I’m John Kelly, and Compical is me. You get me on the call, and you get me doing the work.
I spent 15 years building software. At Apple I spent four years automating hundreds of thousands of computers. At Bleacher Report I was a senior engineer keeping a sports app running for millions of people who notice the second it stops. At Chime, an online bank, I was the most senior engineer on a product called MyPay, from the first line of code through launch, and I owned the design for how the money moved through it. It lets people draw part of their pay before payday. Chime reported that it is now doing $400 million a year.
Most of that career was being handed a vague idea and turning it into something that runs every day without falling over. That is the part that matters here. Software that demos well and software that survives a Monday morning are different things, and knowing the difference is most of what I do.
In 2017 I stood on a stage in New York and talked to a room of programmers about keeping software running when it breaks at three in the morning. I have given that talk in San Francisco several times since. It is a useful thing to be able to do, because the job here ends with me explaining it to you in plain language on the phone, not to a room of programmers.
I started building with AI in 2013, well before the current noise. That is why I am comfortable telling you when AI is not the answer, which is often. Every answer I give you rests on what you actually run and what your people actually do all day, not on what is fashionable.
Compical is new. I’m taking my first clients now, and I’d rather tell you that than have you work it out. I can’t point you at one company like yours I’ve already done this for, never mind ten. What I can do instead is put something of mine at risk on every call. Nobody pays me except you. If a call wasn’t worth what I charge, I don’t bill you. And if I read your contract wrong, I get back on the phone with you and the vendor until it is sorted, and none of that time is billed.
I don’t resell software and I don’t take referral fees. Nobody pays me to point you at their product. If the answer is that you already own the fix and somebody needs to turn it on, that is what you get, and the call ends there.
I’m based in the San Francisco Bay Area and work with companies across the United States. I travel for on-site work.
