What I tell people when they ask what I do
A short sentence I have iterated on for two years.
For most of my career I have been bad at answering the question "what do you do?" The honest answer was long, the short answers were dishonest, and the medium answers were apologetic. I have a sentence I use now. It has been the same for six months. That is the longest it has ever held.
What the sentence is#
"I build one product, slowly, with one user as my client."
That is it. No company name. No technology. No size. The sentence selects who continues the conversation. People who would ask follow-up questions about funding move on. People who care about the work itself ask what the product is.
Why this version#
Earlier versions were variants of "I am a founder" or "I am a solo developer." Both were technically true and felt like a costume. The words "founder" and "developer" do work as flags, but they perform a category, and the category is doing the talking rather than me.
The new sentence describes the day-to-day shape of the work. If someone finds that shape interesting, the conversation goes somewhere. If they don't, they go and that is fine.
What I do not say#
I do not list the kinds of things I could build. I do not mention awards or notable users or any number with a comma in it. None of those numbers have ever started a conversation worth having.
The shape of the work is the only thing worth describing.