Building and Thinking

One-off posts, plus a few ongoing series. Click a series to read only its posts.

  • Autonomous companiesOngoing efforts to build and grow several products sustainably. I want to be as effective as I can (10x+), solo.
  • Signals over vibesThe harnesses I build across products to work on signal instead of vibes, especially after sprints.
  • Society essaysReading books and writing about business models that put respect for all life first. I'll turn my theories into action, eventually.
  • Product postsTechnical breakdowns of what I'm building. Usually post-sprint reflections.
  • Game devArt plus coding = short games I make on the side.

By productMortrel

Showing Product posts×

2026

  1. Why I moved Mortrel's encryption to the server

    I wanted the best design in terms of privacy and encryption, but because Mortrel is a consumer AI app, the worker has to decrypt to do RAG. I moved encryption and decryption to the server. Along the way, I did a bug hunt and went down a research rabbit hole.

    Product postsMortrelsecuritysprint

  2. A tale of two crons

    I tried to fix a one-line SQL bug. It turned into ~180 LOC deleted, a refactor, and three new design checks I now run on every plan.

    Product postsMortreldistributed-systemssprint

  3. The product vision for Mortrel (formerly TimeBox)

    What TimeBox is and isn't

    Product postsMortrel

  4. Why I'm building Mortrel (formerly TimeBox)

    And my research on time

    Product postsMortrel