About John Tornow

I’m a founder, builder, and technology leader. I have decades of experience turning early ideas into real products—and guiding those products toward growth, clarity, and lasting value.

I work best in the earliest stages, when nothing is figured out yet. No roadmap, no revenue, no business model. I help shape the product, from high-level vision and user experience down to the database schema and architecture. I’ve led teams through ambiguity, helped other founders find their first customers, and turned napkin sketches into millions in ARR.

My style reflects the best of startup energy and drive—but with a calm, focused pace. I create environments where talented people can do their best work: fewer meetings, more trust, and space to explore and execute. I believe in ruthless simplicity, rapid iteration, and delivering value early and often. No bloated processes. Just thoughtful experiments and continuous learning.

This is my personal site and little corner of the web. I blog here, and on my development-focused blog, from time to time. If you're curious on what I'm up to now-ish, check out the Now page here.

Thanks for stopping by. ✌️

Contact

The best way to reach me is by emailing me at tornow [at] hey [dot] com. I’ll do my best to reply. I don’t reply to (or even see) anything on LinkedIn or other means, there’s too much spam and nonsense.

Be cool.

All photos are Creative Commons, Non-commercial. If you’d like to use any of my photos, feel free. I’d love to hear about it if you do, but no pressure.

✌️❤️