While the internet was still grappling with Flash websites and giant bright red "Buy" buttons, four designers and one project manager were pondering on the kitchen table in the evening about how not to become a design service and not to depend on clients who "need a bigger logo." It was the year 2010, and we thought that starting our own studio was very difficult and expensive. So, we kept on making "larger font" and "brighter buttons on the website".

In 2013, a friend explained to one of us that a studio is not about statutory documents and an office. It all starts with a team and what it can do. That's when we realized that we had everything we needed, and on February 1, 2014, we announced to everyone that we had founded the SFG Copmany. (Note: "founded" means launched the website sfg.ua and had a celebration)

With undisguised disappointment, after some time, we realized that little had changed. Clients who insisted on "having the phone number larger in the website header" were still around. To avoid losing them, we tried even harder to please them. The search for a client who would trust us and allow us to unleash our full potential continued for a long time. Not everyone who joined SFG waited for that moment to arrive.

Finally, we managed to boost our self-confidence with a significant project executed professionally in all aspects. This helped us assert our ideas confidently in the future and work not only to satisfy the client but also for our own growth.

One of the most challenging stages in our history was the first significant scaling of the company. The market demanded ready-made products, the entire creation cycle of which was executed within one team. We understood that limiting ourselves to design alone would not suffice, so we started inviting developers to join us. The difficulty of hiring individuals capable of solving complex tasks daily seemed insurmountable at the time. We didn't want to work with people who extensively listed framework names and aspired to "realize their potential in technological innovations at the level of Apple". With us were those who couldn't imagine their work without an office and everything that comes with it.

We don't have an office, and we never had one from the first day. However, after that, we clearly realized that not everyone could work like us. (They just don't know that ahead lies COVID-19 and war.)

We also didn't know that, but for our own reasons, we made a project management system the center of coordination for everything happening in the company. By the 5th anniversary, we had completed the development of our own task manager, which we named Displey. We continue to develop it today, using it in parallel with Basecamp.

Thanks to previous mistakes, the introduction of the third service direction in the Company went smoothly — video production became a logical addition to our capabilities. Instead of assigning projects via messenger, email, or call, we simply wrote: "look at Displey!" Displey became our place where every team member can see what the company is up to. It found room not only for work but also for chatter, fun, and greetings.

We strongly believe that quality is more important than quantity. Therefore, we don't work on a hundred projects simultaneously and don't expand our team endlessly. In our case, it's not just a job; it's a responsibility for its outcome.

We hope it will continue this way. Meanwhile, SFG is 10 years old.