How the work gets built

Four steps from first message to a running product, the same ones behind a bar crawl game and a luxury lookbook.

Start

Begin with a real problem

Every product starts from the problem it solves, written before any screen. A group chat where nobody keeps score. A chapter that resets to zero every time officers graduate. A dozen apps that each want an account.

In the work

01 / 04

Bar Crawl Golf began as a night out that nobody could organize.

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Design

Give each product its own world

A product gets its own identity instead of a shared template: Bar Crawl Golf's painted fairway, GreekStack's white-label chapters, Mac Madden's quiet hairlines. The thing that varies is the work.

In the work

02 / 04

Bar Crawl Golf wears a painted fairway, GreekStack navy and gold, Mac Madden quiet hairlines.

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Build

Native where it pays, then the web

Bar Crawl Golf and My Daily Tool are SwiftUI and feel native in the hand. GreekStack's iOS app is built with Capacitor, and its member app ships inside the binary rather than loading the website. Web companions are Next.js and load fast. Data stays local where it can, and no account is asked for unless the product needs one.

In the work

03 / 04

My Daily Tool keeps your day on the device and asks for no sign-up.

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Ship

Check it, ship it, say where it stands

Every release is checked for speed, accessibility, and polish. A listing says exactly what it is: live, with a link to the real thing. The owner reviews everything before it ships.

In the work

04 / 04

Every status on the site names exactly where a product stands.

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House rules

What does not change from product to product.

Five rules, written down so they can be checked against the work.

ReviewThe owner reviews everything before it ships.
StatusA product is called live only when it is live. Each is live and links to the real thing.
DataLocal-first wherever the product allows, and no account unless it needs one.
PrivacyNo trackers and no analytics cookies on this site. The GreekStack and Bar Crawl Golf web apps send error reports to Sentry, and nothing else third-party loads until you ask.
CraftSpeed, accessibility, and polish are checked before a release goes out.

The toolbox

Everything named in the apps and websites.

Collected from the apps and websites, as shipped.

GreekStack: Capacitor, Next.js, Stripe, Postgres, Resend
Bar Crawl Golf: SwiftUI, MapKit, Next.js, MapLibre
My Daily Tool: SwiftUI, Foundation Models, React and Vite (marketing site), Vercel
Mac Madden: Next.js, React, Tailwind, GSAP, Vercel
bensachwitz.com: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Vercel

Questions about the work?

Ask about a build, a decision or a number on any page, or just talk shop. A real person reads every message.

Write to Ben