Solano Morales

I like to build things myself.

By day I help companies figure out what they should really build, and in the evenings I develop my own apps. Back in Brazil I even welded the workbenches for my workshop myself.

Email me LinkedIn
Portrait of Solano Morales

How I work

Four things I believe in.

  1. Understand first, then build.

    Most projects do not fail because of technology, but because of a question nobody ever asked properly. So I listen first and find out which problem really needs solving, before a single line of code is written.

  2. Showing beats explaining.

    A prototype you can click through after one week says more than ten slides. For years I shipped a finished game every week, and I have kept the habit of showing something tangible early.

  3. Structure makes AI useful.

    An AI is only as good as the knowledge you give it. Organising knowledge and rules so that people and AI can work with them together is the most exciting challenge for me right now, and it is where my apps come from.

  4. Use it yourself.

    I only build apps I need every day myself. That way I am the first to notice when something does not work, and I have no reason to pretend otherwise.

What I build

Apps I want to use myself.

  1. Available

    Stuffmanager

    Passwords, logins and notes in one place. End-to-end encrypted and shared only with the people you choose.

    Get it

    Mac · Windows

  2. In development

    Logvyn

    Time tracking that happens on the side. It asks at the right moment, knows your meetings, and your week is already there.

    Mac first

  3. Coming back

    Educalabs

    With Educalabs, students could uncover the human body layer by layer, send planets around the sun, zoom into a cell and explore the periodic table in 3D. More than a dozen modules for physics, chemistry, biology and maths, each named after a great scientist and available in four languages. It was created by my own company in São Paulo, and I am now rebuilding it so that it runs directly in the browser.

    Browser
    Originally 2011 to 2018

    Animation from Educalabs: Mendeleev · Periodic table
    Mendeleev · Periodic table
    Animation from Educalabs: Vesalius · Anatomy
    Vesalius · Anatomy
    Animation from Educalabs: Kepler · Solar system
    Kepler · Solar system
    Animation from Educalabs: Hooke · Cell biology
    Hooke · Cell biology

From the archive Desktop Ruler 2010

A transparent ruler that floated above everything on the desktop and measured any object on screen, pixel by pixel. Designers used it a lot back then.

Where I come from

Valparaíso, Germany, São Paulo and back.

I was born in Valparaíso in Chile and grew up in Germany. When I was 13, I was given a Commodore 64. I played games on it for two weeks and then never again, because far more exciting than any game was the question of how to build one yourself. I have been programming ever since.

Still, music was meant to be my profession at first. I studied music and played in several bands, longest with Mambisa, where we played Latin jazz and salsa. Alongside that I played Brazilian music for many years, and in 2005 love took me to Brazil. I stayed for 17 years, and that is where I turned my hobby into my profession.

I started out with educational games for children, on average one finished game a week. Later I co-founded Educalabs and then helped build a software company that grew from 18 to around 150 people during my time there. I led teams and worked on projects in healthcare, payments and for international brands.

Today I live in Germany again and work as a Managing Consultant. I lead pre-sales for digital platforms and translate between what a client wants to achieve and what can sensibly be built, technically and commercially. And in the evenings I keep on building.

With my hands

I built the workshop myself.

In Brazil I had my own workshop, and I did not buy the workbenches, drawers and shelves for it. I welded and built them myself from steel tube and wood. It is actually just like software: first the frame, then everything else, and if something does not fit, you rebuild it.

Steel tubes held at a right angle by an orange welding magnet
Welded steel frame of a large table
Solano in the workshop with his welding helmet flipped up
Orange workbench frames with the first wooden drawers
The finished workshop with workbenches and drawers

Today, when I have time to myself, I would rather pick up my guitar.

I speak

Contact

Let’s talk.

If you have a project where technology, structure and AI need to come together, if you want to know how Logvyn is coming along, or if you simply want to say hello, write to me. I look forward to every message.

Email me LinkedIn