About
Started on a lanai in Kailua with a laptop and a pot of coffee. Didn't set out to start a company. Just kept saying yes to work that was interesting and eventually it made sense to put a name on it.
Family's been on the island since the 40s. I'm the only one born on the mainland, which I hear about constantly. Came back because this is home and I'd rather write code looking at the Ko'olaus than a parking garage.
Before the tech stuff I worked the docks. Got sea time. Joined the Coast Guard Auxiliary and the paperwork drove me crazy, so I built FSO-Kimo to deal with it. Started as a simple form aggregator but to get it working right I had to build a full stack from scratch. Backend, frontend, mobile, database, deploy pipeline. Realized I was pretty good at this and liked it more than shuffling PDFs. The rest grew from there.
How it works
I do the building. When a project needs more hands I bring on guys I trust as 1099 contractors. No full-time employees, no office, no overhead that gets passed on to you. Keeps things lean and keeps prices honest.
Most clients find us through referrals. That's how I like it. If someone trusts me enough to send their friend my way, that means more than any ad.
What I care about
Ship it
Working software beats a perfect plan. I'd rather show you something real in two weeks than a slide deck in two months.
Boring tech
I pick tools that have been around long enough to have boring Stack Overflow answers. Your project is not the place to try a framework that launched last Tuesday.
Say the hard thing
If your timeline doesn't work, I'll tell you. If your architecture won't scale, I'll tell you. Not gonna be polite about something that's gonna bite you later.
Pono
Means doing what's right. It's how I price projects, how I communicate bad news, how I decide what to take on and what to pass on.
The name
Honu (turtles) are everywhere on this coast. They show up, do their thing, keep moving. No rush, no wasted motion. Tortuga felt right.