Who is Matt Wills?
I'm a New Zealander who has spent most of my working life abroad. Around eleven years in Japan, then several in China, and now Thailand. I worked as a designer and creative director from 2009 to 2021, and I started Quietly Smart in April 2025.
What did you do before AI?
Design, mostly for large entertainment brands. I was Creative Director at Dark Horse Comics from 2018 to 2021, where I redesigned Hellboy for the Chinese market and wrote the 80-page style guide that went with him. Style guides were a regular part of that job and I have written a lot of them. Before that I was Senior Creative Manager at Huayi Brothers Media, developing around a thousand products for the opening of their theme park. Earlier I was a product designer at Mtime, then China's largest cinema retail and licensing company, working with Marvel, Warner Bros and Dreamworks. I started out freelance in Hiroshima in 2009. I also run FLOOB Creative, a character and licensing business.
Why does a design background matter for AI work?
Because most automation is only judged on whether it runs. A follow-up email that goes out on time but sounds like a robot hasn't solved your problem, it has moved it somewhere you can't see. My test is whether the thing it produces is something you'd have been happy to send yourself. That's a design question before it's an engineering one, and it's the part generic tools tend to get wrong.
Where are you based, and who do you work with?
Bangkok. I work with owner-operated businesses across Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Japan and Hong Kong, usually between two and fifty staff. They're rarely in the same industry. What they share is that too much of the business still waits on one person, and that person is usually the owner.
Do you build it yourself, or hand it to someone else?
I build the systems myself, and I'm the person you deal with from the first call to the handover. For work that goes beyond what one person should take on, I bring in partners. I co-founded PRISM Collective, a group of independent specialist firms working on AI for businesses, and I partner with a software development team of more than fifty developers for anything that needs real engineering behind it.
I cap the systems work at three clients a month. It's a real limit, and it's the reason I'll sometimes tell you the timing doesn't work rather than take the money.
What does it cost to work with you?
The first 30-minute call is free. After that there are two ways in. The Bottleneck Audit is USD 795 and finds where the work actually waits on you, so you don't spend money automating the wrong thing. The Monthly Consultation is USD 950 a month, with two video calls, and we build one thing at a time. You can stop any month you like. Whatever we've built by then stays on your own computer and keeps running whether you carry on paying or not.
What won't you do?
I won't automate work you only do a few times a month, because it rarely pays for itself. I won't let AI send anything to your customers without you approving it first. And I won't sell you a setup when a subscription you already pay for would do the job, which happens more often than you'd expect.
How do I get hold of you?
Email matt.wills@quietlysmart.ai, WhatsApp +66 8 2257 257, or find me on LinkedIn. The quickest way is to book the free 30-minute call. I answer every message myself, so it may take a day, but it will be me.