About

Engineer first.
Founder by necessity.

I'm Jonathon Byrdziak. I've been writing software for 25 years — 15 of them deep in PHP, WooCommerce, and Magento on real businesses with real revenue at stake. I know where the hard 20% lives because I've shipped the hard 20% a thousand times.

I run two businesses:

  • Merchant Protocol — custom software development, AI as the build engine, an open-source platform as the foundation. You own what we ship.
  • Sulla Desktop — open-source multi-agent AI platform with workflow orchestration, vault, marketplace, and multi-model routing. The bet I'm making on where AI for working businesses lands in the next 24 months.

Both compound the same thesis: AI doesn't replace working engineers — it lets them finish what others abandon. Most software projects die at 80%. I use AI to grind through the long tail that kills traditional projects. The success rate is what changes, not the timeline.

Why I write

The AI conversation in 2026 is dominated by people who don't ship and silenced by people who do. That imbalance is bad for everyone trying to make decisions about real businesses. I'd rather be useful than impressive.

Five themes you'll see here, again and again:

  • AI-native development — how to build with AI tools, what works, what breaks. Real code, real lessons.
  • Where AI is going for working businesses — agent commoditization, AI-eats-SaaS, model provider dynamics. Honest 12-24 month outlook.
  • Build-in-public on Sulla — what I'm shipping, what I'm learning, where the platform is going.
  • Custom dev war stories — what real client engagements look like, what kills projects at 80%, why ownership matters.
  • Anti-hype takes — calling out the noise. GoHighLevel agencies, SKOOL graduates, vapor-product launches.

Subscribe to the Honest List if you want one email every other Sunday — new writing, what I shipped, what I changed my mind on.

The personal stuff

Christian. Husband. Father. Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. I take the work seriously and the rest of it lightly.

I lift kettlebells most days. I read more theology than is strictly useful for shipping software. I mostly avoid social media as entertainment but use it as a publishing surface. I think most of what's wrong with the modern internet would be fixed by people building real things and writing honestly about them.

Get in touch

Email is best: hello@byrdziak.com. I read everything but reply selectively.

If you have a software project you need built, that's Merchant Protocol. If you want to install Sulla Desktop or follow the OSS work, that's sulladesktop.com.