For twenty years I've worked in software and cloud infrastructure, building systems for companies that never think twice about scale. But the thing that actually shaped this project wasn't any of that — it was watching people around me who had real, valuable skills and still couldn't get ahead.
I kept seeing the same pattern. Someone's a great electrician, or a sharp designer, or just reliable and hardworking — and none of that shows up on a resume in a way that gets them anywhere. Meanwhile the person next door needs exactly what they're good at, and the two of them never find each other.
What's actually broken
A few things, in my experience:
- Big marketplaces don't care about small trades. Sites like eBay or Amazon are built for volume. A one-off swap between two neighbors is invisible to them.
- Banks judge you by a credit score, not your character. Plenty of capable people get shut out of financial tools because of a number that doesn't reflect who they are.
- Job sites reward credentials, not skill. If you didn't go to the right school or work the right job before, it's hard to get noticed — even if you're genuinely good at what you do.
- Trust starts at zero every time. Without a way to prove you're reliable, every new connection is a guess.
Why now
Three things changed recently that make this possible in a way it wasn't before:
Matching got smart enough to be useful. The tools that power recommendations on Netflix or Spotify can now do the same thing for people — suggesting who nearby actually has what you need, instead of leaving you to scroll through listings.
There's finally a good way to prove reputation. A trade history that's verifiable and that you actually own, instead of one locked inside a single company's database, means trust can travel with you instead of resetting every time you try something new.
People need this more than they used to. Prices are up, paychecks aren't stretching, and more people are patching together income from a few different places. Direct trades — skill for skill, stuff for stuff — sidestep a lot of that pressure entirely.
What I want this to become
Not just an app — something closer to infrastructure. A neighborhood's worth of trust that doesn't evaporate if you move across town, or across the world. A place where the plumber and the graphic designer actually find each other. A way for the skills people already have to stop going to waste.
That's the whole idea. Everything else is just the work of building it.
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