Build slowly.
We measure progress in years, not sprints. Compound interest on care.
A venture studio Established 2026 Denver, CO
Software, in the way of lovingkindness.
Via Hesed is a small workshop building software the way old shops build furniture — slowly, with care, and for people we know by name.
§ 01 / 04
The thesis
Four rules we will not break.
Profit is downstream.
Companies that serve well, pay well. We design the order of operations carefully.
Default to open.
Open source, open books, open hiring loops. Closed only where it protects the people we serve.
Be a good neighbor.
We invest in the cities our companies operate in. Hire local, host suppers, sit on the porch.
§ 02 / 04
Projects
Six companies. One workshop.
Venture · 01
Title 1
One liner
A small editorial product for the next generation of engineering managers — long-form essays, interviews, and a curated jobs board written by people doing the work.
- $0 Subscribers
- $0 ARR
- $0 Open rate
Venture · 02
Idea2
Shared infrastructure for small studios.
The studio's own toolchain — design, ops, finance, recruiting — spun up as software the bench shares. Open-sourced where it makes sense.
Venture · 03
Porchlight
Community calendars for neighborhood block clubs.
Most block clubs run on group texts and paper flyers. Porchlight is a tiny, polite calendar that anyone on the block can edit. No accounts, no ads, no growth team.
Venture · 04
Lectionary
A reading practice for working teams.
Pair a team with a short, daily reading and a one-question prompt. Builds a shared vocabulary in months, not years. We are testing it on the studio first.
Venture · 05
Slow Wires
Long-form correspondence over plain email.
The opposite of a productivity app. Slow Wires is a thin layer over IMAP that nudges you to write fewer, longer emails — to people you care about, on a cadence you set.
Venture · 06
Almanac
Annual reports for small companies.
A simple, beautiful annual-report generator. Pulls from your accounting and CRM, asks the right questions, gives you back a document worth printing.
- 240 Companies
- $18k MRR
§ 03 / 04
Journal
Field notes from the workshop.
§ 04 / 04
Gallery
An honest index of the work.
§ 05 / 04
Get in touch
Bring us a company, or sit at the table.
- email [email protected]
- github @jcstambook
- journal /journal/
- city Denver, CO