Indie software.
Small products built by one person, and the decisions that come with them: pricing, naming, scope, and knowing when a thing is finished rather than abandoned.
What does building in public look like for a solo founder?
I build alone, and I write about it as I go, including the embarrassing parts. When a customer hit a 404 at Premail’s checkout that my tests, alerts, and infrastructure alarms all missed, I wrote it up in One Failure, One Success, along with the fixes and the feature that surfaced their feedback. I use what I ship: Stop Checking Your Email is about replacing my inbox habit with three Premail briefings a day, and I listen to StockCar on the way to the gym most mornings. Being my own first user shapes more of the product than any roadmap.
Why do I keep building small, local software?
Most of what I ship does one job, runs on your own machine, and asks for no account. Cheap code generation pulls toward more features, but the real cost lives after generation, so small scope is how I keep deciding what not to build; small, local, single-purpose software lays out the tests I apply. Burly started as a daily annoyance, links opening in the wrong browser profile, and no URL ever leaves the Mac. Weatherling puts rain behind your windows without recording your screen. Even my AI plans are local-first, not local-only.
How do I decide what to charge?
Free is a distribution decision, not generosity. StockCar, Comoji, and Burly are free because they are self-contained utilities that cost very little to serve to one more person, and a price would only be a wall in front of the first thirty seconds. Premail charges because it works on every message, every day, and should be able to fund its own future, though it keeps a free tier. The consulting side of Senternet funds that patience. Free does not mean less effort: a free app has to be good enough to keep with no billing relationship holding it in place.
How do I name what I ship?
A name follows a product everywhere, so I run candidates through practical tests before I commit: can a stranger spell it back after hearing it once, does a search lead to me, does it agree with what the product does, and will I still want to say it out loud in a year? How I name what I ship covers the two families of names I use and why clever names usually backfire. I do not lock a name until I can say what the product does in one sentence. If I cannot name the thing, I usually have not decided what it is yet.
Why Your Mac’s Email Spam Filter Still Lets the Noise Through
Apple Mail and Gmail filters catch junk, not authenticated recruiter and sales outreach. Why I think the fix is classifying email on your own Mac.
Read→The Mac Emoji Keyboard, and Why I Built Comoji
The Mac emoji keyboard is built in, but it slows you down if you know the emoji you want. What it gets right, where it falls short, and why I built Comoji.
Read→Introducing Weatherling: Make It Rain on Your Desktop
Weatherling is a macOS app that makes rain fall behind your windows, without recording your screen or getting in your way. Snow and sunlight come next.
Read→Stop Checking Your Email
Email overload is partly a checking habit. I swapped inbox scans for three scheduled Premail briefings a day: a summary and a to-do list, not a pile.
Read→One Failure, One Success
A broken Premail checkout slipped past my tests and alerts. A customer reported it, and my new morning briefing surfaced the feedback I had overlooked.
Read→How I Name the Things I Ship
A product name is the first promise you make. How I name indie apps like Premail, Comoji, and Burly, and the clever names I have learned to avoid.
Read→Why Most of My Apps Are Free, and One Is Not
StockCar, Comoji, and Burly are free. Premail is not. How I decide when an indie product should have a price and when it should not.
Read→Why I Built Burly
Why I built Burly, a macOS link router that sends each link to the right browser profile, and how it compares to Browserosaurus, Choosy, Velja, and Bumpr.
Read→Why I Build Small, Local Software That Does One Thing
AI makes it cheap to build sprawling apps fast. I keep shipping tiny, single-purpose tools that run locally with no account, on purpose. Here is why.
Read→Why I Built StockCar
I wanted a podcast about my portfolio, not the market, not someone else's picks. Nothing existed, so I built it.
Read→I’m Trying to Talk Myself Out of Buying a Mac Studio. Apple Isn’t Helping.
I want a Mac Studio for local AI work, but its price and Apple upgrades make the case hard to justify. Here is why I am still talking myself out of one.
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