Independent studio · Pennsylvania

I build small software
that does one thing well.

Eight shipping products. Web, iOS, Android, desktop audio, hardware companion. One person, deliberately. No venture money. No ads. No surveillance.

8

shipping products

1

person

4 mo/yr

available for paid work

Selected work

Eight products. One studio.

Each shipped under its own brand and domain. Built end-to-end here — design, backend, mobile, infra, copy.

Habit-break tracker

Quit Me

Streaks, milestones, shareable wins. Buddies hold you accountable; the app does the math.

iOS · Android · Web · Flask · Postgres

Visit Quit Me →

5-year diary

5-Year Journal

One paragraph a day. See the same date for the last five years, side by side.

iOS · Android · Web · E2E-encrypted

Visit Journal →

Group gifting

Group-Source Gift

Pool money toward one big gift. Stripe Connect pays the recipient direct. Anonymous-by-default.

iOS · Android · Web · Stripe Connect

Visit Gift →

Ephemeral social

Instant

Posts vanish in 24 hours unless you pay to keep one. No algorithm. No follower counts.

iOS · Android · Web · S3 · Celery

Visit Instant →

Verified-revenue network

CEO Network

Founders who can show $1M+ in revenue. Weekly cohorts. Members vouch for the next ones in.

iOS · Android · Web · KYC pipeline

Visit CEO Network →

Authorship verification

RealME

Verified-identity certificates that countersign your writing. PKI + on-chain anchoring.

Flask · X.509 · Ethereum anchoring

Visit RealME →

VST3 audio plugin

Dynamic Ducker

Four-band sidechain ducker for mixing voice over music. Optional lookahead. Sub-15ms latency. Free trial, $39 license.

JUCE · C++ · macOS · Windows · VST3

Visit Dynamic Ducker →

Hardware + companion

Beach Mate

Rugged BLE speaker with WiFi-Direct group sync. Open hardware spec, custom firmware, companion web app for shared control.

ESP32-S3 · NimBLE · Flask companion

Visit Beach Mate →

The studio

One person, deliberately.

I’m Austin Harman. I build software end-to-end — design, backend, mobile, infrastructure, copy. I spent years working on other people’s products at every layer of the stack, and this studio exists so that work can compound into a portfolio of small, honest tools instead of disappearing into one company’s roadmap.

Everything here is shipped. Nothing’s a mockup. Each product has its own brand, its own support inbox, and its own monetisation — typically a small subscription or a one-time fee, never ads, never surveillance. Code lives in the open where it can.

Based in Pennsylvania. Available roughly four months a year for paid studio work — fixed-fee, 4–12 week scopes, with a working prototype by the end of week two or the engagement ends.

  • Stack I reach for: Flask + Postgres + SQLAlchemy on the backend; SwiftUI on iOS; Compose on Android; vanilla HTML/CSS where possible. JUCE/C++ for audio. ESP32 + NimBLE for hardware.
  • What I don’t do: ad-supported business models, social-media-style engagement loops, dark patterns, racing competitors with VC money.
  • Who I work with: founders with a real problem and a usable budget. Studios that need a senior who can ship without management overhead. Established companies starting a side-bet they want to keep small.

Austin Harman

Founder · Designer · Engineer

Email
hello@austinharmandesigns.com

Sales
sales@thepenn.group

Location
Pennsylvania, US

Status
Open to engagements

Studio engagements

How working together actually goes.

01

Brief + fixed quote

You send the problem in plain English. I send back a 1-page scope, a fixed fee, and an end date. No retainers, no hourly billing.

02

Prototype in 14 days

By the end of week two there’s something deployed you can poke at on a real device. If we’re not aligned, the engagement ends here with no further obligation.

03

Ship

Iterate until it’s launched. Includes the App Store / Play Console / hosting setup, the contact-form email plumbing, the docs your team will need to take over.

04

Handoff

30-day support window, then code + infra + accounts transfer to you. Available afterwards for paid retainers, but no part of the deal locks you in.

Press kit

For writers, podcasters, & collaborators.

Logos, headshots, product screenshots, the bio paragraphs we’d write if asked.

Press kit ZIP

Logos (SVG + PNG), founder bio, hero shots for all eight products, brand guidelines.

Download (12 MB) →

Bio (50 / 200 words)

Two pre-written bios, ready to paste.

Open bio →

High-res headshot

Studio portrait, neutral background, 3000×4000.

Download (2 MB) →

Product screenshots

Every product’s primary screen, ready for embedding.

Download (8 MB) →

Get in touch

Pitch me a project.

Short notes get fast replies. If it’s not a fit I’ll usually point you somewhere it is.

Prefer plain email?

hello@austinharmandesigns.com
sales@thepenn.group

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