Renovating the farmhouse like a product
Old buildings and software share more than most founders want to admit.
Restoring an old farmhouse in Tuscany has turned out to be a surprisingly good teacher.
Every wall hides history. Every shortcut taken by a previous owner eventually reveals itself. And every optimistic timeline collapses the moment you open the next layer.
That sounds a lot like software.
You inherit the decisions before you inherit the assets
People like to talk about what they are buying or building.
In practice, you inherit systems of decisions.
That is true for a codebase and it is true for a house. Materials matter, but the real story lives in all the invisible tradeoffs that came before you.
Progress is mostly sequencing
The temptation is always to jump to visible wins.
But the durable work tends to happen in a less glamorous order:
- stabilize the structure
- make the critical paths obvious
- reduce future surprises
- only then polish the surfaces
Product work rewards the same discipline.
Taste shows up in constraints
A renovation is not just a problem-solving exercise. It is also a curation exercise.
What do you preserve? What do you modernize? What do you leave intentionally imperfect because it gives the place character?
That is the part I enjoy most.
Good products, like good spaces, feel opinionated without feeling heavy-handed. They know what they are trying to be.