History
Notes and thoughts on my work history, projects, and experiences. This is a collection of what I've done, ordered chronologically. For a more formal work history, check out my resume.
Triplit
Triplit is an open source realtime database for local first and collaborative applications. It is the highly optimized successor to the CRDT syncing system we built for Aspen Spaces that was able to handle the complexities of real-time data synchronization without tying together tools from 5-6 different vendors. It gained popularity after a Hacker News launch and has grown to 2.8k+ stars on GitHub, 4k+ npm weekly downloads, and is powering hundreds of apps across fintech, agtech, event management, and more.
Aspen Spaces
After sunsetting the Aspen Browser (and inspired by the positive reception to collaboration and digital connectedness) we tried to address what felt like a growing gap in social apps: as apps moved towards algorithmic content feeds, there weren't as many spaces to connect with your friends. So we built Aspen Spaces, a social platform that let you curate a space for the various groups in your life. It was a group-centric messenger with built-in collaborative "mini-apps" like reminders, schedules, notes, photos, polls, and a few games. The mini apps themselves were built with web technologies (ran in webviews), and there was an API for developers to build their own realtime, mobile friendly experiences. Although the app had daily usage within our own network, it failed to expand meaningfully beyond that. This was a good lesson in stated preferences vs revealed preferences, as excited user feedback didn't match usage data. It remains true in my estimation however that my most meaningful interactions occur in "non broadcast" spaces like messaging apps. The developer API was also never released and we were a little too early for generative AI to help us bootstrap developers as we planned. It would have been very interesting to see this in the "vibe coding" era.
Aspen Browser
At a time when SaaS and productivity software were popular, we built the Aspen Browser - a "web browser for work". It had an always-on "dock" that provided quick access to your most used web apps, a slick window manager for multitasking, and “Spaces” - shareable workspaces you could switch between and edit collaboratively to keep Gmail/Jira/GitHub/etc. grouped by context. Although we had a generally positive reception, particularly from power users, there is A LOT that people expect from a browser and we didn't feel we had enough of an edge to compete with established browsers and separately OSs and window managers in the long run. As well, the browser was built with electron and the performance characteristics of electron apps was a concern. However, what we heard back from users was that the most compelling aspect of the product was the collaborative nature of the workspaces - this would go on to inspire our later work.
Accepted to YC W21
After reconnecting with my future co-founder, we applied and interviewed for Y Combinator and were accepted into the Winter 2021 batch. I quit my job and started working on the Aspen Browser. This would go on to become Triplit, as you'll see.
Worked at a hedge fund
After graduating from Middlebury, I moved to New York and worked at a hedge fund for a few years. As a part of a small (6-7) team of engineers, I worked on a variety of internal tools and applications for data scientists, traders, analysts, and portfolio managers. Although not everything I worked on was a web application, I learned about building performant web applications and it got me excited about the browser as a platform.
Started MOHO - Middlebury's off campus housing hub
Before the start of my senior year I was approved by the school to live off-campus. During the process of applying, I got all my housing leads through word of mouth from older friends and after trying to get in touch those landlords, ended up with only one lease to choose from. This inspired me to create Middlebury Off-Campus Housing (or MOHO), a platform connecting students with local landlords to provide off-campus housing. This was the first web app I ever built, and was where I earned my first dollar on the internet. After a successful first season connecting landlords with students, and even processing a vacation rental, we shut down the service after graduation (since my co founder and I both moved away from Middlebury). We had an offer to purchase the domain and codebase, but that fizzled out after some back and forth.
Attended Middlebury College
In 2013 I started my undergraduate studies at Middlebury College, where I separately earned degrees in Computer Science and Economics. I was also a member of the lacrosse team and served as a captain.