The thinking behind Competency Cafe
Built from 15+ years of shipping products for people who don't love software.
Where this comes from
Most product advice assumes you're building for tech-savvy users who actively want your software. But what if your users are contractors checking an app between jobs? Or technicians who see software as one more thing that slows them down? That's the world I've worked in for most of my career. The frameworks here are what actually worked in that context.
The background
SmartAC.com
VP Product, 4 years
Built a B2B2C IoT platform for HVAC monitoring. Grew from minimal revenue to $10M+ ARR.
Rocksauce Studios
Co-founder, 7 years
Product development agency. Scaled from 3 to 50 people, shipped 300+ products.
Earlier
Product and engineering roles at Bechtel and Schlumberger
Building tools for field workers.
How I think about product
- 1
Design from decision-makers out
Start with whoever says yes or no, then work backward to the user experience.
- 2
Reluctant users need invisible software
The best product for someone who doesn't want software is one they barely notice.
- 3
Find the signal in the noise
Good user research isn't about collecting data, it's about knowing which data matters.