Chicago → a lot in between → San Francisco
Howdy. I’m Alec.
I learn by doing, then use what I learn to do it better. I hope it makes you want to try something, too.
Director at Visa Crypto Labs. I work on how agents spend money.
howdy from the desertWork
Visa Crypto Labs · Director2026 – now
I build ways for AI agents to pay for things, with limits that people set.
Visa bought the rights to my ProductRank work, and I joined its Crypto Labs team. We test new products built on stablecoins and cards.
ProductRank · Founder · sold to Visa2026
My three-week exit.
A rogue agent ran all night, and I woke up to a $7,000 Google bill. After that, I was hellbent on how agents spend money.
Then I met the Visa team. Soon after, I started building a discovery product: a map of developer tools that helps agents pick the right one. About three weeks later, Visa bought it in the middle of my interviews.
Indie founder · Hypesino, HyperPools, Friends of Friends2025
Left recruiting to build my own apps. $200K in volume on Hypesino in 60 days.
Each one has its own row under Things I made. Give the slot machine a spin.
interested.fyi · Founder2023 – 2025
A job board on Farcaster where you could apply in one tap.
I met more great engineers than I could place, so I paid some of them to build this with me at night. Optimism and Purple funded it with grants.
Peeple Work · Founder2022 – 2025
My recruiting firm for crypto teams.
Agency recruiting · Trading firms and early-stage teams2019 – 2021
The grind that became my software education. I learned how great engineers think by hiring them.
Some of the teams I worked with, from Chicago trading firms to early-stage startups:
Open source
CodexBar · 44 commits2026
Built the Usage & Spend dashboard in CodexBar, the 22.9K-star AI usage app with 2.1M downloads.
Peter Steinberger, who created OpenClaw, made CodexBar. I added the Usage & Spend dashboard, spend in Overview, shareable usage cards and OpenRouter spend.
poidh · 16 merged PRs2026
16 merged PRs that let AI agents read and claim bounties on poidh.
On poidh, people post bounties and pay out for proof. I made it something agents can read and use.
Things I made
OpenClaw skills · 19k downloads2026
19K installs of my skills for OpenClaw agents.
I wrote skills that people install into their OpenClaw agents. Here’s my ClawHub page.
Nested · My shopping lab2026
I built it to furnish my home. AI agents can shop with it, too.
Paste a link, a photo or a few words, and it compares finds across stores. It runs on Shopify’s catalog, and agents can use it over MCP.
Stumble · One good place nearby2026
Not another list. One nearby place worth going to now.
Tap once and it picks one place near you, backed by real photos, reviews and local signals. Go, or stumble again.
Hypesino · Slot machine on Farcaster2025
$10K in revenue in 45 days.
For HyperPools, our team built a way to pick random winners that anyone can check. So I got crafty and put it inside a slot machine.
It became the first consumer app on HyperEVM. In its first 60 days, 1K people played, made 35K+ transactions and drove $200K in volume.
People played it, but I didn’t want to spend my days on gambling, so I walked away.
HyperPools · Hyperliquid hackathon finalist2025
My hackathon project. It made the finals, then became Hypesino.
Friends of Friends · Top 10 Farcaster mini app2025
My first app. It finds your closest friends on Farcaster.
I built it before I really knew how to code, and it reached the top 10 Farcaster mini apps.
Idea graveyard · 7 ideas
Sleeping, not dead.
Investing
Small checks, big believers. I back ideas that excite me, and people who can’t stop building.*
Awaken TaxCrypto tax software for DeFi, NFTs and exchange trades. Every onchain move is taxable, so crypto taxes are hard. Awaken makes them easy.2025
OtoCoSets up a real company for your wallet in minutes. Most wealth sits in companies, not personal accounts, for better taxes and protection. Wallets should work the same way.2024
IntuitionAn open knowledge graph that people curate and get paid for. As AI spreads, the world’s information needs a better way to be found. I’m a token-curated-registry maxi.2022
* Now that I’m not an indie founder, I’m writing more checks again in 2027. Feel free to reach out. I’m excited to hear what you’re working on.
