I've spent most of my career turning technology into products. This summer, I decided to see what would happen if I used those same skills to build something completely different: a lawn care company.
Saturday Yard Co started as an experiment. I wanted to know if the things I've learned building products—understanding problems, designing a good experience, testing ideas, adjusting quickly—would translate to a small local business.
I built the brand and website, figured out the services and pricing, started marketing it, and worked through the operations as customers came in. I used AI for a lot of it, mostly because it let me move quickly without needing a bunch of people to get things off the ground.
What I didn't expect was how much I'd get out of simply working in my own community.
I've lived in this neighborhood for years, but now I'm meeting people I'd never talked to before. I'm checking sprinkler systems, figuring out why a lawn is struggling, trying to bring dead grass back, mowing yards, and talking directly with the person paying me to do the work.
The feedback loop is about as simple as it gets.
There's no dashboard or research report. Someone walks outside and says, "This looks better," or, "This isn't what I expected."
You know pretty quickly whether you solved the problem.
After years of working on software, I'd forgotten how useful that kind of direct feedback can be. And it turns out the basic job isn't all that different.
Figure out what someone actually needs. Make it easy for them to understand what you're offering. Do what you said you were going to do. Pay attention to what works, fix what doesn't, and keep going.
AI has made it much easier for me to run that process by myself, but that's not really what I've taken away from the experience.
I think we spend too much time talking about what AI can help us build on a screen. I'm becoming more interested in what happens when we take these tools and apply them to ordinary problems in the world around us.
During the week, I'm still working on complex systems and digital products. Then I close the laptop, load a mower into the truck, and go help somebody a few streets away.
It's a very different kind of work.
Turns out it's also been pretty good product design practice.