I build the AI products that actually ship.
Most companies are running AI pilots. I ship AI products. 15 years of VP of Product across Demandbase, Pendo, and Salesforce. $100M+ ARR built from 0-to-1, 25+ agents in production, delivery cycles cut from 90 to 14 days. CS degree. I code daily. Now I'm looking for the next hard problem to own, as a VP of Product or CPO.
Marin, CAPrinciples.
AI pilots don't fail because of the tech. They fail because nobody owns the outcome. I own outcomes.
The best AI products aren't prompts with a UI. They're systems — agents, evals, orchestration, feedback loops. I build those.
Speed is a product decision. I cut delivery cycles from 90 to 14 days. That's not hustle, it's architecture.
The exec who can't read the code is a liability. I read the code. I write the code. Then I go talk to the board.
Impatient
Speed, intensity, bias toward action. AI lets you move faster than ever. I do.
Courageous
Hard problems, persistent solutions. I work on things that haven't been solved yet — because that's where the leverage is.
Lean
No politics. No committees. One person with full-stack judgment. You get impact, not process.
Skills & Expertise.
Bakery Buddy: a full AI SaaS, shipped solo in under 2 weeks.
Bakery Buddy runs an independent bakery end to end: orders, customers, inventory, recipes, invoicing, online payments, and an AI assistant on every screen. I built it solo in under 2 weeks with Claude Code, and it's live on a real operating bakery (Marin Cake Studio in San Rafael). The point isn't the cakes. It's the velocity. One product exec who ships code can now build a real B2B SaaS, not a demo.
Buddy doesn't guess.
Automations that email your customers.
Paste a messy DM, get an order.
Mileage that logs itself.
Every zoo has a lion. The lion can't be tamed — they roar louder than the rest. You can't have a zoo without a lion, because that's what everyone goes there to see.
“I would be REMISS to not give a large bucket of kudos/thanks to Chad who introduced us to Forrester WAY back in the early stages of this deal. This was the first step toward the culmination of the entire team's efforts.”
— Sales Leader, Demandbase“You may be really changing this company fr fr!”
— Sales Leader, Demandbase“I just got back from summer break to catch up on work and I look at the open MRs and most have your name. It's great to see PMs and Designers contributing. So in this case crazy is good, keep coding!”
— Staff Engineer, DemandbaseWhat I'm Building.
ItsDeductible Replacement
Agentic Marketing Suite
Projects.
AI Job-Search System
Local AI Gateway
chadholdorf.com
From the Blog.
Every Company Needs an Agent OS Strategy
The agent runtime layer is becoming infrastructure — just like Linux and Kubernetes before it. Companies that don't build a strategy around it will be caught flat-footed.
We Hold Robots to a Standard We've Never Held Humans
Autonomous vehicles are held to an impossible standard while human drivers kill 40,000 people a year in the US — and that asymmetry is a policy failure, not a safety posture.
The One Tool Test
If you can't name the commercial AI tool you brought into your organization this month, that's the answer.
Contact
If you're hiring a VP of Product or CPO who ships AI products instead of just advising on them, let's talk. Recruiters and hiring managers welcome. Always happy to trade notes with other builders too.