Writings of a Tech Leader, Husband, and Dad

I’m Jonathan, the CTO of Loyal, with over two decades of experience in software development for startups. This space is where I share my experiences, insights, and opinions—both popular and unconventional.

My ramblings will be on mobile and web applications, startup launches, favorite books, user acquisition, user experience, (maybe parenting) and most importantly, driving revenue.

After BDD: The Dev Philosophy Shift That Changes Everything

April 12, 2026

TDD and BDD are still relevant — but AI coding demands a higher-level philosophy. Here's the full abstraction ladder and where your value as a developer now lives.

Every Color Is a Decision: A Developer's Guide to Purposeful Color in Web Applications

April 10, 2026

Color in your UI is never decorative — it's instructional. Every green chip, red badge, and purple button teaches users a micro-lesson about what things mean, what's urgent, and where to click. Here's how to build a color system that actually works.

How I Built a Claude Code Skill for Client Product Planning

April 09, 2026

I built a Claude Code skill that runs Jesse James Garrett's UX framework as a structured pipeline — so AI stops skipping the planning steps that actually matter.

OpenClaw, NanoClaw, and the Problem Nobody's Solving

March 17, 2026

The personal AI agent space exploded in early 2026. OpenClaw got 310K GitHub stars. NanoClaw answered with 15 files and real security. But both require a terminal, Docker, and API keys — leaving 97% of people locked out. Here's why that matters and what comes next.

How We Chose Infrastructure for 80+ News Apps (And What It Actually Costs)

March 04, 2026

We rebuilt a legacy Java app in Rails and evaluated five hosting options. Landed on Linode at $358/month — an 81% reduction from our old $1,925/month stack.