Fractional CTO · Founder · Teacher
For the last 25 years I've built products and companies. Now, as a fractional CTO, I help small businesses use AI to run more efficiently: organizing customer and product data, making websites and social media simpler, better and faster, improving HR, and much more of day-to-day operations.
Most businesses have tried AI. Few have changed how they actually run. That's the part I work on, together with the owner and the team.
Sitting with the owner and team to see who does what, where the time goes, and what could be handed to AI.
A project spec with priorities, owners and deadlines, and a live dashboard the whole team works from.
Private client workspaces, operations apps, dashboards, and AI agents that take on the inbox, scheduling, follow-ups and reporting.
Regular check-ins while new habits take hold. Some engagements are a single working session; some run for a year.
Tools. Claude and Claude Code for AI agents and builds, Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 for everyday work, and Vercel and Supabase for client workspaces and dashboards, connected to the systems a business already runs.
Data. Client data stays in the client's own accounts wherever possible, and every client workspace is private to that team. I also help companies get SOC 2 compliant.
Two simple ways to start.
An hour together on your business, where AI fits and where to start. We set up a few practical AI unlocks during the session, so you leave with something that already works.
We work together to build a COO agent, a chief of staff for you and your team, that keeps track of priorities, follow-ups, meetings and deadlines, so nothing falls through the cracks.
Guest lectures and workshops for business schools, accelerators and companies.
For business school classes, founders and leadership teams
How to lead a startup when AI changes how the work gets done, using govWorks and the film Startup.com as the case. We cover why startups fail, how leaders motivate and keep a team, five leadership styles that fit startups and what AI changes about each, and how leadership shifts from seed stage to scale.
For entrepreneurship classes, accelerators and first-time founders
The govWorks story from the inside, with Startup.com as the text: what we got right, and the strategic, product and board lessons I learned the hard way. Co-founder agreements, equity, boards, working with friends, and the role of AI in early-stage startups today.
From the entrepreneurship class I teach at Ohio State
Companies I've built products for since 2000.
Online government services and payments. Where PublicDataSystems began.
An international streaming video network.
An ad-supported video chat platform.
A real-time-bidding video advertising platform.
An on-chain carbon offset trading exchange. Now ACX.
Carbon accounting and retail carbon credit sales for small businesses.
Carbon accounting for insurance companies, decarbonizing insurance claims.
Drone photography in Connecticut and New Hampshire.
Sustainability data dashboard for the New Canaan Conservation Commission.
A destination marketing platform and data exchange for travel.
I've spent 25 years building products and companies. I co-founded govWorks, the company followed in the documentary Startup.com, and PublicDataSystems grew out of it.
Since then I've built the products at companies across video (JumpTV, ooVoo), ad tech (DashBid) and carbon markets and ESG (AirCarbon Exchange, Meta Carbon, EcoClaim).
Today I work as a fractional CTO for small businesses, putting AI to work in their day-to-day operations. I also teach entrepreneurship and leadership, including an entrepreneurship class at Ohio State.