About Brian
I teach Builders — founders, co-founders, and those building toward it — to see the behavioral patterns that cost them. Before those patterns cost them again.
You already know how to debug code. I teach you to debug yourself.
If you have journals, reflections, or something you'd like help thinking through — send it to brian@brianbug.com. I see patterns in documents that most coaches miss in conversation.
What I've Done
I spent a decade in software engineering, rising to VP of Engineering. My entire career has been working directly with Founders, Co-Founders, and those building toward that — except for one year at a larger corporate that taught me big and political isn't where my sight or straightforward approach is needed most.
Along the way I discovered that helping people see what was holding them back mattered more to me than any system I'd ever shipped.
Results from that work:
- Junior developers reaching senior-level impact in 12 months
- 100% voluntary retention for every person I hired — even when they knew the company was going bankrupt for months, and I trained them in interview skills myself, they stayed until the very last day. That's not retention — that's loyalty.
- Years of weekly 1:1s using Career Development Journals to track each person's growth
The people I coached weren't just engineers — many were future founders building toward their own thing. The patterns I helped them see then are the same patterns I see now.
I brought systematic rigor to helping people see their patterns. I built a methodology over years of real work — then I needed it for myself.
Why I'm Qualified to Teach This
Because I had to do it myself.
Knowing how to help others didn't mean I could see my own patterns. The blind spots I'd been diagnosing in others? I had my own. The crashes I'd been warning people about? I had mine.
15+ business directions I couldn't sustain — most of them in under a decade. Partnerships that kept dissolving. A body I kept running into the ground.
Eventually I was surprised to find founder blood in my veins too. When I realized I could survive on a dream, food, and a couch, it wasn't a week before I was doing just that — for over a year. That business failed too. Terribly.
Each failure had its own examples — all pattern-driven. Under the full pattern of failures, the pattern of the solution became visible.
That's why I can teach this. Not because I figured it out in theory. Because I've done the work. Work that I have to continue every single day. And every day I do, the gains compound.
Who This Is For
If your business failing means you lose everything — not inconvenience, but real damage — you can't afford to keep repeating the pattern.
That's who I work with. Builders with skin in the game who need to see what they can't see.
If you're allergic to writing — I'm not your guy.
See How I Think
What Comes After Mastery — The thesis. What yields the greatest potential for growth once you've handled tools, workflows, and fit.
AI Will Lie to You — Why the tool that could accelerate your growth will validate your blind spots instead — unless you build the discipline to see them.
Have a team you can't step away from? 7 Weeks to Vacation →