Product-minded builder and operator.
I work across strategy, product, and engineering to turn ideas into real systems.
Current Focus
I'm focused on helping early- to growth-stage teams turn ideas into working products and durable systems.
- Building and advising through JohnStone, working directly with founders and operators on product direction, execution, and technical strategy
- Operating Moondogs as a product studio for hands-on builds, MVPs, and internal tools
- Exploring new ideas through small, contained experiments to stay close to real problems
How I Work
I start with the problem, not the solution. Before building anything, I work to understand what actually needs to change — whether that's technical, operational, or organizational. Shipping the wrong thing efficiently is still failure.
I move quickly, but with intent. Early work is about learning, not perfection. I prefer small, testable steps that surface constraints early and create real momentum rather than false confidence.
I think in systems, not one-off features. Code, process, and people all interact over time, and I design with that reality in mind. What happens after launch matters just as much as how something ships.
When I'm involved, I take ownership end-to-end. I don't stop at recommendations or strategy documents. I stay close to execution and accountable for outcomes, especially in the messy middle where most projects stall.
Experiments are one of my primary tools for reducing risk. When something is unclear, I build just enough to test assumptions before committing to a larger solution. That bias toward learning helps avoid overbuilding and premature certainty.
Above all, I value clarity over complexity. Simple, well-understood solutions almost always outperform clever ones that are hard to explain, operate, or change.
Experiments
Experiments are how I explore ideas, test assumptions, and stay close to real problems. They're intentionally small, focused, and practical — a way to learn quickly before committing to larger systems.
Some experiments grow into real products. Others stay contained. All of them sharpen how I think and build.
Chicken Sando Club
Chicken Sando Club started with a simple belief: great chicken sandwiches deserve their own club. Rather than building another discovery or review app, I wanted to see what would happen if food exploration felt more like collecting than searching.
The app lets people discover standout spots, add sandwiches to a personal collection, and earn XP and badges along the way. There are no reviews, no star ratings, and no feeds competing for attention. The goal was to make the experience playful, opinionated, and intentionally small.
What I was really exploring was how framing changes behavior. Turning discovery into a collection proved far more motivating than lists or ratings, and lightweight, optional gamification created engagement without pressure or noise. Keeping the scope narrow made room for personality instead of feature sprawl.
Behind the scenes, I built a small backend system to streamline operations — ingesting menus, managing locations and hours, and keeping admin workflows simple enough that maintaining the product never felt like work. Even playful projects benefit from solid internal tooling.
Chicken Sando Club ran its course by design. The idea was clear, the constraints held, and the learning landed. Fun was the point.
Quirkville
Quirkville is a small, strange little world populated by AI-driven characters who live inside a familiar, social-style interface. They post about their days, their opinions, and their relationships, each with a consistent voice and backstory.
I built it to explore what happens when AI stops acting like a tool and starts acting like a someone — something you can follow, observe, and get curious about. By placing these characters in an interface people already understand, the weirdness becomes approachable rather than abstract.
What emerged was a set of lessons about continuity and context. Personality matters more than novelty. Familiar formats make experimental ideas easier to engage with. World-building gives AI a frame of reference, which makes it feel intentional instead of gimmicky.
Quirkville isn't trying to be a product yet. It's intentionally unresolved — a space to explore interaction models, narrative, and community before they have obvious answers. That uncertainty is part of the experiment.
Vault Hound
Vault Hound is a collector-focused platform for organizing and tracking trading cards. I built it to test whether a narrowly scoped, collector-first tool could deliver real value without turning into a marketplace or a feature-heavy platform.
The work centered on structure: modeling large personal collections, prioritizing trust and usability over price speculation, and understanding where value plateaus in niche tools. It was also where I began developing a more systematic approach to using AI as part of the build process — supporting data modeling, content generation, and internal tooling rather than forcing AI into the product itself.
What I learned was straightforward but important. Organization and confidence matter more than advanced features. Focused tools can outperform broader platforms for specific users. And knowing when a product has run its course is as important as launching it.
Vault Hound still works. It gets traffic. Taking it further would require real product investment — and choosing not to do that was a deliberate decision. The learning was complete.
Honey Bourbon
Honey Bourbon is a small-batch, honey-infused bourbon I developed, refined, and bottled as gifts for friends and family. It's not software, and it's not scalable — which is exactly why it belongs here.
I built it to explore what product thinking looks like outside of code, where materials, time, and taste impose real constraints. Iteration still mattered, but feedback was subjective. Refinement had limits. Presentation shaped how people experienced the same core product.
The lessons translated cleanly. Constraints make decisions clearer. Iteration matters even when perfection is impossible. And knowing when to stop refining is part of the craft.
It was bottled, shared, and done.
Selected Work
Alongside my own experiments, I've led and contributed to larger, higher-stakes projects where the constraints were real, the timelines mattered, and the outcomes had to hold up over time.
WhatSheSaid (RFRL)
WhatSheSaid is a community-driven platform designed to help women and women-owned businesses discover and support one another through trusted recommendations, shout-outs, and curated lists. The product sits at the intersection of local discovery, community, and small-business visibility.
I've been responsible for product direction, system design, and hands-on implementation across multiple iterations of the platform. That work has included defining the core data model, designing engagement loops that feel human rather than gamified, and building tooling that supports moderation, growth, and long-term maintainability.
The project required balancing community trust with scale, simplicity with flexibility, and short-term momentum with long-term architecture — all while building with a small team and evolving requirements.
Status: Active, evolving platform
LEASH — Animal Control & Shelter Software
LEASH is a multi-tenant software platform built to support animal control agencies and shelters with case management, intake, transfers, and coordination across organizations.
I've led the product and technical architecture from the ground up, working closely with domain experts to model complex, real-world workflows that don't fit cleanly into off-the-shelf systems. The work has required deep attention to data relationships, permissions, auditability, and operational edge cases — particularly in high-stress, high-accountability environments.
This project emphasizes durability over speed: building systems that agencies can rely on daily, not just demos that look good in isolation.
Status: In active development with early pilots
Imperial Transit
Imperial Transit is a logistics and transportation business operating with real operational constraints, live customers, and evolving internal processes.
My role has focused on building internal systems that reduce friction, improve visibility, and scale with the business — including workflow tooling, data organization, and operational support systems. The work required translating messy, real-world processes into software without oversimplifying the realities of the business.
This project reinforced the importance of building tools that fit how people actually work, not how diagrams suggest they should.
Status: Ongoing client engagement
Contact
If something here resonates, I'd be happy to hear from you. I'm always open to conversations about building, strategy, and making things that matter. You can reach me at hello@michaeljohnstone.us.