What's in a Friend?
What does it mean to be a friend and to receive friendship?
Read the thing →EST. 2026
ISSUE: ONGOING
A PERSONAL PUBLICATION BY BEN
Husband. Father of three. Founder. Engineer. Operator. Teacher. Future seminarian. Building software, companies, restaurants, and an increasingly difficult-to-summarize biography.
The name comes from a Ben Folds lyric. The opinions, regrettably, are original.
THE THESIS
I’m Ben. I’m married to a woman who is wiser, kinder, and better than me in nearly every way that matters, and together we’re raising three children.
I co-founded and lead Table Needs and started Bagel Boy, a fledgling franchise with two locations. I also built Walk with God and co-founded Task Bracket. Plum CMS and Kodiak Booksellers are further evidence that I am not especially good at leaving ideas alone.
Before that, I spent five years building Sworkit and helped about 100 people become software engineers.
I’m also a confessional Lutheran preparing for seminary. This is where those vocations share a table without pretending they’re a personal brand strategy.
The unnecessarily complete versionWhat does it mean to be a friend and to receive friendship?
Read the thing →For most of my kids' lives, I wouldn't have asked. Not because they couldn't help, but because they might get hurt, or slow me down. It's faster alone. It's safer alone. So I did it alone, and told myself I was protecting them, and what I was actually doing was keeping them out.
Read the thing →Vocation without the LinkedIn incense.
Read the thing →SOME GUY BUILDS / OPERATES / TEACHES
Not a résumé. There is, however, evidence.
SOME GUY BELIEVES
“Vocation is not a ladder toward significance. It is where your neighbor happens to need you.”
I write about Scripture, the Lutheran Confessions, education, and the ordinary work God gives us to do. I’m preparing for seminary, so expect field notes—not declarations of personal infallibility.
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