About Dean
Twenty years of building things, four of them acquired, and 72 agents running while I sleep. Some of it went beautifully. A fair amount of it did not, and that part is on this page too.
The short version
I run the businesses I talk about.
I am not an AI consultant who found the subject last year. I have been in business 20+ years. Four of the companies I built were acquired. Along the way I have worked with 1,000+ organisations.
Most days I am running several ventures at once. Steve runs them with me, and that is how it has worked for a long time now.
These five are the estate, and every one of them is still running.
- Play Fund Win
- Discount Vouchers
- Cherished
- Trusted Media
- Onyxia
That is the whole biography, and it is shorter than people expect. No origin story, no mentor list, no reading list. Everything I know about AI came out of running those businesses badly before I ran them well.
How I got here
Twenty years, and not one of them in a straight line.
Collapsed lungs, a record label, a lunch delivery app that was too early, two ventures that failed in the same year. Filter it if you only want the wins, but the wins make more sense with the rest of it attached.
Filter by Category
Health Scares & Empires
ResilienceAge 15: survived multiple collapsed lungs and major kidney surgeries.
Online Gaming Hustle
BeginningBuilt a group of over 20 Browser Based Online Games (Age 15-17).
Bible School & Record Label
CreativeWent to Bible school, met Mozez (ex-Zero 7 singer), got kicked out.
Social Media Reinvented
TechHelped build Campfire with Pete Lawrence (Founder of Big Chill).
Snacks Away
InnovationBuilt online lunch ordering delivery before Just Eat & Deliveroo.
Social Referral Online
BusinessCreated a referral tool that gyms used to boost retention.
Social Media Boom
TechBuilt a social platform that hit 10k users in 3 months.
First Exit
BusinessSold my first company. Finally understood 'liquidity event'.
Global Brand Building
MarketingHelped international companies build online brands.
Mentorship Era
LeadershipGave back by mentoring students in local colleges and schools.
Domain Empire
TechDomain name addiction: over 850 domain names owned—and counting.
Multi-Venture Era
BusinessBuilt and scaled 15+ ventures total.
The Pivot Year
ResilienceTwo ventures failed. One succeeded. The rollercoaster was real.
Health Crisis
PerspectiveMajor health scare. Life got real. Fast.
Sports Tech Discovery
InnovationFound my lane: sports + fans + fundraising.
Play Fund Win Launch
TechFounded Play Fund Win. All chips on the table.
Traction
GrowthReal clients. Real revenue. Real validation.
Scale & Impact
LeadershipBuilding the team. Refining the model. Eyes on the prize.
The Estate
VisionOne venture became a portfolio.
Agentic Engineering
InnovationTook the pattern into hardware.
A few moments
Many stories.
Not one of these was taken at a desk, which is probably the most honest thing on this page.
Spain, with the people I build with
Same table, same three people, a laptop each somewhere under the chairs. This is what "many ventures at once" actually looks like.
Ice hockey in Canada
Okanagan, and I am the one at the front who cannot hold a camera straight. Sport is how I have met most of the people I work with.
Stamford, before anyone else is up
Pen and paper first, every time. The agents do not get switched on until I already know what I am asking them for.
Beyond the Business
Work is only part of the story. Here's what makes Dean tick outside the boardroom.
Foodie at Heart
Over 93 million views on Google reviews. If your café serves killer pastries, I'm probably rating them.
Weekend Baker
My cookies could give Millie's a run for their money. Stick around and you might just get a taste.
Beverage Enthusiast
Fancy a cocktail or a crisp glass of white? Or a morning coffee – I'm in. Cheers!
Early to Bed, Early to Raise!
By 9pm I'm lights out – got to rest this brilliant-but-busy brain.
Vibrant Gym-Goer
I live in ridiculously colourful OddBalls gear. It sparks chats and new friendships – who says workout kits have to be grey and boring?
ADHD / Dyslexia Friendly
Keep messages short and sweet. Voice notes under 2 minutes welcome. Long essays? My brain nopes out.
Audiobook Aficionado
Favourites include Greenlights, Atomic Habits, Zero Limits, Can't Hurt Me, The Alchemist, The Surrender Experiment, Big Magic, Inner Engineering, Screw It, Let's Do It.
"P.S → Photo is not of me at a wedding, it's the day I outdressed a potential investor (I voted to standout/be remembered)"
Operating Principles
These aren't just values on a wall. They're the filter for every decision.
Every venture starts with one question: will users genuinely love this? Fan joy comes first. Commercial outcomes follow when you nail the experience.
The record
Numbers I can stand behind.
There are no client results below, because I do not publish any and will not quote what I cannot show you. Every figure is something I did myself, most of it while running several ventures at once. None of it is rounded up.
- years building and running businesses
20+
years building and running businesses
- acquisitions
4+
acquisitions
- organisations worked with
1,000+
organisations worked with
- domains under management
850+
domains under management
- OpenClaw fleet running 24/7
72 agents
OpenClaw fleet running 24/7
- web apps shipped
80+
web apps shipped
- Base44 apps shipped
375+
Base44 apps shipped
Why me
I did not read about agents. I run them.
Most people selling AI advice do not run anything. I do, every day, with my own money behind it. Everything I teach and everything I build for other people was working in my own estate first.
72
Agents, in production
Not a round number, because I can count them. They handle my inbox, my reporting and my ops while I sleep. Live systems with my own money behind them.
375+
Base44 apps built
That is on top of 80+ web apps. I write the thing and then I run the thing, and the second part is where you find out what you got wrong.
850+
Domains under management
When something breaks at two in the morning, it breaks on me. That is a different job from advising someone else about it.
Games, shipped like products.
Not prototypes — full game loops with economies, progression and live deployments, built with the same AI operating layer as everything else.
Food Truck Park Tycoon
A cozy 2.5D tycoon built as a road trip: lay out a park where every truck wears its dish on the roof, cook every order yourself, then hit the road — eight towns, eight economies, one long delicious journey.
8 themed towns, each with its own economy, favourite cuisine — and its own way of sabotaging you
11 named cooking mini-games across 13 gestures, plus 53 research recipes on a Signature → Masterpiece ladder
Upload a selfie, get cartoon-ified, and show your chef off on collectible trading cards — Bronze to Legendary
On the workbench
Eleven game builds in the org — one live on its own domain, the rest at various stages behind it, including the competition entry that placed 4th and 7th.
Don't take my word for it. Take the platform's.
“You're in the top 0.03% of Base44 users — fewer than apps that ever reach #1 on an app store.”
— Base44's own platform message, on the AI app platform Wix acquired for $80M.
4th & 7th — two build competitions, one game
Placed in both competitions entered, with a game built to launch on Steam and the app stores rather than to win a weekend.
Full websites from a single prompt
Production sites shipped in one prompt — my own ventures and websites built for other companies. Design, copy, checkout, live.
AI setups mastered, end to end
OpenClaw and Claude environments configured for personal and business use — optimised through hundreds of live use cases and real feedback.
Unsolicited
What people write back.
These are readers, not clients, and I am not going to dress them up as anything else. They used something I published and then took the time to tell me what happened.
I do not know what was in those files for Claude but they have made it so much better — thanks for that — thinking of designing a space ship as my next request.
Thanks once more Dean, I have created quite an impressive Business Intelligence machine with Fable. Would not have happened without inspiration from you.
Where to go next.
Four doors, and three of them cost nothing to open.
The Academy
Tracks you work through yourself, at whatever pace suits you, inside the Vault membership. Start here if you want to install this without me.
Open the AcademyThe Vault
The library I actually use, cleaned up and dropped in as I build it, with new work added every week.
See the VaultWork with me
The ladder, from an hour to a day in your business. Prices and what happens on each rung.
See the ladderFractional Chief AI Officer
For a board that needs the AI seat held by someone accountable. Monthly, part-time, and priced on that page.
See the seat