Every Startup Needs to Prepare for Its Downfall | Wired
Startups pour immense energy into scaling up, yet rarely build a blueprint for how their product ecosystem can gracefully wind down. This article outlines why establishing an intentional end-of-life framework is a vital strategic buffer against operational, legal, and digital vulnerabilities.
Meet the 'Endineer' who helps companies design the end of life for products | Fast Company
Brands spend billions on onboarding, but walk away when a product reaches the end of its life cycle. Joe Macleod explains how designing better off-boarding experiences eliminates consumer guilt and creates a sustainable circular economy.
‘Endineering’ solves a missing link for the circular economy | Trellis
Circular supply chains are completely broken because we expect consumers to act responsibly without giving them the tools to do so. This piece demonstrates how Endineering builds the missing human infrastructure needed to achieve genuine ESG compliance and waste reduction.
In search of an ending | Creative Review
The obsession with creating seamless, frictionless onboarding experiences has left a massive blind spot at the end of the consumer journey. Joe Macleod breaks down why businesses must learn to design deliberate, meaningful endings.
Endings Matter: Joe Macleod on Offboarding, Brand Value & Responsibility | Next Conference
Leaving a product's final chapter unmanaged is a high-stakes gamble with your brand's reputation and compliance track record. This video interview maps out why full-lifecycle responsibility is a non-negotiable requirement for modern product management teams.
Warmth of the Setting Sun: Belief and Identity in Digital Life | Next Conference
As our lives move entirely online, deleting an account or leaving a platform shifts from a minor tech hurdle to a profound identity crisis. This high-profile keynote explores how digital product endings must respect user agency, human belief systems, and personal legacies.
If I Only Had a Story | Andy Ruben & Joe Macleod | Circularity 2025
Physical supply chains and digital platforms are deeply broken because they fail to tell the true human story of a product's conclusion. This collaborative keynote maps out how creating transparent end-of-life narratives protects brand equity while actively tackling the growth of data and physical waste.
Closure Experiences by Joe Macleod | Big Radical
A simple onboarding sequence welcomes a user into an ecosystem, but the absence of a structured goodbye leaves them trapped in product limbo. This feature outlines the core mechanics of closure experiences and explains why designing a clear farewell is a foundational requirement for modern service design.
Ends. Why bother? | Creative Mornings Gothenberg
Leaving a product's final chapter up to chance exposes a business to severe operational and legal vulnerabilities. This tactical presentation provides executive leaders with an actionable blueprint on how to align internal corporate culture with structured offboarding.
DIF Conference. ellen macarthur foundation | Ends.
True environmental sustainability and circular logistics fail when businesses treat offboarding as a dry regulatory checklist. This interview shows how bringing user experience to the end of the lifecycle directly limits physical asset waste and digital pollution.
Why Consumer Endings are Critical for a Better, Fairer Future | Circularity
Consumer culture has trapped users in an endless loop of acquisition while completely blinding them to the consequences of disposal. This presentation builds the ethical and economic case for why structured product departures are required to build a fairer, more sustainable future.
Design for Planet: Endineering Joe McLeod | Design Council
Designing sustainable products is a futile effort if we make disposal effortless, invisible, and disconnected from human behavior. This planet-focused keynote details how aligning design systems with circular goals requires an authentic commitment to engineering the exit.
BBC Click. World Service. 15.12.2015 | Click BBC
In this classic feature broadcasted to a global audience, the foundational principles of Endineering are introduced to the mainstream. The segment challenges the tech industry's obsession with frictionless onboarding by highlighting the urgent societal need for designed closure.
Getting Closure, saying goodbye to gadgets | Restart Podcast
Our relationship with hardware has become disposable, yet the psychological weight of letting go of our personal devices lingers. This episode unpacks how creating intentional goodbye rituals for physical gadgets bridges the massive gap between customer experience and circular economy goals.
Joe Macleod 'Peering through the Past, Present and Future lens of End Experiences' | This is HCD
Humanity used to have rich societal and cultural structures for navigating conclusions—until industrial consumerism wiped them away. This conversation traces the evolution of endings to reveal how the future of consumption will rely on restoring agency to the exit.
Joe Macleod: Designing the End | Remake
While design schools teach creation, few teach decommissioning. This episode serves as a foundational masterclass for product leaders on the psychological mechanics of letting go and why true full-lifecycle design requires scripting the final user interface.