Australian solo founder — 20 years in tech, built 3 products with AI, no investors or engineering team. Here's where I'm at.
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Over the past few years, I've been building products independently while maintaining a full-time job.
No external funding. No large engineering team. Just experience, plenty of late nights, and increasingly, AI agents helping me build.
I've built three products, each solving a different problem.
Here's where I'm at.
- NOVA — FROM BUSINESS IDEA TO WORKING SOFTWARE
The problem:
Building software is expensive, slow and complicated.
A business might have a great idea for a new product, but turning that idea into something customers can actually use requires developers, designers, testers, architects and project managers.
For many businesses, the cost and complexity mean good ideas never get built.
What I built:
Nova is an AI-powered software delivery platform that coordinates specialised AI agents to help take an idea through planning, development, testing and delivery.
Think of it as an AI software delivery team working together rather than a single chatbot generating code.
Business value:
- Reduce software development costs and time to market.
- Help businesses launch products faster.
- Allow business owners to focus on outcomes instead of technical complexity.
- Help larger organisations accelerate delivery while retaining governance and oversight.
Ideal Customer Profile (ICP):
- Medium to large organisations with substantial software development needs.
- Banks, insurers, financial services and other regulated enterprises.
- CTOs, CIOs, Heads of Engineering and Product Leaders.
- Organisations looking to adopt AI without compromising security, governance or existing delivery processes.
- Businesses struggling with long delivery cycles and expensive engineering operations.
The goal isn't just faster coding. It's making the journey from idea to usable software significantly easier.
Status: Working platform, continuing development and exploring enterprise pilots.
- ONEDA — ORGANISATIONAL MEMORY FOR AI
The problem:
Imagine hiring a new employee who forgets everything they've learned every time they finish a meeting.
That's similar to what happens with many AI tools today.
Businesses are increasingly using AI, but important knowledge remains scattered across documents, conversations, employees, projects and disconnected systems.
When someone leaves, a project ends or an AI session resets, valuable context can disappear.
What I built:
Oneda is a persistent organisational memory platform designed to preserve important decisions, reasoning, constraints and lessons so AI agents can retrieve and reuse that knowledge.
Instead of knowledge belonging to one chatbot or one AI provider, it can remain available independently.
Business value:
- Reduce repeated work and rediscovery.
- Preserve valuable knowledge when employees leave.
- Help employees and AI assistants understand past decisions faster.
- Improve consistency across teams.
- Reduce dependency on individual AI providers.
- Help organisations retain institutional knowledge as they adopt more AI.
Ideal Customer Profile (ICP):
- Companies adopting AI agents across multiple teams and projects.
- Engineering organisations using Claude Code, Codex and other AI development tools.
- Businesses with significant institutional knowledge spread across employees and systems.
- CTOs, CIOs, AI Platform Leaders and Knowledge Management Leaders.
- Organisations experiencing knowledge loss, repeated decisions or fragmented information.
- Individual developers who frequently switch between AI models and coding assistants.
The idea is simple:
AI tools will change. Your organisation's knowledge shouldn't disappear with them.
Status: Launched initial integration for Claude Code, with ongoing development.
- FREEELA — HELPING LOCAL BUSINESSES CONNECT WITH CUSTOMERS
The problem:
Small local businesses often struggle to attract customers without spending significant amounts on advertising.
At the same time, consumers may be unaware of offers and services available right in their neighbourhood.
Large advertising platforms aren't always affordable or effective for smaller operators.
What I built:
Freeela is a mobile platform designed to connect local businesses with nearby consumers through local offers and promotions.
Businesses can showcase offers, while consumers can discover opportunities in their local area.
Business value:
- Help small businesses gain local visibility.
- Provide another way to attract nearby customers.
- Make local promotions easier to discover.
- Give businesses an alternative channel to traditional advertising.
- Encourage consumers to discover and support local businesses.
Ideal Customer Profile (ICP):
- Independent local businesses and small retailers.
- Cafés, restaurants, beauty salons, fitness studios and local service providers.
- Business owners with limited marketing budgets.
- Businesses seeking more foot traffic, repeat customers and local visibility.
- Consumers interested in discovering nearby offers and supporting local businesses.
Unlike Nova and Oneda, Freeela is a consumer-facing, two-sided marketplace concept.
Status: Mobile app developed for iOS and Android. Currently reassessing its distribution and commercial direction.
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WHAT I'VE LEARNED BUILDING ALL THREE
One thing has become increasingly clear.
Building software is no longer the hardest part. Building a sustainable business around it is.
AI has fundamentally changed what one person can accomplish technically.
I can now explore ideas, develop applications, test features and iterate at a pace that would previously have required a much larger team.
But AI doesn't automatically solve:
- Finding customers.
- Understanding what people will pay for.
- Distribution and marketing.
- Building trust.
- Turning interest into revenue.
And those challenges become even more complicated when you're building alongside a full-time career and family commitments.
WHERE I'M AT NOW
My focus is shifting from building more technology to validating commercial demand.
With Nova and Oneda, I'm particularly interested in how businesses can use AI to reduce operational complexity, retain knowledge and deliver outcomes faster.
Freeela has been a different learning experience, especially around consumer adoption and the challenges of building a two-sided marketplace.
I'm not claiming to have cracked product-market fit.
I've built the technology. Now comes the challenge of proving the business.
A QUESTION FOR OTHER AUSTRALIAN FOUNDERS
For those who've built products independently:
How did you transition from being the person who builds everything to being the person who sells, distributes and grows the business?
Was your first paying customer the hardest milestone?
Would genuinely appreciate hearing from founders who've made that transition.