DAVID ANDERSON
Friends call me Pug. A xennial social entrepreneur and operator, based in Sacramento. Twenty years of mission-driven technology — sustainability publishing, social-enterprise incubation, crowdfunding, community currencies — and a year of rebuilding the production side of the practice with AI agents at the keyboard.
What I'm good at
Listening to mission-driven founders and translating their constraints into something shippable. Sequencing modernizations of long-running platforms without breaking trust with the community using them. Picking the small interventions that compound, and resisting the large ones that don't. Writing clearly about technology choices for non-technical audiences.
What I believe
Empowerment beats profit as a north star. Most software is over-engineered and under-loved. The right cadence is small, frequent, well-explained changes — to code, to organizations, to oneself. Libertarian-socialist if pressed for a label; mostly I just try not to be useful to people who don't deserve it.
Outside the studio
Ultimate frisbee. Hot springs. Long road trips in our electric car. Reading widely and slowly. Volunteering at scale-appropriate organizations.
FOR THE PERSONAL-BLOG VERSION OF ALL THIS · ↗ AKAPUG.NET
- 01 2006–2008 Green Options MediaFOUNDERA network of sustainability blogs in the early publishing-CMS era.
- 02 2008–2010 VirganceVP OF OPERATIONSA San Francisco social-enterprise incubator (1BOG, Carrotmob).
- 03 2010–2012 Important MediaFOUNDERSustainability blog network; sold.
- 04 2013– Independent consultingOPERATORCrowdfunding, community currencies, nonprofit ops, growth strategy.
- 05 2021– Simbi · 501(c)(3)PRESIDENT & LEAD VOLUNTEERA national time-bank for skill-trade economies.
- 06 2025– Minuscule VenturesPRINCIPALThe studio of miniventures the rest of this site catalogs.