Embarkation

Never 💩 Software

In my career, I've seen the world in the US Navy, completed a BSBA CIS degree and had a run at entrepreneurship by building apps on contract in Hawaii. I've had the privilege of learning from and working with some great engineers and product managers on the largest Apps in the store (Facebook, Apple, Grindr) as well as enjoying the fast paced world of startups (UnifyID, Good Technology).

This year, the stars finally aligned for me to pursue the next chapter of my career. For the past two months I've been putting together a business plan and writing code for myself, rather than for someone else.

Introducing... BadPirate Garage

Since I was little, I have admired the idealized parts of the pirate attitude and creed, the spirit of adventure and exploration, to seize opportunity when presented. Steve Jobs once said, "It's better to be a pirate than to join the Navy". I joined the Navy... which I believe makes me a bad pirate. While this software effort will begin as just myself, and in my garage, I'm hoping someday to find a crew. Shoot me a message if you'd like to come aboard.

Never 💩 Software

Currently, product focus at most software startups has 3 phases:

User Focus - Make an excellent product to attract and build a user base, spare no expense, and burn through Venture Capital during this phase. The only goal is user growth
Lock In Focus - Subtly change the product, creating features that make it difficult for a user to stop using the product, things like data that the user has created, friends, etc. Product is still usable and desirable.
Profit Focus - Now that you have a large user base of locked in users, it's time to start monetizing and start exploiting the surplus that has been built.

Cory Doctorow has published an excellent piece on this model coining the term "Enshitification", which is step 3 as I described above. I've seen first hand that as long as the main goal is profit, and that there is a "fiduciary duty" to extract as much customer value as possible for the share holders, corporate slogans are meaningless.

I want to build software that has a long term positive impact on its users, and that means that I'll be funding this venture myself (with the help of my supportive wife and Costco), so that once I've got some great software out there will be no step 2 or 3.

You've only got a pirate's word for it, but in my defense, I'm kinda bad at it.