About Me & Build.ms

You may call me a little bit naive — but I believe in everyone's potential.

I've seen it so many times: a mentee, a stranger, someone in one of my office hours sessions — five minutes of the right conversation can unblock someone for days, weeks, or even months. They may need a new way to look at their product, they might be stuck on a difficult engineering problem, or maybe all they need is to step back and take in some perspective.

These conversations are wonderful, but they're only between two people. So I thought, what if I could scale that process? That's why build.ms exists: to make technology accessible to everyone.

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What I've Done

I've spent most of my career as an iOS developer. At Twitter I was a senior mobile engineer on the Health Client team, building user-facing product experiences to minimize misinformation, disinformation, abuse, and harassment. We worked to improve civic integrity and public discourse. I wrote a bit about leaving that chapter here.

Now I'm an indie developer building Red Panda Club Inc., a small studio for personal, playful productivity software.

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What I've Built

I spend my days working on Plinky (a link-saving app for iPhone, iPad, and Mac). I also make tools like Promptly (a way to practice prompting with real feedback), Short Circuit (a delightful way to chat with ChatGPT), and Skylink (a Bluesky link search tool).

I make tools to help people, and open-source a lot of what I make. People mostly know me for Boutique, Recap, and Monarch.

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Why Build.ms

Build.ms is where I take what I learn and make it available to everyone. I write about engineering, product development, design, marketing, AI, and all the constituent parts of making something in this world. In an era where knowledge work and independent businesses are only growing, you have the potential to build something amazing. These days I teach AI, but I'm not trying to sell you anything other than the fact that I want you to reach your full potential.

I've coined the concept of open knowledge: in the spirit of open source, but instead of sharing code publicly, I document everything about how to go from start to finish. The goal is to provide people with the tools and knowledge to build something from scratch, so they can create value in the world through their ideas.

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How I Teach

I run AI workshops for individuals and teams. I've been volunteering at Pursuit for 12 years, helping people from below the poverty line break into tech. I care deeply about teaching and learning, doing my best to meet people where they are so I can understand them, and help them grow where they want to be better.

I still host office hours for underrepresented people in STEM and anyone who needs a little help. Folks seem to think they're rather helpful, so if that sounds like something you're interested in, please sign up and say hi.¹

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Following Along

Traditionally I've written on my personal website, but now I'm writing about the journey of building a business here. You can follow my writing using RSS, or by subscribing to the newsletter. The newsletter is just posts from this website in a more convenient location. I promise there's no spam and you can unsubscribe any time.

I'm @mergesort on Bluesky, Threads, GitHub, and most places on the web. Don't be shy in reaching out. And if you're more old-fashioned, I'm also reachable via email.