Morrama (the first company I co-founded) just hit 10 years old!
I helped start this award winning industrial design studio straight out of college. Since then Jo, my co-founder, has made it into one of the most reputable agencies in London.
This year Morrama, the first company I co-founded, hit 10 years old! To celebrate, the team created a book to summarise all their learnings over the last decade. For those who don’t know, Morrama is an award winning industrial design studio focussed on early stage companies and they lead the way in sustainable design.
I’ve only been involved in Morrama from an advisory capacity since 2017 but, as part of the books intro, Jo (my co-founder) invited me to share the story of why I left the company in her very capable hands. This excerpt is below, but get a copy of the book as there some amazing knowledge and insight in it!
Robert Bye on why he left Morrama
It was about a year into starting Morrama that I started to notice something shifting in me. While I still loved designing, I was becoming more and more drawn to the idea of building. I was from scratch on my own - the strategy, the problem-solving, the uncertainty of trying to make something new exist in the world.
The trips we’d taken to the U.S. had exposed me to the fast-moving world of software. Many of the products we were working on at the time had a digital component, and I found myself more interested in that side of things than the hardware. It was fascinating by how quickly software could be built, tested, and iterated one - how an idea could go from concept to something tangible in weeks rather than months or years.
Earlier that year, I had begun experimenting with software and designing mobile apps in my spare time. It started as just a bit of fun, but one idea had attracted some interest from investors. I should have been really excited about it; but instead, it just made things even harder.
I was torn. I was starting to realise that my strengths and interests were pulling me in a different direction, but I also didn’t want to walk away from what Jo and I had built together. Morrama wasn’t just a company - it was something we had created side by side, from nothing. And Jo wasn’t just a co-founder - she was my best friend, someone I respected and admired. The thought of leaving felt like I was letting both her and the company down.
But something happened that made me convinced that she could manage without me. We had just taken on our most challenging project, and Jo was leading on things that would normally have been my responsibility - managing the client, taking risks, driving our ambition - and she was excelling. She had always been a stronger designer than me, but watching her, I could see she was becoming a leader. Someone who wasn’t just shaping the company itself.
That was the moment it became clear to me. I realised not just for Jo, too. Staying would have meant holding onto something that I needed to leave, but that it was the right thing for Morrama and deep down, I knew wasn’t right for me to have a grip on anymore. Jo didn’t know it at that time, but for me to stretch beyond the roles we had built together, and to grow, I into the kind of leader I knew she could become.
Starting Morrama with Jo is something I will always be proud of. We were young, full of energy and completely in it together, figuring things out as we went, making mistakes and learning fast. every project, winning clients through sheer enthusiasm into methodology where we were way over our heads, and somehow pulling it off. I also loved designing, solving problems, and seeing our work turn your is a strange thing, coming to the conclusion that the best thing into real products. It’s a strange thing, coming to the conclusion that the best thing you can do for something and someone you care about is to step away. But I knew this was one of those moments - the kind where the courage to do it is forever back down from those. encouragement to do it is forever back down from those.