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Notes from the studio.

Occasional writing on building small, offline, privacy-first software - and the problems that turned into apps.

Apr 24, 2026 · 2 min read

Why I build small apps that do one thing

Feature lists sell apps and then slowly ruin them. The case for software that does one thing and gets out of your way.

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Apr 18, 2026 · 2 min read

Your data should stay on your phone

Privacy-first does not have to mean a settings maze. The simplest version is to never collect the data in the first place.

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Apr 16, 2026 · 2 min read

Why goals fade, and how to keep them

Most goals do not fail because you stopped caring. They fade because nothing keeps the reason in front of you. That is the whole problem Rizen solves.

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Apr 13, 2026 · 2 min read

The math of settling up

A week of group spending turns into a tangle of who-owes-whom. Ledgr reduces it to the fewest possible payments - here is what that means.

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Apr 10, 2026 · 2 min read

Making a tip tracker fit your job

A fine-dining server, a coffee barista, and a nightclub bartender do not track the same things. Custom positions and fields let one app fit all of them.

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Apr 7, 2026 · 2 min read

A passport that lives on your phone

Beyond the globe, Worldly keeps a dated passport of your visits with notes and photos - a private record of your life in travel.

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Apr 3, 2026 · 2 min read

Bring your own key, no backend

There is no HogWatch server, no proxy, and no account. Here is what "bring your own key" means for your data, and why it is the safer architecture.

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Mar 31, 2026 · 2 min read

Your Lore Book: a record worth keeping

Every quest you finish becomes a Lore Card with a photo, a note, and a rating - a gallery of what you actually did, not what you posted.

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Mar 27, 2026 · 2 min read

Offline-first is a feature, not a fallback

For most apps, "works offline" means "degrades politely when the wifi drops." For Flowstate apps, offline is the default - and that one choice shapes everything else.

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Mar 24, 2026 · 2 min read

The one-tap check-in

Intention is invisible. A daily check-in turns it into a streak you can see - and seeing it is what keeps you going.

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Mar 20, 2026 · 2 min read

No app for your friends

The hardest part of most expense splitters is getting everyone to install them. Ledgr asks nobody else to download a thing.

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Mar 17, 2026 · 2 min read

Reading your week of shifts

Logging shifts is the input. Weekly goals and a calendar heatmap are where the data turns into something you can actually act on.

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