# Kurt Heinrich

> Product builder, engineer, and writer. Built and sold an ecommerce startup, spent years as a PM at Shopify. Now building tools with AI agents and writing about the architecture behind them. This blog covers product craft, engineering decisions, and lessons from building companies.

## Blueprints Series

Open-sourcing the architecture, not the code. Each post shares the design decisions, starter prompts, and domain docs behind tools I've built - enough to rebuild them yourself with an AI coding agent.

- [Blueprints: open-sourcing the architecture, not the code](https://kurtheinrich.com/blog/open-source-the-architecture): Why I'm sharing architecture docs instead of repos. In the era of AI, blueprints are more useful than code.
- [SESH - session tracking that survives rabbit holes](https://kurtheinrich.com/blog/sesh-the-blueprint): A session management CLI built on markdown files and git. Architecture, design decisions, and starter prompts.

## Blog

- [Be bold, ship gradually](https://kurtheinrich.com/blog/be-bold-ship-gradually-a-chapter-in-product-excellence) (2018): Shipping big changes without breaking trust
- [How Gmail rolled out a major redesign in 90 days](https://kurtheinrich.com/blog/how-the-new-gmail-rolled-out-in-just-90-days) (2019): Product strategy behind Gmail's 2018 redesign
- [A great vision is informed by customers](https://kurtheinrich.com/blog/a-great-vision-is-informed-by-customers) (2013): Why customer insight drives product vision
- [Ask your happy users what they hate](https://kurtheinrich.com/blog/happy-users-can-dislike-your-product-too) (2012): Satisfied users still have friction - find it
- [9 things I wish I knew before starting my first SaaS business](https://kurtheinrich.com/blog/9-things-i-wish-i-knew-before-starting-my-first-saas-business) (2016): Lessons from growing a SaaS to 30+ employees
- [Top reasons startups fail](https://kurtheinrich.com/blog/top-reasons-startups-fail) (2010): Common failure patterns in early-stage startups

## Pages

- [About](https://kurtheinrich.com/about): Background, career path, and what I'm working on
- [Work With Me](https://kurtheinrich.com/work-with-me): Advisory and fractional product leadership
- [Contact](https://kurtheinrich.com/contact): Get in touch
- Homepage: https://kurtheinrich.com