On building
The Work Nobody Saw
May 24, 2026 · 4 min read
The file size
We were about to deploy. Everything was ready. Then my tech lead flagged it: the animations were too large. We are on a free hosting tier with 500mb. Add HuiXian's work and we would blow past it immediately.
"We hold the animation first. We have to save space for Supabase."
Simple message. Hard reality. HuiXian had spent days on this. Adobe, motion software, layers of craft that you could see in every frame. When my co-founder first saw her work, he said: you found the right person. I remember feeling proud of that. Of course she could do it. She studied this.
And now I had to tell her we were not using it.
The Mona Lisa
My first thought was not about the website. It was not about the money. It was: how do I tell her that all her hard work is going into the dump?
I kept thinking: this is like tearing the Mona Lisa.
I was carrying her feelings before she had a chance to feel her own.
It took me a while to realise that framing was mine, not hers. I was treating a reaction that had not happened yet like it was already a catastrophe. This is a pattern I am still learning to catch in myself. I care about my people. But caring does not mean assuming the worst on their behalf. That is not care. That is projection.
The real question
Here is what I actually had to sit with: can work be valued even when nobody outside the team ever sees it?
I believe yes. I have to believe yes.
HuiXian delivered something real. Professional. My co-founder, who does not say things lightly, looked at what she built and called her the right person for this job. That does not disappear because we could not fit it into 500mb.
The work and its fate are two different things. I had to learn to separate them.
The work being unused does not make it worthless. I know that now in a way I did not before this moment.
The decision
We are not VC backed. Every ringgit that funds Dodeez comes from us, the founders. We pay for software subscriptions, we compensate the team from our own pockets, we try to make sure everyone has what they need to do their best work. We do this knowing it is not enough, and we do it anyway.
So when it comes to where money goes, I would rather spend on promoting the app than on animations for a landing page we have not launched yet. The main product is the app. The website exists to point people toward it. That is the hierarchy.
The version that shipped. Static, light, fast. The animations are sitting in a folder somewhere. They were good. They just weren't this.
This is what building under real constraints actually looks like. Every decision has a cost. You do not get to spend money you do not have on things that are not the core. Not yet. The decision was right. I knew it the moment it was made.
To the people who build with me
This part is for HuiXian. And for anyone who joins this team after her.
Every call I make that costs someone something, I feel it. I do not make them lightly. When I say your work is valued, I mean it in a way that has nothing to do with whether it ends up in the final product. I see the hours. I see the craft. I see what you put in.
We are a small team building something real, with real money, under real constraints. There will be more moments like this. Things that were good that we could not use. Decisions that look cold from the outside but came from a careful place.
What I promise you is this: I will always tell you the truth. I will always tell you first. And I will never pretend a hard call is easy just to make myself feel better about delivering it.
Your work matters. Even the work nobody sees.
The piece that did not ship taught me something the shipped pieces have not. Valuing someone's work is a decision you make in your mind, not something that appears when the product goes live.
HuiXian's animations are sitting in a folder somewhere. They are not on the website. But I know what she built. My co-founder knows. The team knows.
Sometimes that has to be enough. And I am learning that it is.
Related: No One Cares More Than You — on the arrangement I made with the fresh graduate who is now launching Dodeez with me, and what mutual stake actually looks like.