Building the Team Behind Postiller

I've spent my career watching companies get team-building wrong.

At Apple, I saw brilliant engineers hired into roles that didn't fit. At Notion, I watched teams grow too fast, diluting the culture that made them special. The pattern was always the same: hire for skills, ignore fit, wonder why everything feels harder than it should.

When I started Postiller, I made myself a promise: I would build the smallest team that could execute the vision. Not the biggest. Not the most impressive on paper. The right people, in the right roles, pointed in the right direction.

Today, I want to introduce you to that team.

The Thesis

Before I talk about who, let me explain the why.

Postiller isn't a technical project that needed a company. It's a strategic thesis that required a team to execute. The thesis is simple: privacy-first AI is a viable market position. Users will pay for tools that don't spy on them.

That thesis doesn't need fifty engineers. It needs the right four people.

I'm not a technical founder in the traditional sense. I don't write production code. I set direction. I build teams. I make strategic decisions about what we should build and why.

The future won't be won by the biggest teams, but by the best orchestrators. My job is to assemble the right people, point them in the right direction, and get out of their way.

Here's who I assembled.

Danny Vasquez-Khoury — Lead Engineer

Danny builds everything.

I don't mean that as hyperbole. The iOS app, the Share Extension, the on-device embeddings, the SwiftData architecture — Danny's fingerprints are on all of it. When I say Postiller runs entirely on your device with no cloud dependency, Danny is the reason that's true.

What drew me to Danny wasn't just technical skill. It was his path. He didn't come from a CS degree at Stanford. He came from a decade of hustling — barbering, DJing, teaching himself to code at 3 AM. That kind of builder doesn't just write code. They solve problems. They find a way.

Danny understands something most engineers miss: we're not building technology for technology's sake. We're building a product that has to work for real people. He thinks in systems, but he ships features.

When I explained the privacy architecture I wanted — everything local, no cloud calls, user owns their data completely — most engineers would have told me it was too hard. Danny said, "Let me show you how."

That's why he's here.

Anya Desai — Product Manager

Anya is the bridge.

Between what we're building and why it matters. Between technical constraints and user needs. Between the product we have today and the product we're becoming.

I found Anya because of her writing. Before she was a PM, she was a content strategist — someone who understood that every product tells a story. When she moved into product, she brought that narrative sensibility with her. She doesn't just spec features. She asks: what story does this feature tell? What does it say about what we believe?

That matters more than most founders realize.

Anya runs our product process with a calm clarity that makes everyone around her better. She asks the questions that reframe problems. She finds the simple version of complex ideas. She keeps us honest about what we're actually building versus what we wish we were building.

She's also the most prolific writer on the team. The in-app copy, the onboarding flows, the way Postiller talks to you — that's Anya's voice as much as anyone's.

Jordan Ellis — Marketing & Community

Jordan keeps us real.

I've worked with marketers who see users as metrics. Engagement rates. Conversion funnels. LTV calculations. Jordan sees people. Real people with real problems who might — if we do this right — trust us enough to become part of what we're building.

Jordan doesn't run campaigns. He builds community. Real community — not engagement metrics dressed up in community language. He knows that trust is earned in small moments: a genuine reply, a problem solved, a voice that sounds like a person instead of a brand.

In a market full of AI companies making promises they can't keep, Jordan makes sure we only say what's true. He's our filter for hype. And in this industry, that might be the most valuable skill of all.

The Team Dynamic

Here's what I've learned about team-building:

The right team isn't the one with the most impressive resumes. It's the one where each person makes the others better. Where the gaps in one person's thinking are filled by another's strengths. Where the whole becomes more than the sum of the parts.

Danny builds. Anya bridges. Jordan connects. I direct.

We're small by design. Four people who trust each other, moving fast, staying focused. No layers. No politics. No bureaucracy.

When Danny has a technical question with product implications, he walks to Anya's desk. When Jordan needs to understand a feature deeply enough to explain it, he asks Danny directly. When any of us lose sight of why we're doing this, we remind each other.

What This Means for You

Postiller is built with intention. Every feature, every decision, every tradeoff — there's a reason behind it.

When we make decisions about the product's future, we're thinking about you — not shareholders, not advertisers, not growth metrics.

We're building something that lasts. Not something that exits.

That takes a certain kind of focus. I think we've found it.

What's Next

We're not done building. Not the product, and not the team.

As Postiller grows, we'll expand — carefully, deliberately. Quality over quantity. People who understand the thesis and want to help prove it.

There's more work to do.

— Lexi