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I’ve started or joined early 17 companies since 2007. Most of them shut down.
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I write science fiction as Leonard Buford.
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Casting Call Club
A home for voice actors, producers and directors, with 2 million users.
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I was engineer #3 at Eventbrite, from $4M to $700M.
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The Nouscraft trilogy has sold 10,000+ copies, averaging 4.5 stars.
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I joined Reforge as founding engineer. It raised $20M from a16z.
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Next up: Sol Truckers, Book 1. Being written now.
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Also: Buford versus Oklahoma, my autobiography. Being written now.
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No AI in the prose. All AI in the code.
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I’ve written a few essays. Some favourites:
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These days I’m working on 3 companies:
- Mail Shoppe 2007–2008, Shut Down
- InTicketing 2008–2009, Parted Ways
- Eventbrite 2009–2013, IPO
- Air Bulgarian 2010–2011, Shut Down
- Meme Defense 2012–2013, Shut Down
- Rentify 2013–2014, Parted Ways
- Shortcut 2014–2015, Shut Down
- 17hats 2015–2016, Parted Ways
- Casting Call Club 2015–now, Active
- CastHappy 2016–2017, Shut Down
- Fortuna 2016–2017, Shut Down
- Superscribers 2016–2017, Shut Down
- Reforge 2017–2021, Acquired
- Closing Credits 2021–now, Active
- Neoniva 2022–2023, Shut Down
- Shosay 2024–now, Active
- Videomancy 2024–2025, Shut Down
- The Zombie Apocalypse first half of 2025, Novel
- Royale second half of 2025, Novel
- First Past the Post first half of 2026, Novel
20072012201720222026
- IPO & acquired · 2
- Active · 3
- Parted ways · 3
- Shut down · 9
- Novels · 3
Currently working on
Companies
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2015
Casting Call Club
Community and marketplace for creators: voice actors, producers, directors, audio engineers. Where a project finds its cast.
2 million users
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2021
Closing Credits
Education and community for the same people. Courses, cohorts, live sessions and certificates, taught by people who actually do the work.
Sister to CCC
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2024
Shosay
SHO what people SAY about you. Collect testimonials as video, audio or text, keep the good ones, and embed them anywhere.
Newest company
Writing
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2026
Sol Truckers, Book 1
Yury is from Earth, which is currently missing. He finds himself in a videogame version of the Sol System caught up in interplanetary war. If he wants to see home again, he must find a way to stop the war, with the help of a misfit group of truckers.
Being written
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Autobiography
Buford versus Oklahoma
From felony to seven figures. This book details clawing my way out of the worst mistake of my life and going to prison at nineteen years old. It also covers building billion-dollar companies. It’s written the way Chaplin put it: life, viewed up close, is a tragedy, but viewed from far away, it’s a comedy.
It details extreme ambition, social anxiety, prison life, homelessness, addictions, and making money.
Being written
Disposition
20 entries · 17 companies, 3 novels
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2026
A race across twelve zodiac Titans. Book three.
The big reveal at the end. *Chef's kiss*
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2025
A political death match inside a space habitat. Book two.
First time using two editors on one book.
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2025
Medieval fantasy zombie survival. Book one of Nouscraft.
The trilogy has sold over 10,000 copies, averaging 4.5 stars on Amazon/Goodreads.
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2024
SHO what people SAY about you. Social proof for people who have earned some.
Started Oct 2024. Collecting, moderating and embedding testimonials for creators.
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2024
Videomancy
Shut Down
Create videos with 1-click
1000s of videos created. Never found a market position.
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2022
Neoniva
Shut Down
Contest hosting website
$15k in the first month but quickly fell to 0 when I stopped propping it up with CCC
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2021
Education and Community for creators
Launched in Aug 2021. Hitting ~50k MRR as of Jan 2022.
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2017
What LinkedIn should have been.
I was the founding engineer and Head of Engineering. Went from $0 to 9-figures. I left after 4+ years for a break and tinker with side projects. Acquired later on.
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2016
CastHappy
Shut Down
Podcast management
Never got anywhere with it
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2016
Superscribers
Shut Down
Automated Social Media Management
Never got anywhere with it
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2016
Fortuna
Shut Down
CRM for Freelancers
Never got anywhere with it
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2015
CRM for SMBs, specifically photographers
I was the CTO. Growth stalled.
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2015
LinkedIn (community & marketplace) for creators.
2 million users.
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2014
DoorDash for large venues. Delivery to your seat. I was the cofounder and CTO
Raised about $1M but could not find the right business model
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2013
Rentify
Parted Ways
Landlord CRM
I was the CTO. Things were fine but I wanted to start Shortcut.
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2012
Meme Defense
Shut Down
Tower Defense Game featuring your favorite internet memes.
I was trolled by an internet mob and didn't get funded.
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2010
Air Bulgarian
Shut Down
iOS App to help you learn Bulgarian
Launched it free in the App Store. Lost interest after a while.
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2009
Events made easy. I was the 10th employee.
Spent 4 years there. Fell in love with startups. Went from $4M to $700M.
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2008
InTicketing
Parted Ways
Events made easy, but not as easy as Eventbrite. Acquired later on.
I was just an engineer here. My first job in the SF Bay. I am very grateful for my start here.
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2007
Mail Shoppe
Shut Down
A wanna be Etsy. My first startup ever. I was the founding engineer.
Didn't even launch a decent product.
Writing
Books
1. Nouscraft
A completed LitRPG trilogy about a rogue AI that traps ten billion people in a game they cannot log out of. It follows four POVs and is very Game-of-Thrones with all the backstabbing going on. Think Dungeon Crawler Carl where the MCs might actually die. Over 10,000 copies sold, averaging 4.5 stars across Amazon and Goodreads.
2. Sol Truckers
Yury is from Earth, which is currently missing. He finds himself in a videogame version of the Sol System caught up in interplanetary war, and if he wants to see home again he has to find a way to stop it, with the help of a misfit group of truckers.
Currently being written...
3. Buford versus Oklahoma
From felony to seven figures. This book details clawing my way out of the worst mistake of my life and going to prison at nineteen years old. It also covers building billion-dollar companies. It’s written the way Chaplin put it: life, viewed up close, is a tragedy, but viewed from far away, it’s a comedy.
It details extreme ambition, social anxiety, prison life, homelessness, addictions, and making money.
Currently being written...
- World 1 The Zombie Apocalypse
- World 2 Royale
- World 3 First Past the Post
Nouscraft Trilogy
Essays
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💋 How to hire actually good engineers
April 2022
Hiring engineers by what they have shipped rather than by how they perform under a whiteboard.
Read more -
📺 Lessons starting a $500M & a $5M company in 5 years.
March 2022
What actually transferred between building Reforge and building Casting Call Club, and what did not.
Read more -
➿ Raising $20M from A16Z
January 2021
A term sheet from Andreessen Horowitz, and what the process looked like from the inside.
Read more -
💸 Choose Money First
September 2020
Build the thing that makes money first. Passion is much easier to find once the rent is covered.
Read more -
🚶🏻♂️ On Parental Influence
April 2018
On what parents hand down without meaning to, and what that leaves you to sort out yourself.
Read more -
🌉 On San Francisco
July 2015
Seven years in the Bay Area, written down before I forgot what it felt like to arrive.
Read more
Written by hand
I don't use AI to write.
Putting a thing on paper (neovim) sentence by sentence, word by word, does something to your brain. It is the work of thinking, of brain exercise. If you outsource thinking and you keep the result, you slowly lose the part that made you able to produce it. I think humans have to keep doing it manually to be able to have deep thoughts at all.
That said, coding is different, and I use AI for most of it. I spent twenty-five years writing code by hand so I feel like I've earned it. I mean sure, there's an art there when buildig out code, but I'm interested in the product and the people. I still review all the code the AI writes though. Can't trust Skynet.
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