There is a famous bit about two young fish swimming along and an older fish passes by and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And one young fish turns to the other and says, “What the hell is water?”
Every product in this portfolio started the same way: by noticing what was already there. The photos already on your phone. The community knowledge already in people’s heads. The stories you already lived. The friends you already trust. The professional signal already being generated. None of it needed to be invented. It needed a surface that could hold it.
At Zillow, I watched the business resist putting jobs-to-be-done on the surface of the product, even though everyone agreed they were the truth. When we finally listed the jobs so the person could orient themselves, it was a clear winner. The company just was not sure. That tension between knowing what is real and resisting the simplicity of looking at it runs through everything here. These products look at the water.
Who are you in relation to this work?
Or trace the path. Each moment below expands to show the jobs people bring to each product.
This became Home Ground: a decision toolkit that holds all three questions without collapsing them.
This became Story Lab: storytelling workshops and gatherings where people learn to shape their stories and tell them in a space that holds what they share.
This became Small Biz Operator: workflow bottleneck tools that apply service design in the operator's own language.
This became The Commons: a photo-native community board where local information is discovered, not broadcast.
This became One Second Local: a self-reflection tool that compresses each day to one moment and compiles them into a film you can traverse over time.
This became tyfbaf: friend-to-friend home swaps that start from trust, not from platform guarantees.
This became LinkedIn Research Surface: a layer that structures LinkedIn activity as research signal so a professional community can see its own patterns.
Every product was the same act: looking at the water.
The data was already in the public records. The stories were already in the people. The bottlenecks were already in the workflows. The community knowledge was already in people’s heads. The photos were already in the camera roll. The trust was already in the friendships. The signal was already on LinkedIn. Every product in this portfolio started by noticing something real that was right there, then building the smallest surface that could hold it. Trace what is actually happening. Find where it breaks down. Build what holds the real shape. That cycle became Organic Design.
You scrolled through this story and something caught your attention. You expanded a product, maybe looked at a framework, maybe skipped one that did not speak to you. You traced your own steps of understanding. That is the method. Not a pitch. Not a funnel. A self-guided path through what is real, where you find yourself in the work by following what resonates.
If one of these products connected to something you are already living, that is not a coincidence. That is the water. The thing that was right in front of you the whole time.
The frameworks underneath each product are working documents, not decoration. The portfolio itself is a live demonstration of the method. And the door is open. If you see yourself in any of these jobs, or if you have expertise that could sharpen one of these products, that is the signal.