I take products from customer to release.

What the real world taught me

Judge the number. I didn’t write the estimates. I heard them said out loud on job sites and had to decide whether they were right.

Hit the date. Real estate runs on signed paper and dates that don’t move. I managed the contracts and the people on every side.

Stay steady with people. After a loss, every kind of personality shows up. My job was to keep them, the crews and the insurers moving.

From customer to release

Customer. I start where I’ve seen the problem up close, and I write down what I’m only guessing. For Lantern, once the first prototype worked, that meant an interview plan that asks about past behavior and never pitches, and a rule to build nothing new until it’s run.

Software. I build it myself with AI. Lantern was a tested prototype, ready for a guided demo, 17 days after its first commit. Feature work now runs through one pipeline: plan, audit, build, review.

Beta. Testers get numbered builds and plain notes. DeHoardMe’s Build 15 notes told its TestFlight testers what changed, and corrected three promises from Build 14 that the app couldn’t keep. DeHoardMe is the only product that has had testers so far, and it isn’t released; 50RH went live without a beta.

Release. Released means live and checked, not merged. I reviewed 50RH’s live signup funnel on 8 Aug 2026 and shipped six fixes within a day.

Then the loop back to the customer, which no product has closed yet. 50RH has been live with billing since 7 Aug 2026, and no one has subscribed yet. No family has used Lantern. Each stage in detail →

AI is inside three of my products and behind all of them, which is the experience AI consultant and forward-deployed product roles draw on. AI in the work →

The products

From the demo account.Live50RHSealed bidding for property repairs. I built the marketing site, the app and the API, and I run all three. No customers yet.From judging spoken estimates on job sites.A seeded demo family.PrototypeLanternCare coordination for the family around an aging parent. One shared log, one list of what needs doing, and plain rules for who sees what.From my own family.

A seeded verdict and quip, from a local demo build.BetaDeHoardMeAn iOS app for deciding what to keep. Photograph something you own and get a keep-or-toss call, with a one-line quip.From seeing hoarding up close on restoration jobs.

• clioThe system behind my products: the context my AI work gets, what every run costs, and me at every gate.
• WPHostGuyWordPress hosting and care, run by one person. I move a site onto a server I run, then keep it updated, backed up and watched, and answer requests myself.
• Small toolsTwo tools for my own AI work. ccf switches Claude Code to the right account for the folder I start in, and a pager is meant to text me when a long job needs me.

What I shipped lately

Say hello.

I’m glad to compare notes with people who build products. The best way to reach me is a message on LinkedIn.