Built and scaled high-traffic internet products, starting with ArticlesBase.
Founder, hands-on CTO, investor
I build software businesses. And back the people who build them.
Twenty years from internet-scale publishing to AI-native products. Angel and seed investor since 2010.
Built and commercialized profitable web businesses through Webika.
Transitioned the studio's focus into software-as-a-service products.
Building AI-native SaaS products: HookTide and Rivi.
The build record.
ArticlesBase, Founder & CTO
From first production code to global internet scale.
I wrote the first version and led the platform through bootstrapped, profitable growth on infrastructure we ran ourselves: a master database with two replicas, memcached, and roughly seven production servers.
Read the case study- ~1M
- daily unique visitors
- Top 200
- Alexa rank at peak
- 5,000+
- new articles per day
- ~15
- people at team peak
HookTide
An AI-native LinkedIn product that models a user's voice and turns professional presence into an operating workflow.
AI-native SaaS
Rivi
An AI-powered WhatsApp agent for customer engagement, review collection, and private feedback routing.
Customer engagement
chatib
AI moderation, safety, analytics, product optimization, and scaling guidance for a large chat platform.
Platform advisoryFigures marked ~ are approximate.
Webika, Co-Founder & CTO, since 2008
The studio behind the products.
Webika builds, launches, and commercializes software products. The operating test is practical: can the technology support a useful product and a real business?
Explore WebikaBuilt and commercialized over the years
SaaSAffiliate productsPerformance marketingAnalyticsE-commerceA physical product sold on AmazonAI-native SaaS
How I build with AI.
Patterns applied across HookTide, Rivi, Testimize, and other working systems.
Deterministic truth wins.
Computed and retrieved facts override model output. AI supplies judgment and language, not invented truth.
Failure behavior follows business risk.
Background enrichment can degrade gracefully. Paid user actions retry, then fail visibly.
Route models by task economics.
Smaller models handle extraction and classification. More capable models are reserved for judgment and synthesis.
Validate across boundaries.
Important output is checked with schemas, deterministic rules, and when useful, an independent model provider.
Bound agent autonomy.
Tools and step limits are explicit. Rivi escalates support through one controlled action, not an open-ended agent.
Keep systems legible.
Clear orchestration, usage records, and understandable fallbacks make AI products easier to operate and improve.
Cross-vendor validation
Testimize
Deterministic ground truth feeds an OpenAI draft, Claude reviews it, and only failed sections enter a repair pass.Multi-stage voice modeling
HookTide Voice Engine
Language analysis, Claude-based interpretation, OpenAI embeddings, deterministic synthesis, and a gated rewrite step.Bounded agentic workflow
Rivi
A WhatsApp agent can escalate support through one controlled tool, with a three-step ceiling and deterministic fallbacks.The portfolio.
Angel and seed positions since 2010. Five portfolio companies have been acquired.
Zengo Wallet
Acquired by eToro
WiseStamp
Acquired by vCita
TapInfluence
Acquired by IZEA Inc.
EatWith
Acquired by VizEat
Immersive Labs
Acquired by Kairos
Current positions: Engini, LeO, Efficient Frontier, Kairos, Volantio Inc., LucidChart.
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For conversations about products, technology, AI, or early-stage companies, LinkedIn is the best place to reach me.