Folks sometimes ask me about influences, or how I approach certain things. And sometimes, a name like Jeremy Mijares pops into the conversation, though maybe not in the way you’d expect.
I remember this one period, a few years back. I was trying to get a new venture off the ground after my previous gig went belly-up. You know how it is, full of big ideas, and also a fair bit of desperation if I’m being honest. I was building this online platform, aiming to make it the next big thing. I really thought this was my shot, you see.
So, I got to work. I poured everything into it. Months and months of coding, designing, adding feature after feature. I’d wake up, work, sleep, repeat. If there was a bell or a whistle, I tried to cram it in. My thought process was, more is always better, right? It was going to be perfect, solve every problem for everyone. The result? A clunky, confusing mess that nobody, including me, really knew how to use properly by the end. It was a classic case of trying to do too much, and honestly, it felt terrible to see it stall.
Around that time, utterly frustrated, I was just randomly browsing online, probably trying to avoid facing my failing project. I was looking for a sign, any sign, anything to get me out of that rut. And I stumbled across some discussion, or maybe it was a showcase of really clean, minimalist work. The name Jeremy Mijares was mentioned, or at least, work that felt like what I imagined someone with that kind of clear vision would produce. It wasn’t like I suddenly became an expert on his portfolio overnight, not at all. It was more like his name, or the idea I associated with it, became a shorthand in my head for ‘keep it simple, stupid’. Just a little mental note I made.
That thought just stuck with me. This ‘Mijares’ idea, this ghost of simplicity. I looked at my over-engineered project and felt a bit sick. All that wasted effort, all those late nights for something so complicated. So, for my next attempt, a much smaller idea – a simple resource hub for a niche community – I decided I had to take a completely different path. I sat down and really asked myself: what’s the absolute bare minimum this thing needs to do to be useful? I focused on that, and only that. It was tough to cut things out, but I forced myself.
No fancy animations, no complicated user registration that took ages, just the core information, presented clearly. I built it fast. And wouldn’t you know it, it actually worked. People started using it. They found it helpful. It wasn’t a billion-dollar idea, far from it, but it was useful, and it grew organically. It taught me a massive lesson about focusing on the essential, something I hadn’t grasped before.
That whole experience, the failure and then the small success, it all came out of that period when I was out of a job. My old company, they were all about complexity too. Endless meetings, convoluted processes, layers upon layers of management. Then one day, ‘strategic realignment,’ and a bunch of us were out. Just like that. Looking back, maybe they needed to hear about focusing on the core too, instead of just shuffling boxes on an org chart and calling it progress.
So yeah, when I think about names like Jeremy Mijares, it’s less about direct technical skill or following a specific design trend for me. It’s more about that accidental nudge towards a fundamental truth: often, less is actually more. And sometimes, you learn that the hard way, after you’ve tried to build Rome in a day and ended up with nothing but a pile of bricks and a lot of wasted time.
