The Big Reveal
September 28, 2026
I've always been a big Seinfeld fan. So, like every episode in that series, I needed a "The" title. It also needed to be written by hand. For me, something changed around the end of 2025. Mainly over my holiday break, I dove deeply into the LLM offerings and I began to build. I felt unleashed. Every month since has been just as intense.
Ideas were coursing through my veins. I was always a software user. Mint for money. TaxAct in April. A spreadsheet for this and that. A big mess of a Dropbox. Always five or six computers with various purposes, some in drawers, some daily drivers. A disorganized mess that needed de-cluttering like the messiest room of the house. There had to be a better way.
So planning the family's weekly menu was first. A simple app with a single purpose. Enlightenment came with the discovery of a mesh VPN service called Tailscale, easy enough to provision on all the phones in the house - including two teenagers and my wife. Now they can vote for take out and give a thumbs up for a home-cooked meal, whether it's Dad's pot roast or Mom's lasagna.
Ok that's a cute app. Nifty. It just works and everyone can access it, even on the ride home on the bus. Onwards to a modest calendaring app for a shared view of the week's events. Next was a simple help desk - but for the family and usually assignments heading to good old Dad - Mr. Fix-It! But the biggest tool was still off the horizon, my white whale.
The idea and design for a Mint and Monarch Money replacement came quickly and gained rapid momentum. Plaid described a system that a solo developer can build against. House the synced data directly in my home, on my storage. We can do this, Claude, Codex - whoever I had on payroll now from the big frontier labs. They cut through API docs and can build service clients like my mom can make 12 dozen cookies for the holidays. No task is too big or too small.
Earlier in the year, I was building and shipping - for my family. Today, I'm shipping for you, whoever is reading this. Maybe a family member or friend. Maybe even a stranger with the same ideas. I think the world deserves more free software and so I'll do my part. Attaching my name to something publicly is something I take with utmost care. I'm very much a private person and this launch reflects upon me and my efforts.
So The Big Reveal is here. The Sovereign Home is live. Free and open source (MIT). Bring a spare box, your technical chops and the effort to learn. Pair up with your favorite agent for help. They were essential to this build out.
Take your seedling. Grow it. Tend to it. Ship for your family and those you love.