Solo founder · builder · maker of too many things

Sora Kalden

I build apps and businesses, write worlds, run games, and learn hard things in 30-day sprints — and I'm looking for talented, curious people to make the next ones with.

Here are a few of mine. Drop the needle on a track, and let's build the next one together.

33⅓ · A

Side A · A1 · The Maker

Building

Apps, ~160 ideas, and the one move underneath all of them: find the right thing to build, then build the honest version. The domains change; the method doesn't.

Flua language-learning deck, showing an ordered sheet of cards A single Flua flashcard with native audio Weave weight-and-habit tracker graph view Super Zen focus and calm app

"The domains change. The method doesn't."

— from the notes

~160 ideas and counting — and the ones that ship.

  1. KR-001Flua (the lead)The fastest honest path to a new language: one expertly-ordered deck, real native audio, and spaced repetition that does the thinking for you. He taught himself Japanese to A1 in ~20 focused hours with the method, then spent a year building the app that strips out every ounce of the friction that makes people quit. tryflua.com →
  2. KR-002WeaveA minimalist weight-and-habit tracker built so the graph does the nagging. His mom lost 17 lbs with it.
  3. KR-003Super ZenA focus / calm tool — the small, well-made kind of app he likes to ship.
  4. KR-004Small toolsA metronome that actually feels good; a tool to find the episode where a show finally gets good.
  5. KR-160The idea engine~160 catalogued app, game, business, book and product ideas — each ranked, named and MVP-scoped, roughly 28 of them games. The invitation is open: grab one off the shelf and build it with me.

More apps live at kalden.me →

Side A · A2

Worlds & Stories

He's built worlds since he was 11 — a fantasy novel he faked his way into finishing and published at 14, a 150k-word dark epic in progress (The Swords of Darkness), a homebrew D&D world with its own playbook, and a manga he still wants to make.

The domains here are fiction and lore, but the move is the same: start before you're ready, build the habit, finish the thing. The teen novel was less talent than trick.

"Because I had to fake progress, I accidentally built a real habit. It makes me wonder how many things we could actually finish if we just tricked ourselves into starting."

— on the teen novel

Side A · A3

Learning & Teaching

How he learns anything fast, and why he's building the courses he wishes someone had taught him — math, statistical and computational thinking, built for real understanding instead of the exam.

"Being called smart my whole childhood made it part of my identity — and I was more afraid to lose that title than I was to fail a class."

— About Me
The Method · the 30-day sprint

Pick a skill, go all-in for 30 days. Japanese to A1 in ~20 focused hours. Tone-deaf to singing from memory in a month. Badminton, YouTube, shipping. The trick isn't grinding harder — it's refusing to start until he's found where the common advice is wrong, then building the shortest honest path and letting sleep do the heavy lifting.

Side A · A4

Games & the Table

Take a system apart, find the fun, build it back better — a Balatro-inspired dice roguelike in design, a board game in progress, and D&D run as systems.

100+ hours behind the screen taught him that the magic isn't the dice or the lore; it's a handful of frameworks for a world that's already moving when players walk in. Hand-built maps included.

A hand-built D&D campaign map, ink and color A second hand-built D&D region map

"Any time the best strategy isn't the most fun strategy is, I believe, a failure of the game's design."

— from my consumables essay

Side B · B1

The Modern Bard

Singing, standup, improv, voice acting, speaking — the half of himself he rebuilt on purpose, charisma treated as a built skill.

"I could not sing. I could not dress well. I was not particularly fit or especially charismatic. I was a very well-compensated specialist with a B-minus in everything else."

— how I became superhuman in 2 years

Side B · B2

Photography & the eye

One camera, a single 23mm prime, golden hour. He shoots portraits, fits, and the cities he lives in — and it's the visual half of the same brain that obsesses over color grading and type.

"You can't study the color wheel for two hours and understand it. You have to train your eye over a long time."

— on color

Portraits, fits, and the cities I've lived in — Osaka, Tokyo, Kōyasan, Budapest, Lisbon, Nagpur. One camera, a single prime, natural light, graded by hand.

Portfolio portrait, hand-graded golden-hour light
Best · 01
Portfolio frame used as the album art
Best · 03
Portfolio pick, natural light
Best · 07
Kōyasan, autumn temple town
Kōyasan
Tokyo street at golden hour
Tokyo
Osaka Castle and grounds
Osaka
Budapest cityscape
Budapest
Lisbon, warm evening light
Lisbon
Nagpur, India
Nagpur
Styled blue portrait series
Series
Portfolio portrait pick
Best · 10
Him shooting in Yosemite
Candid · Yosemite

Side B · B3

The Athlete

The same engine he points at apps, pointed at his own body — and the sports (soccer, badminton, volleyball) that are how he makes friends in a new city.

"Prioritize control and intention over speed."

— his own soccer training notes

Side B · B4

The Mind

A reading life run like a syllabus — philosophy, history, business — all read through one lens: read to build, not to collect.

"Everything is interconnected. Singing makes you a better speaker; games train you to perform under pressure. Each skill feeds the next. If you want to be truly unstoppable, learn everything."

— from the notes

Side B · B5 · Things I haven't built yet

Haven't Built Yet

The B-side bonus tracks — the ones still in the studio.

Painterly key art for the dreams section
  1. Write a TV show — he's watched thousands of hours of film and anime, only the best, mostly to take apart why they work.
  2. Finish the manga — the "next Death Note or Game of Thrones": a complex plot that's somehow easy to follow.
  3. Make Westworld real, as a game you can actually live inside.
  4. Open a café that's a third place for serious makers — writers, artists, builders, one room.
  5. Find the talented, curious people he'd do all of the above with.

Side B · B6

Liner Notes / Writing

Distinct from the work — ideas, not portfolio.

  1. Essay · 01

    How I Learn Anything in 30 Days

    Not willpower — a method: find where the common advice is wrong, build a feedback loop, and let sleep do the heavy lifting.

  2. Essay · 02

    The year I walked away from $250k

    At my financial peak I was lonelier than I'd ever been — so I quit, lost almost everything, and spent a year figuring out what a life is for.

  3. Essay · 03

    What Actually Makes D&D Peak

    After 100+ hours behind the screen, the magic isn't the dice or the lore — it's a handful of frameworks for a world that's already moving when players walk in.

  4. Essay · 04

    Why the best schools taught me to forget

    I optimized for the grade at every school I attended, and it worked — which is exactly the problem.

  5. Essay · 05

    I Used My CS Degree to Debug My Weight Loss

    I'd done everything right for six months and the scale wouldn't move — until I stopped treating it like willpower and started treating it like a bug.

Side B · B7 · Locked groove

Say Hi

Let's build something.

I'm looking for people who are excellent at something and curious about everything.

Collaborators, co-conspirators, friends. If any of these worlds is also yours — or you just want to scheme — say hi. The best things in my life started as a five-hour first conversation with a stranger.

✉ Say hi See Flua → My apps →

And some things I do purely for myself — painting like no one will ever see it, building and painting Gundam kits, singing in the mornings, the occasional cosplay. No goal. Just the doing.

← sorakalden.com