Sun, Sons, Sports, Squishy Ducks, and Systems Coming Online

Back in May, I shared that I was launching Newthos. Then I got quiet.

Not because nothing was happening. Honestly, the opposite.

The last few months have been full. Full in the work sense, yes… but also full in the life sense. Baseball games with my boys in Kansas City and Tampa Bay. A beach trip in Florida. Sports, summer, family time, long days, late nights. (The squishy ducks? Everett and I built our first Roblox game together this summer… +1 Squishy Duck Escape. He reads the reviews. Seriously.)

Here’s what this summer kept teaching me: building matters, but so does putting the hammer down. When you’re working hard on something, you have to pause and actually notice the life and love happening around you… otherwise, what’s the point? I’d rather work to live than live to work. But, alas… work will always exist for me, because my purpose is to build things. Someday, when the pressure can be turned down a bit, I can’t wait to take longer pauses… to look around at what’s been built in my personal life, and what I got to build alongside others professionally. For now, the pauses are shorter. But I’m taking them.

Sun, sons, sports, squishy ducks, and systems coming online.

That’s the best summary of this summer.

There’s a lot I’ve wanted to say publicly since May. A lot I almost posted. A lot I started writing, deleted, rewrote, overthought, and then decided to hold. Part of that was strategic, part of it was personal, and part of it was simply that I’ve been building more than I’ve been talking.

That’s become my default lately. More making than announcing. More testing than presenting. More listening than broadcasting. More figuring it out than pretending it’s all figured out.

But eventually, if you’re building something, you have to open the door. You have to let people see it, and you have to stop waiting until every corner is polished and every answer is perfect.

So today, I’m excited to share that this very website, the public-facing Newthos website, is now live.

What Newthos is becoming

Newthos is my home for work at the intersection of strategy, creativity, technology, products, and meaningful experiences. That sounds broad… because in some ways it is. But the through-line is getting clearer: I want to build products, systems, and experiences that help people think, play, decide, connect, compete, express themselves, and make sense of the world around them.

Newthos isn’t meant to be a single-product company with one narrow lane. It’s meant to be a place where useful, purposeful, creative things get built with care. The mission is simple:

Purposeful products. Meaningful experiences.

Simple does not mean easy. But it gives me a standard. I don’t want to build things just because I can. I want to build things that create energy, clarity, connection, momentum, or a little bit of delight.

And right now, a few of those things are starting to come online.

The challenge of focus

One of the hardest parts of this stretch has been focus. Not because I don’t care enough… because I care about too many things at once. There are days when ideas come faster than I can responsibly build them. Product ideas, game ideas, story ideas, systems ideas, consulting ideas, content ideas… half-built concepts that suddenly wake back up and start tapping me on the shoulder like, “Hey, remember me?”

That part can feel exciting. It can also be dangerous, because reality doesn’t care how excited I am. Runway is real. Costs are real. Time and energy are real. The risk of spreading myself too thin is very real.

I’m learning that building a company is not just about dreaming bigger. It’s about choosing better… knowing when to push, when to pause, when to simplify, when to pivot, when to throw something away, and when to admit a good idea may not be the right idea for right now. That has been humbling.

I’ve learned a ton about iteration this summer. About building something, seeing it more clearly, and realizing it needs to change. About restarting with better information, and letting go of work without calling it failure. Some days that process is energizing… the systems finally connect and the work starts becoming what I hoped it could be. Other days I feel scattered, uncertain, down, and painfully aware that nothing about this is guaranteed.

Both are true. That’s what makes it real.

But even with the risk, the pressure, the doubt, and the constant tug-of-war for focus, I don’t regret choosing to live and work more on my own terms. Not because it’s easier… it isn’t. Because it makes me feel alive. It makes me sharper and more honest, and it forces me to learn faster than comfort ever did. There’s no place to hide from the work anymore.

And maybe most importantly, it gives me something I want my kids to see. I want them to see trial and error, confidence that isn’t fake certainty, and belief paired with actual effort. Dreaming matters, but building teaches you what the dream actually requires. Sometimes you try something and it doesn’t work. Sometimes you pivot, sometimes you rebuild, sometimes you feel down… and sometimes you get back up and have the best idea of the week ten minutes later.

That isn’t failure. That’s the work.

Squishy ducks and the best kind of building

Somewhere in the middle of all this summer movement, something unexpected happened: Everett started watching me code.

Not in a formal “sit down, son, let me explain software architecture” kind of way. More like he kept wandering over to the computer, asking what I was doing, watching pieces of things appear on the screen, and slowly realizing that building something digital isn’t magic. It’s a process… a weird, frustrating, creative, sometimes ridiculous process.

Then he started asking if we could build a Roblox game together. And honestly, how do you say no to that?

So in the middle of the current Squishy craze (yes, the Five Below° kind… the kind that takes over your house one soft little creature at a time), we made +1 Squishy Duck Escape.

Is it the most polished game in the world? No. Is it a wildly serious strategic pillar of the Newthos empire? Also no. But it might be one of the most meaningful things I built this summer, because it was never really about Roblox. It was about curiosity… about him watching me make things and wanting in. About turning “what are you doing?” into “can we build one?” It was about sharing the messy, goofy, creative side of technology with my son and letting him see that ideas can become playable.

That’s probably the clearest version of what Newthos is supposed to mean to me. Not just products, platforms, strategy decks, and launch plans… experiences that create a spark. Sometimes that spark is a business. Sometimes it’s a game. Sometimes it’s a kid realizing he can help make something exist.

I’ll take that win all day.

First up: SPURTS

The first major project I’m preparing to launch is SPURTS, coming within the next two weeks.

SPURTS is a sports fandom and knowledge platform built for people who love the culture of sports as much as the games themselves. The debates, the stats, the history, the absurdity, the group chat confidence, the heartbreak, the receipts… the ridiculous joy of believing you know more than everyone else in the room.

SPURTS started as one of those ideas I carried around for a long time. Part hobby, part game, part sports brain itch, part “I think there’s something here.” Eventually, I had to stop keeping it in my head and start turning it into something real.

It will not be perfect at launch. That’s the honest truth. But it will be tangible, and after years of thinking about building products, tangible feels like a milestone worth honoring.

SPURTS is built around a simple belief:

Sports fandom should be playable.

Not just watched. Not just argued about. Not just consumed passively. Playable… a place where knowledge, instinct, culture, humor, speed, memory, and competitive energy can all collide.

There will be more to share very soon.

Also emerging: The Vault

I’m also beginning to tease out another project I’ve been developing: The Vault.

The Vault is a competitive social strategy tabletop game built around secrecy, risk, timing, challenges, reveals, and reputation. Players make hidden deposits into a central Vault, then navigate what to protect, expose, challenge, or reveal as pressure builds around the table. It’s designed to create a tense, playful, socially alive experience where what you hide may become just as important as what you say.

I’m intentionally not ready to explain the full machine yet. That’s part of the fun.

The Vault isn’t meant to be just another prompt game. It’s not just a party game, and it’s not just a strategy game. The uniqueness comes from the collision of hidden deposits, timed reveals, challenges, group judgment, reputation, and legacy. At its best, I want it to feel like mystery, social heat, clever competition, and human truth all sitting at the same table.

More on that soon.

A note on consulting

Alongside my own product work, I’m also beginning to explore a small number of consulting engagements… and I’m being very intentional about that.

I don’t want to take on too much. There are already a lot of things cooking, and I know myself well enough to know that focus matters. If I partner with someone, I want to give that work the quality, attention, and care it deserves.

The areas where I can be most useful are marketing strategy, digital experience, analytics, creative technology, AI-enabled workflows, content systems, and helping teams bring clarity and structure to messy problems. That kind of work also helps fill in some practical gaps while the Newthos products continue to develop.

But the bar is simple: if I take it on, I want to do it well.

Why I waited

The last few months reminded me that waiting is not always avoidance. Sometimes waiting is preparation. Sometimes it’s listening. Sometimes it’s being with your kids while they’re still kids, or watching baseball in the summer and remembering that not everything meaningful needs to be optimized. Sometimes it’s helping your son build a squishy duck game because he saw you making things and wanted in. Sometimes it’s sitting with an idea long enough to know whether it still has a pulse.

And sometimes, yes, waiting becomes a place to hide. I’ve felt both sides of that.

But this summer has not felt like hiding. It has felt like becoming… quietly, imperfectly, with plenty of doubt still in the room. But becoming nonetheless.

Newthos is still early. SPURTS is still early. The Vault is still early. I’m still early in this chapter, too. There’s plenty left to prove, risks I can’t fully eliminate, and practical realities I have to keep managing with clear eyes. But I’m proud to finally have something public, tangible, and moving forward. I’m proud of what I’ve learned, and I’m proud my boys are getting to see me try.

To everyone who has listened, challenged, encouraged, advised, questioned, and patiently let me talk through the messy middle: thank you.

The time has come to say more.

The door is open. The systems are coming online.