I'm Sacha Greif, a designer, developer, and entrepreneur.
I'm originally from Paris, France but these days I live in Osaka, Japan.
Say hello, or keep scrolling.
A little more about me.
I've always loved spending way too much time on the computer, and spent my teens tinkering with Photoshop and building crappy websites.
But after getting a computer science degree, I realized writing compilers wasn't for me and decided to switch majors completely and learn Mandarin instead.
Yet as it turns out, my path would lead back to computers: after moving to China in 2006, I ended up quitting my language studies and getting a job in Beijing as a web designer.
After coming back to France in 2007, I became a freelance UI designer, working with companies such as Hipmunk, Intercom, and Le Monde.
A few years later, I decided what I really wanted was to create my own products, and set out to re-learn web programming.
After moving to Japan in 2012 for my wife's studies, I now live in Kyoto and work part-time for Zens while also working on my own projects.
The duct tape that keeps the world together.
An open-source full-stack app framework based on React, GraphQL, Meteor, and MongoDB. A.k.a. the “Rails for JavaScript”.
I learned the Meteor JavaScript framework to build Telescope, and decided to reinvest the knowledge I had just acquired to co-author a book together with Tom Coleman.
I got tired of all this talk of “JavaScript fatigue”, so I created a survey to get more data about recent trends in the JavaScript community.
The State of JS survey’s little sister, all about CSS and HTML.
My daily newsletter of the five best design links, now with over 35000 subscribers.
I co-organize the local Hacker News meetup here in Osaka.
I wrote a free guide to help people build successful communities.
In a past life, I was a UI designer. You can find a collection of my client work here.
Like coding, but with fewer bugs.
My ultra-popular guide to learning JavaScript.
I went on Fiver to see what kind of logo you get for just $5. The results were surprising (or maybe not…).
A blueprint for being an entrepreneur, from being a consultant to building consumer products.
How to organize your products in a way that makes sense (and makes cents, too).
A long-form essay about the never-ending battle between flat design and skeuomorphism.
My first ebook, a surprise success that set me on the path of the solo entrepreneur.
Now featuring 20% more French accent.
Episode 40: Learning Through Projects
43 The State of JavaScript and React Native
5 episodes covering various aspects of Meteor
Episode 39
EP63: How things get popular
Discover Meteor.js
Episode 12 - MeteorJS and Side Projects
#10: Facebook IPO’d, The Toolbox launches, Parse for iOS and Android, and Say Hello to Octicons
You gotta learn to let them go.
An attempt at building a directory of design talks. On life support due to a lack of updates.
A directory of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu videos that never quite took off.
A directory of design resources. The domain expired, and then got a second life thanks to a new owner.
The previous version of this site, a now-abandoned WordPress blog.
My first “startup”. After many years trying (and failing) to make it work, sold the site to the talented Workshop crew.
A simple pattern generation tool, and one of my first ever side projects. Still works!