberate choice. Working with trusted freelancers and studios helps us deliver better work while staying true to our standards.
Design Meetup
In September, tribehouse hosted its first design meetup. Together with Roger Lehner, we gathered 30 like-minded creatives to share ideas and perspectives.
tribehouse
tribehouse is our studio home and a place we share with other creatives.
We came across the space in November 2024, long before it was finished. What began as a loose idea turned into a clear commitment. Building tribehouse happened alongside day-to-day client work and required us to design, plan, and execute everything in parallel.
This does not include the countless hours spent on ideation, exploration, and selecting the right colors, lighting, and furniture. All the tiny details ultimately transform this place into something very special and bring the vision to life. In the end, it is worth every second.
We joined the space while it was still mid-construction and rented it in that state. From there, the focus shifted to finalizing everything that turns an empty shell into a working place: furniture, lighting, Wi-Fi, and the onboarding of our first members.
Profit & Loss
This overview accurately presents our revenue and expenses for 2025. It is segmented and categorized to offer insights while maintaining confidentiality.
What’s Next
Looking ahead, we want to spend more time building digital products again. We plan to go deeper into the intersection of design, technology, and AI, exploring how creativity and emerging tools can shape more meaningful solutions.
At the same time, we’ll continue sharpening our positioning as a studio, collaborating closely with freelancers, and working with early-stage startups. tribehouse will also play a bigger role, with more events planned, including design dinners and small-format gatherings.
If you’re building something ambitious and think we could be a good fit, we’d be happy to talk.
Thank You!
If you made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read our first studio report.
We’re grateful to everyone we worked with this year: clients, partners, freelancers, and friends. If you’re interested in collaborating with us, we’d be happy to hear from you.
Justin
Ferdinand
Shoutout to Gardener.nyc and Superkeen who inspired us with their reports.
© 2022+3 smalltribe