Work with me
Product and AI, built on data you can trust.
Product and engineering leadership from a founder who still builds. Building usable, joyful and efficient product experiences is my passion.
Five companies founded since 2001 and each taken to market myself: a magazine, Canada’s largest monthly wine club, an ecommerce platform, a global data standard and an online school. I uncover the problems and build with the team.
Data has been my whole job since 2017. I founded the Global Wine Database to make the world’s wine agree on one verified record, years before there was a model to feed it. When modern AI arrived, Wine Folly had seven years of clean data to put under it. Platforms on that data reached over 20 million people a year.
Before it, nine years as Chief Design Officer of BlackSquare: commerce for beverage alcohol on four continents, with the licensing and tax rules built into the platform.
Since then, Forktales and abettercamper.com, apps of my own built the same way.
What I do
Start with the data layer
Most products break at the data. I build the layer underneath first, clean and standardized, so everything you ship on top of it holds.
Design is not the last step
I came up through product and design and I still do the work myself. The layer underneath exists so the thing on top is worth using.
Scale without growing the org
I've taken platforms to over 20 million people a year while the team stayed lean, and moved gross margin from roughly 50% to 80%. Output that grows without headcount growing to match is mostly a question of systems and data.
AI that earns its place
AI built on data you trust. I built it into the products at Wine Folly, including LLMs on private infrastructure when the data was sensitive.
How I work
Starting with a deep understanding of the problem. Prototypes and real functional experiences. I ship fast, measure outputs, iterate and evolve towards perfection.
- Where
- Kelowna, British Columbia, Pacific time. Remote by default, on site when a project needs it.
- Shape
- CTO or product lead, fractional or full-time, days a week over months. Advisory or a scoped build when that fits better.
- Full-time
- Open to the right leadership role. Say so in the note.
- Availability
- Taking on new work now.
Get in touch
Let’s talk.
Tell me what you’re building, or pick a time and we’ll talk it through.
Book a call