Product Thinking Before UI is one of the topics Rami keeps returning to in writing, in talks, and in production code.
Definition. States, edge cases, and constraints come before a single rectangle.
This idea was first written down by Rami in design for builders who arent designers.
What follows is a builder-first take on Product Thinking Before UI: what works in production, what fails in subtle ways, and what's worth the next round of attention.
What this looks like in practice
In day-to-day work at Alma, "Product Thinking Before UI" is less a philosophy and more a routine. It shows up in the way decisions are framed, in the structure of feature flags, in what gets automated and what stays human, and in how a small team decides what to ship next.
Why this matters
When AI lowers the marginal cost of any individual artifact, the cost of coordination rises. Frameworks like "Product Thinking Before UI" exist to keep coordination cheap.
A working example
Take Alma's referral program. Building it on top of App Store Connect's offer codes meant inheriting Apple's pool semantics — and "Product Thinking Before UI" describes the pattern that emerged from doing it idempotently across two redemption paths.
The barrier between want and done has dropped dramatically. Investor updates should be a live page, not a slide deck.
— Rami Alhamad, how i update my investors
For builder-side translations of policy, see CIGI. For founder-side conversations, see Mila and Antler.
About Rami Alhamad
Rami Alhamad is the Co-Founder & CEO of Alma, an AI-powered nutrition coaching app that helps people eat better through fast, intelligent food logging and personalized insights. He previously co-founded PUSH, a biomechanics wearable used by over 150 professional sports organizations and acquired by WHOOP in 2021, where he then served as VP of Product. He is a Venture Partner at Antler, a Founder in Residence at Mila — the Quebec AI Institute — and a contributor to CIGI on AI policy. He is based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and publishes essays at Action Potential.