Est. 2026 · A studio of two

Built by two humans,
on three.

UX/UI and iOS, made by two people in Leeuwarden. We build apps that take friction out of the day.

See MenuWise → hello@thirdfloorstudios.nl →
Currently building MenuWise · not taking client work Leeuwarden, NL · 53.20°N
01Our Story

From Skopje, to the top floor.

We met in Skopje in 2023. Alexandra was on a gap year, Berke had just moved there for work. Two years and one country later, we're in Leeuwarden, running a studio out of a third-floor home office that overlooks the lake.

01 · Co-founder
Leeuwarden, NL
a.
Alexandra Jammali
UX/UI · Research · Strategy

Brings the user interviews, the systems thinking, and strong opinions about typography. The one who'll insist we re-read the brief before opening Figma, and the reason MenuWise has a real research foundation underneath every design decision.

User research Design systems Strategy Writing
02 · Co-founder
Leeuwarden, NL
b.
Berke Arca
iOS · UI · Engineering

Years of mobile work; ships the interface, owns the polish. Cares about the haptic on tab change and the spring on the modal. The one who will rebuild a flow at midnight because the transition felt 40ms off.

Swift / SwiftUI UI design Motion Shipping
02Now

What we're heads down on.

A small, honest snapshot of the studio this week. Updated when something actually changes, never quarterly. Inspired by Derek Sivers' /now page.

Updated April 25, 2026

Right now,
this week.

A live page. If you're curious what two people in a top-floor studio actually do all day, here it is. No filters, no humblebrags, no quarterly roadmap.

Shipping MenuWise v1.2, with cafe filters and a faster scan pipeline. Submitting to App Review on Monday. / this week
Designing A redesign of the ingredient profile screen. Three rounds of user testing in. / in figma
Reading The Design of Everyday Things (re-read), and a stack of papers on celiac diagnosis rates. / on the desk
Listening Tycho on loop, and the new Khruangbin record when we want something slower. / studio speakers
Eating Tomato season starting. A lot of bread from the bakery on Eewal. / leeuwarden
Avoiding Twitter, the urge to add streaks to MenuWise, and any meeting that could have been an email. / deliberately
Open to Hearing from people building quiet, useful apps. Not open to: client work, or anything with the word "synergy." / inbox open
03Our Work

Our first app, shipping now.

MenuWise is a restaurant-menu scanner for people on diets, with allergies, or with macros they care about. Our App Store launch, and the proof we ship the things we design.

Live · App Store

MenuWise. Eat without the homework.

Scan any menu in 4 seconds. Every dish gets a personal match score and dietary tags based on your goals, allergies, and macros. From research to App Store, designed and built by us.

4s
Avg scan time
Match%
Per-dish score
100%
In-house build
See the case → App Store ↗
LiveApp Store
Designed in‑house
04Principles

Six things we actually believe.

Not a manifesto, not values written for a recruiter. Just the rules we keep coming back to when a decision is hard. We break them sometimes. Then we feel bad about it.

01 / Pace

Ship slowly.

A finished thing once a year beats a half-finished thing every month. We'd rather miss a trend than ship something we don't believe in.

02 / Research

Talk to users, not personas.

Every MenuWise feature starts with a real conversation. Personas are a useful summary, not a replacement for the actual humans we're building for.

03 / Scope

Two people is the right number.

Big enough to disagree, small enough to hold the whole product in our heads. We have no plans to grow. The studio is the team.

04 / Craft

Sweat the small stuff.

Haptics, micro-copy, the timing of a sheet animation. The things nobody asks for in research, and everybody feels in their hands.

05 / Honesty

Don't add what we wouldn't use.

No streaks, no notification spam, no "engagement" features designed to inflate retention. If we wouldn't tolerate it on our phones, we don't ship it.

06 / Life

Eat properly. Sleep well.

A studio of two doesn't survive on hustle. We close laptops at six, walk by the canal, cook dinner. The work gets better when we do.

05What we're into

Three things we love doing.

This isn't a service menu, it's just what we spend our days on. Right now, all of it is going into MenuWise. We're sharing the stack here because it's the honest answer to “so what do you two actually do up there?”

01 · Crafta.

UX / UI design

Research, wireframes, full interactive prototypes, a design system that doesn't fall apart on the third screen. We start by talking to the people who'll actually use the thing, never from vibes alone.

Research Prototyping Systems
02 · Craftb.

iOS development

Native Swift and SwiftUI. We like apps that feel like they belong on the platform: the small animations, the haptics, the bits Apple quietly does well that most people copy badly.

Swift SwiftUI App Store
03 · Craftc.

Full product

The fun part: a real idea, a Figma file, and an app that actually ships to the App Store. Modern AI tooling where it saves time, design fundamentals where it doesn't. MenuWise is the current proof.

End-to-end AI-assisted Launch
06Field Notes

Things we're writing about.

Short essays from the third floor. Mostly about building MenuWise, designing for chronic illness, and what it's actually like to run a two-person studio. Slow blog. Real opinions.

Product04 min read

Why MenuWise has no streaks.

A short note on why we deliberately left out the engagement loop every productivity app ships with, and what we built instead.

Read →
Studio06 min read

On living in a two-person studio.

What changes when your design partner is also your co-founder, your roommate, and the only other person at standup. The good parts and the awkward ones.

Soon →
Research08 min read

Designing for chronic illness.

Notes from a year of user research with people living with Hashimoto's, celiac and IBS. The patterns we noticed and the assumptions we threw out.

Soon →
07Say hi

We're heads down, but not unreachable.

We're not taking client work right now, all our hours go into MenuWise. But if you want to nerd out about food apps, design systems, or living in Leeuwarden, our inbox is open.

👋 Open inbox · slow replies · always read

Just say hi.

No forms, no calendars, no "book a discovery call." Two people, one inbox, both of us actually read it. Replies come when we surface from MenuWise, usually a day or two, sometimes longer if we're shipping.

hello@thirdfloorstudios.nl →
Things we love getting emails about
01MenuWise feedback: bugs, features, "wouldn't it be cool if…"/ replies fast
02A friendly hello from another two-person studio/ love these
03Anything food-related: restaurants, recipes, weird ingredients/ always
04"Are you taking client work?" Not right now, but flattered./ honest no