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

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 →

TEQLAB

Live

A deals marketplace for AI and independently built software. Makers list a discounted offer; TEQLAB handles checkout, escrow, and payout on a revenue share.

Independent software makers can build a product far faster than they can find the first thousand customers. Distribution is the bottleneck, and the existing deal marketplaces were built for a different era of software — slow curation, heavy editorial overhead, and terms that favor the platform.

TEQLAB is the operator's version: free to list, revenue share instead of listing fees, and a refund window that funds are escrowed against so buyers can trust the offer and makers still get paid. Deals must clear a real discount threshold to be listed at all.

Visit teqlab.com →

reRoute

Live

Dynamic QR codes and short links that stay editable after they are printed, with real scan analytics, an API, and GS1 Digital Link support.

A QR code printed on packaging, signage, or a vehicle wrap outlives the campaign it was made for. Most tools treat that as an upsell: let the link break, or pay to keep it alive. reRoute treats a printed link as a permanent commitment — the destination stays editable, and a downgrade never breaks a code already in the world.

Underneath is the infrastructure a marketing team actually needs: time, location, and device routing rules, first-party attribution, retargeting pixels, multi-tenant workspaces for agencies, and a GS1 resolver built against the 2027 Sunrise deadline.

Visit reroutehq.com →

4evaBrands

Live

Buy once, buy right. A curated buy-it-for-life catalog of tools, cookware, and gear, with every product vetted for durability and long-term value.

Most product recommendation sites are optimized for volume: rank everything, review nothing deeply, and let the reader sort out which of forty options is actually worth owning. 4evaBrands takes the opposite position — a standing collection chosen for materials, construction, and repairability, judged on how long a thing lasts rather than how well it converts.

The site runs on a shared platform the studio built for config-driven commerce properties, so a new storefront is a configuration rather than a codebase. 4evaBrands is the first brand to ship on it.

Visit 4evabrands.com →

Cairn

Private alpha

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

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

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 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

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.

Operating properties

Beverage & regulated markets.

North Carolina is a control state: every bottle of spirits sold in it moves through a system of county ABC boards, licensed brokers, and regulated promotion. The studio operates at three points in that chain — retail, brokerage, and field marketing — building the platform and running the business behind it.

Lexington ABC

Live

The official ABC board for Lexington, North Carolina — store locations, hours, pricing, and an industry portal for suppliers and brokers.

A county ABC board answers to residents, the state commission, and the trade at the same time, and most of them run on a website that serves none of the three well. Lexington ABC is built around the questions people actually arrive with: is the store open right now, where is it, what does a bottle cost, and what are the rules.

Behind the public site sits an industry portal for the suppliers and brokers who work the board — a second audience with entirely different needs, served without cluttering the first.

Visit lexingtonabc.com →

Dorado Rock

Live

A premium spirit brokerage representing craft distilleries across North Carolina, with a searchable NC ABC catalog, a single barrel program, and on-premise ordering.

A craft distillery trying to enter a control state faces a wall of listing codes, board relationships, and compliance work that has nothing to do with making spirits. Dorado Rock is the way through it — statewide representation, ABC compliance support, and a portfolio curated rather than accumulated.

The site does the work a broker's site usually offloads onto a phone call: every product listed with its NC code, ABV, and price, searchable by name or brand, with direct request paths for bars, restaurants, and retailers.

Visit doradorockllc.com →

DR Promotions

Live

ABC store tastings, trained brand ambassadors, and promotional events run across North Carolina, with per-event reporting back to the brand.

In-store tasting is one of the few marketing channels a spirits brand can still buy directly, and it is usually the least measured thing they spend on. DR Promotions runs the channel as an accountable one: ABC-certified ambassadors, coordinated scheduling with boards and store management, and photos and metrics after every event.

Coverage runs from Raleigh, Charlotte, and Durham out to all 100 counties, on a track record of more than a thousand executed events across fifty-plus labels.

Visit drpromotions.org →

SH Dane Group

Live

A North Carolina operating group working across the state's regulated beverage market.

Visit shdanegroup.com →

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