Blog

Thinking out loud.

Notes on building autonomous systems, AI operations, and the transition from corporate operator to solo founder.

6 Years on an Army Cot, and the 14 Investments It Turned Into

August 13, 20266 min read

Black Monday put my family in a single-wide at the end of a 6 mile rock road. Here's every cash flow source I own now, what each one actually paid over the last 12 months, and what a paycheck would have to pay to match it.

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Building

5 Weeks of Freemium, and What the Business Is Actually For

August 4, 20265 min read

The freemium checkpoint I promised: signups 4x'd, 100 paying customers, and every upgrade arriving in week 1 instead of the week 3 I predicted. Plus the bigger story: a SaaS run by AI agents, and what it's a platform for.

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Building

The Trial Wall Was the Bottleneck: My Freemium Pivot in Numbers

July 23, 20265 min read

141 expired trials taught me the scarcity mindset was capping my SaaS. The teardown of a trial-to-freemium pivot: the reasoning, the switch, the first 2 weeks of data, and the checklist to run before you touch your own pricing.

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AI Operations

The Daily Loop: Where the Second Brain Earns Its Keep

July 15, 20266 min read

The markdown vault was the memory. This is the loop that feeds it, queries it, and patrols it — the morning ingest, the 4-button brief, recall on demand, and the overnight patrol. With a starter version you can set up today.

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Building

I Cancelled 5 Apps and Built My Own Wealth Tracker in an Afternoon

June 25, 20264 min read

I cancelled 5 finance subscriptions and built one wealth tracker in an afternoon to handle a dozen entities and a stack of K-1s. The build-vs-buy line is moving, and here's the catch nobody mentions.

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AI Operations

I Built My Chief of Staff Out of Markdown Files

June 23, 20266 min read

My personal AI chief of staff runs on a folder of markdown files and a Telegram bot. Here's how the second brain is actually wired, and why it buys back my attention.

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Building

Code Where You Can, LLM Where You Can't

June 17, 20264 min read

Why my best AI agents do as little thinking as possible. The design rule that turned Marcus from a sloppy, expensive deal-screener into a trusted one: deterministic code for the exact work, the model only for genuine ambiguity.

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Origin

A Front Row Seat to the New Industrial Revolution

June 11, 20264 min read

Why I left a lucrative SaaS executive role for a front row seat to the AI revolution, and how cash flow plus AI made the leap less risky than it sounds.

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AI Operations

The Model Is the Cheap Part

May 28, 20264 min read

AI adoption is stalling on process, data, and people, not on the models. Why the model is the cheap part of any real deployment.

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Acquisitions

Mapping the US Business Broker Market

April 21, 20266 min read

I scraped hundreds of broker sites for 18 months. 17 firms list half of all US small-business inventory. Only 4 operate in all 50 states. Plus a free broker finder tool for searchers.

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Acquisitions

The Silver Tsunami Deal That Looked Like a Layup

April 16, 20265 min read

A $1.25M manufacturing deal looked like a 33% return on paper. Then I checked what the owner actually did all day, and the math fell apart. A numbers-driven look at why most sub-$1M acquisitions are a job, not a business.

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Building

How to Build a Production App With AI

April 10, 20268 min read

The exact 8-phase system I use to go from idea to production software. No coding required. Just clear thinking and AI agents.

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Building

Two Weeks of Work. Two Hours. Here's How.

March 26, 20264 min read

A PE firm CEO sent me a long feature list. I shipped it in two hours. The secret isn't prompting. It's decomposition and agents grading agents.

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AI Operations

I Built an AI C-Suite Out of Survival. Here's What Actually Works.

March 20, 20268 min read

How I built a 6-agent AI operating system to run go-to-market, customer ops, and product maintenance as a solo founder. The practical lessons after months of tinkering.

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Origin

Bob Is My CEO. Bill Handles Bug Fixes. They're All AI.

March 19, 20263 min read

After 15 years in SaaS, I left corporate to build with AI and buy cash-flowing assets. Here's what happened in the first seven months.

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Investing

Why 8% in Real Estate Is Not 8% in Stocks.

March 18, 20264 min read

The real yield stack on a Texas strip mall acquisition. Purchase price, depreciation, rent escalations, and why the comparison to stocks is wrong.

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Acquisitions

Speed to No.

March 17, 20264 min read

The most valuable skill in deal screening isn't finding the yes. It's how fast you find the no. A real deal teardown showing why.

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