Portfolio

What we're building.

Every company in the Obsidian Heron portfolio is either built inside the studio or selectively backed from outside it. Each one operates under its own brand and on its own economics. The studio is the shared foundation beneath them.

Skilled.Ph

Live

Remote hiring · US ↔ Philippines · Launched 2024

A remote hiring platform connecting US-based businesses with vetted Filipino professionals for direct employment — no placement fees, aligned to US business hours.

Skilled.Ph solves a specific friction in cross-border remote hiring: US companies that want Filipino talent typically end up inside agency or BPO arrangements that charge ongoing placement fees and obscure the direct relationship with the worker. Skilled.Ph removes the middle layer — employers hire directly, workers keep the full working relationship, and the platform operates on a flat model.

The platform serves 15,000+ professionals and is expanding its employer base across US small and mid-sized businesses.

Visit skilled.ph →

Cairn

Private alpha

Small-business finance · United States

Bookkeeping and tax automation for US service businesses under 25 people — the shoebox-and-quarterly-CPA cycle replaced by an AI-driven books-first workflow.

Cairn sits in a category most founders avoid because it is regulatory, slow-moving, and unglamorous. That is exactly why we like it: the customer problem is durable, the unit economics are real, and the incumbents optimize for accountants rather than operators. We are building for the operator.

Paleglass

In development

Consumer mobile · iOS first

A private journaling and reflection app with an on-device model — no streaks, no social feed, no cloud AI. Introspection treated as the product, not the engagement loop.

The journaling category has drifted toward habit mechanics and AI summaries. Paleglass is a deliberate counter: a calm, local-first application built for the users who would rather write than be rewarded for writing. Privacy is a feature of the architecture, not a marketing line.

Fieldstone

In research

Remote hiring · US ↔ Latin America

A direct-hiring platform connecting US companies with vetted software engineering contractors across Latin America. The structural sibling to Skilled.Ph in a different geography and role set.

Cross-border engineering hiring is dominated by agencies and staffing firms that charge continuing placement margins and obscure the direct relationship between company and engineer. Fieldstone removes the middle layer — aligned time zones, transparent pricing, and direct contracts.

Rivet

Prototype

Developer tools · Distributed engineering teams

Developer tooling built around async code review. A small, opinionated product for distributed teams that want review to feel like writing, not meetings.

Code review is where distributed engineering teams quietly lose hours each week. Rivet is a focused attempt to make review the thoughtful, written center of a team's workflow — not a chat thread, not a meeting on someone's calendar, not a GitHub UI from a different decade.

Harborline

Concept

Investor infrastructure · Private

An operator-led platform for emerging fund managers: deal flow, syndicate rails, and a private operator community. Built on the idea that the best capital is patient and informed.

Emerging managers today stitch together spreadsheets, Slack groups, and three different software products to run a fund. Harborline is a concept for consolidating that stack — with the opinion that the critical infrastructure for small funds is relational, not just operational.

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Think you belong here?

If you have a product idea, a company we should know about, or a partnership in mind, send it over. We read every submission.