# ToolPool.Garden

2026 – Current

[Project site](https://toolpool.garden)

I'm excited to announce [ToolPool.Garden](https://toolpool.garden), an application that helps you anonymously share tools with the people that you trust!

While I technically started working on this in 2025, there were a lot of changes from that initial application to what it is today. Initially going to be an AI-powered recruiting application called IllumAlign (but it would've been a good one, I swear!), I ended up realizing that I needed to go through a pivot, and started working on the application that I knew I would have at least some demand for (namely from [SynergyMill](https://www.synergymill.com/)), and more importantly, an app that I wanted to dogfood for myself, anyhow.

I knew that I wanted to do an application with the stack of Elixir and LiveView, but I was really excited to get to use the tools that I really wanted to use to their fullest, including Fly.io, Fly's MPG, Tigris Data, Cloudflare, Sentry, Mailjet, Gitlab + self-hosted runners and more! It's definitely been a great experience as I've gotten the chance to not worry about "market pressures" or "customers" and experiment with getting the most technically out of these services. I'm sure a lot of it was just getting to use the particular tooling that I wanted to use for everything, but at least technically, it's felt like [this image](https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/591928-feels-good) a lot.

Anyways, I've also gotten to learn a lot of less technical things through this as well, which was my main goal with starting a business. From just getting familiar with the regulatory and legal hurdles of starting a business, to getting to experiment more with areas that I don't really do much of as a software developer such as marketing and sales, I feel like I've already gotten much more holistic perspective of business, and I'm still in the process of getting real customers! (I should really get on that...)

It's been really fun to do things like implement Google/Reddit ads or make internal tools and dashboards with all the knowledge of a software engineer, but wearing a hat that I normally wouldn't be wearing. So, if [ToolPool.Garden](https://toolpool.garden) seems interesting to you or you might know someone that would be interested in the idea, then I'd really appreciate it if you'd be wiling to check it out, or if you could help me make a warm introduction. And if you've made it this far, let me know if you're interested in a fridge magnet :)