Interactive scene. Arrow keys or WASD walk the akabeko; Enter opens the place beside it.
Hiroyuki (Hiro) Kuwana 桑名浩行
Building a company
with AI, while
keeping judgment human浩
I'm Hiroyuki (Hiro) Kuwana. I build Kaiwa and Otterd and write down the product calls, systems, mistakes, and small wins along the way.
Projects Things I tend, and things I have set down.
- in hand
No. 01 · 2026 - nowOtterd AI workflows for fund teams
Custom AI workflows for private equity and hedge fund teams, built around the tools they already use.
open → - in hand
No. 02 · 2025 - nowKaiwa augment language coaches
A platform where language learners speak daily with AI, and coaches can architect and individualize learner journeys
30k organic visitors / mo · 3,000 signups
open → - in hand No. 03 · 2025
Kaiwa Reddit Scout signal-finding for language learners
A local workflow that connects Reddit, Drive, and Gemini to find language learners with real intent.
open → - shipped
No. 04 · 2026Exonians in Japan a fast community platform
A small, practical alumni site I built on a subway ride home. Focused on photos and community building
open → - sunset
No. 05 · 2024 - 2025Flybyrd AI for product managers
Organizing scattered feedback for product managers. A practical, private dashboard for the signals that matter.
open → - sunset
No. 06 · 2021 - 2023Pebblr connecting nonprofits and donors/volunteers
A nonprofit donor experiment that taught me where human trust matters more than platform mechanics.
open →
Notes from the build, and the questions underneath it.
essays
作 文The Model Is a Commodity. The Soil Is Not.
Compute wins the capability race, but culture doesn't scale with compute — why AI needs living cultural sources.
Build Your Own AutoResearch
A field guide to implementing Karpathy's autoresearch pattern on your own project, including the part where the naive version fails.
Your Funnel Is a Lie
Why Markov chains are a better mental model for SaaS growth than the traditional sales funnel.
Stay in touch write me.
Write to me · お便り