Jonas Hirshland
Builder in San Francisco. I make software for the places people gather.
I've spent six years in startups building products across mobile, web, and the physical world, mostly in events and hospitality. The one I'm proudest of is a scavenger hunt platform I built for friends so we could throw a massive, complicated event at the drop of a hat. 2,000 people have participated.
What I actually do is help people choose. The hard part is rarely that nobody has ideas. It's that there are ten reasonable directions, each with someone in the room who believes in it, and no clear way to tell which two or three are worth the investment. I'm at my best right there: listening, and asking the questions you didn't know you needed to ask. Then I build the ones we pick.
Work
How I got here
I got into hospitality because I believed in the promise of nomadic living, and I gave it a real try. Two years, three major cities, ski seasons in mountain towns.
Hospitality made me a more empathetic person, and it changed how I build. I put care into products the way you'd put care into a room someone is about to walk into. Events taught me to sweat details and build excitement around a moment. Old and new friends have met their partners at parties I've thrown.
I still travel a lot. But my home and my community are in San Francisco.
What I'm good at
- Narrowing ten plausible directions down to the two or three worth building
- Shipping first versions fast, then making them worth keeping
- Working across the line between product and engineering, which is a line fewer companies want to draw sharply anymore
- Full-stack software that touches the physical world: check-in, locks, hardware, real venues. I started in robotics, which is where I learned how uncooperative the real world is
Recently
Outside of work
People ask me when the next river float is, or the next sail around the Bay, or the next ski day.
I think a balanced life is what tells you which work is worth doing.
Work with me
I'm taking on product work now: early ideas, MVPs, and second versions.
How I work, and what I'd need from you →
Or grab 20 minutes. No pitch, just a conversation.