Writing
Notes on building things worth building.
Essays and playbooks from the actual work — product strategy, AI product design, MVP scoping, and the kind of clarity that decides whether a product lands. Written for founders in the early, messy, high-leverage part.
Clarity is the real product work
Most products aren't confusing because the idea is bad — they're confusing because the thinking behind them was never made clear. Here's how I treat clarity as the actual work, not the polish at the end.Read the essay →
How I pressure-test an idea before building it
Before I write a line of code or design a single screen, I try to kill the idea cheaply. Here's the sequence I use to find the assumption that would sink a product — while it's still free to be wrong.
Find the core loop, then scope the MVP
An MVP isn't a feature list you trim until it fits a budget. It's the smallest honest version of your product's core loop. Here's how I find that loop and scope around it.
Designing AI people actually trust
AI makes software more capable and less predictable at the same time. Trust is the thing that decides whether people keep using it. Here's the product discipline I bring to AI experiences.
An MVP is not a small product
The most misused word in startups. An MVP isn't a cheaper, smaller version of the real thing — it's the smallest serious version that proves the most important assumption. The difference matters.
Founders need taste and structure
Taste tells you what feels right. Structure turns that instinct into something buildable and scalable. Most founders lean hard on one and neglect the other — and the product shows it.
Product judgment is the new moat
When anyone can build almost anything quickly, building stops being the hard part. Deciding what to build, for whom, and what to leave out — judgment — becomes the real advantage.
Positioning is a decision, not a tagline
Most founders treat positioning as a wording problem to solve at launch. It's actually a set of decisions about who you're for and what you're against — and it shapes the product, not just the homepage.
Pricing your first product
Founders agonize over the price and under-think the model. Early pricing isn't about finding the perfect number — it's about learning what your product is worth, without anchoring yourself to zero.
When to hire, when to partner, and when to wait
The instinct when a product needs building is to hire — usually an engineer, usually too early. Here's how I think about the choice between hiring, partnering with a studio, and simply waiting.
Working on something that fits this thinking?
If any of this maps to what you're building, I'm always up for a good founder conversation.
