Work
Building tools people can run without me
Independent (nonprofit and civic clients)
Small organizations keep hitting the same wall: they need real software, they can't afford a full-time developer, and the last vendor left them dependent on a black box they can't touch. The interesting problem isn't building the thing. It's building it so they own it after I'm gone.
Replacing a salary with skills I didn't have yet
TLCH Productions (self)
In 2014 I left a stable financial-crimes career to run my own brands. The problem with doing that is simple and unforgiving: no salary, no team, no marketing budget, and a dozen jobs that all have to be done by one person who has not done most of them before. Here is how that became a working company instead of a cautionary tale.
Broadway Bazaar
Broadway Bazaar
Consignment e-commerce marketplace for Broadway merchandise, memorabilia, and playbills at broadwaybazaar.net (founded 2014, active through at least 2018), run with Michael Clarkston. Delivered 655% sales growth and 1200% pageview growth (2016 vs 2015) and a sourcing partnership with Audience Rewards, Broadway's official rewards program.
A team ranked last, and a process that wouldn't scale
Wells Fargo
You inherit a team sitting dead last out of seven, doing high-stakes investigative work through a slow, manual process. The easy move is to push people harder. The move that actually works is to figure out why the system they work inside is losing, and fix that instead.
Reading a fraud claim that doesn't fit the pattern
Wells Fargo
A dispute lands on your desk with a customer's money and a regulatory clock attached. It looks like fraud. Sometimes it is, sometimes it's an error, and sometimes the person filing it is the one who spent the money. Here is how you tell the difference before the clock runs out.