Principal engineer at Babbel · founder · Berlin
I build software products, and people actually use them.
Getting people to use something is the hard part, and it is my edge: contagious products, guerrilla launches, and out-of-the-box solutions to real problems. Principal engineer by trade, founder by instinct, and rarely running just one thing at a time.
Things I have actually shipped, sorted by the only metric that matters: people using them.
ThreadsCircles
2023Visualized your closest Threads connections as concentric circles. Built and launched in days, it caught fire: around 5M views in week one.
past projectiytemenü
LiveA campus survival guide for my old university: cafeteria menus, prices, transport and local services in one place. Running continuously since 2017.
Zoomblr
LiveA tiny utility to view Tumblr profile pictures and avatars at full size. Built solo, quietly compounding for years into my largest audience.
The right idea, launched the right way, travels.
Two of these are bigger than a weekend. One proven, one in progress.
Loop
A real-time data and action layer for AI agents: one endpoint that lets an agent search, verify and report on real-world place data, and improve it as it goes. Early, but already a working product with a tested API.
stayinloop.dev ↗Piconbello
A Web3 infrastructure and product company I co-founded. We run validator and staking infrastructure across several blockchain networks, with over $150M staked. Along the way I led the build of a zero-knowledge passport and identity system on Mina Protocol, taking novel ZK cryptography all the way to a working product.
piconbello.com ↗A habit more than a portfolio. A few worth a look:
German citizenship-test prep — clean, polished, still running
Link sharing built for Clubhouse at its peak
Insert log statements instantly while coding
Clickable relationship links in the AWS console
Record browser interactions, get test code — no writing required
Compresses CLI output before it hits your AI's context window — zero dependencies
Three honest ways this tends to start — all of them can go AI-native.
Build it with you
Take an idea from zero to a shipped product, as a technical partner or embedded for a while. Product, engineering and the unglamorous market work.
co-found · embed · buildBuild something specific
A website, an app, an API, or a performance problem — scoped and shipped. AI-native by default, or we retrofit it. I run a dedicated AI-adoption practice for teams that want to move faster.
adoptnative.comBack what I build
I keep new products in motion and aimed at real users. If you back early builders, I am happy to share what I am working on.
early chats welcome