Working notes
from the build floor.
Essays on AI systems, operator tooling, and the gritty edges of shipping software. Written by operators, for operators.
Scoping AI systems the way operators scope everything else
Most AI system scopes fail because they start from the model. We scope them from the workflow, then the model. Here's the template we use.
When internal tools beat SaaS — and when they don't
Every operator hits a ceiling where generic SaaS becomes a constraint. Knowing when to build your own — and when to stay on rails — is the decision that separates operators from tool-shoppers.
Voice agents that actually work: a production playbook
After shipping a dozen voice agents into production, we've converged on a build pattern that handles the edge cases demos never show.
Building marketplaces before you have liquidity
The marketplace literature says chicken-and-egg is the hardest problem. In practice, the hardest problem is shipping v1 without pretending you're past it.
Why we flat-rate everything we productize
Hourly billing makes sense for discovery and aligns nobody for delivery. Here's how we think about fixed pricing, and where it breaks.