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My Range Grew Too Wide, and the Work Vanished — The Day AI Freed Me from the Ten-Finger Limit
In 2020, I'd become so full-stack that no one could tell what I actually did, and my client work dropped to zero. Back then, breadth was a double-edged sword I couldn't wield. What AI agents removed wasn't the value of breadth, but the execution limit of ten fingers and 24 hours. With breadth unleashed, we narrowed our banner to two — the power to finish, and AI-native. This is that story.
Your Most Underused Asset Might Be Your Video — Making Its Contents Searchable by *Meaning*
Meetings, training, inspections — these days you can just hit record. But the video you capture can't be pulled up by "that one scene" later, and the more it piles up, the more it becomes dead stock. Make video searchable, summarizable, and reportable by meaning, and your library turns into an asset that compounds. A look at atoindex, our own product for treating video by meaning.
Tokyo to Saigon — The Only Way Out of a Death March
A year-long project we won in Vietnam turned into a death march just two and a half months in — more than double the estimate. Remembering a line from an old university professor, 'the only way out is to cut features to the bone,' I decided that finishing meant ending it. A story about the power to cut, and to finish.
15+ Years of Native iOS/Android — and Three Times I Still Choose Flutter
If you want the highest-quality app, iOS in Swift and Android in Kotlin — that hasn't changed for me. And yet there are times I deliberately choose cross-platform. "Which is highest quality" and "do I need highest quality this time" are different questions. On drawing the line in tech selection — a line only deep native experience lets you draw.
Sometimes It's Better to Own Your Vector DB Than Rent It — A $70/Month Wake-Up from Pinecone
I used Pinecone for a RAG prototype's vector database, left it running, and got a surprising invoice at month's end. The "floor cost" trap of managed services, and the decision to switch to a self-hosted Qdrant. A field note on the balance between renting and owning.
Tokyo to Saigon — It Started with One Message
On the last working day of 2022, a single message from a friend in Vietnam started our adventure in Ho Chi Minh City. A company with no work yet, and a first meeting with a team of six science-major guys — the story of how we came to build one company across the sea.
Tokyo to Saigon — Seeing One Bank Account Through
Every form had to be rewritten in blue pen, and at the big bank we were shot down over a missing document. A story of not giving up — of Ms. V's turnaround, and a young banker's message: I saw your money. The record of opening our corporate and personal accounts in Vietnam, seen through to the end.
Tokyo to Saigon — Building a Company Across the Sea
Registration, an investment license, a business license, accounting, labor, and hunting for an office. A hands-on record of the unglamorous, grinding reality of actually standing up a company in Vietnam.
Tokyo to Saigon — Becoming One Team Across Two Countries
Members split across Tokyo and Ho Chi Minh City, on either side of the sea, slowly becoming one team. A silly weekly question, the spirit of mutual aid in a Saigon morning, a study group on audio technology. How a guy who dislikes recurring meetings found a way to build trust in the first year of a cross-border team.
Tokyo to Saigon — The Back Alleys of Saigon and the People I Won't Forget
The days I kept flying to Saigon to build a company. What stayed with me wasn't the mountain of paperwork — it was the people in every back alley. The hotel owner pouring whisky, a bus company running twenty-five years on, a bar master with a philosophy, and Hector's wedding. A story about the warmth of a city.
Tokyo to Saigon — A CEO Takes Vietnamese Lessons from a Middle Schooler
How I went looking for a Vietnamese teacher after opening a company in Ho Chi Minh City, and ended up learning from someone I never expected. Wrestling with six tones, and discovering — through Sino-Vietnamese — that Vietnamese is a distant relative of Japanese.
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