Field Notes
Notes from
the studio.
How we think about building, AI, and the discipline of doing less, better.
How we validated an app before writing a line of code
A landing page, a waitlist and a $300 ad test told us more than a month of coding would have.
The 60–90 day build: what a one-person studio ships
Inside the cycle that turns a validated idea into a usable MVP — and the parts we deliberately leave out.
Why we kill apps that don't hit D30 ≥ 15%
Retention is the studio's circuit breaker. Here is the rule, and why holding to it is the whole strategy.
Model routing: keeping AI cost under the margin line
Cheap models for cheap jobs, mid-tier only for the work that matters, and caching everywhere. The margin lives here.
One stack, many apps: the compounding architecture
Orchestration, memory, billing and auth, built once. Every new app makes the next one cheaper.
The organic loop: turning certificates into a growth channel
How shareable proof-of-learning becomes the cheapest acquisition channel we have.