Entering the gallery

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.

fall forward
Hall 01 · The Building

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

A lead project, a few shipped things, and one move underneath all of them: find the right thing to build, then build the honest version.

Flua →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 the friction that makes people quit.
WeaveA minimalist weight-and-habit tracker built so the graph does the nagging. His mom lost 17 lbs with it.
Super Zen · small toolsA focus / calm tool — the small, well-made kind of app he likes to ship. Plus a metronome that actually feels good, and a tool to find the episode where a show finally gets good.

More apps at kalden.me →

Hall 02 · The Maker

Find the right thing to build, then build the honest version.

Apps, ~160 catalogued ideas, and the one move underneath all of them. The domains change; the method doesn't. ~160 ideas — apps, games, businesses, books — each ranked, named and MVP-scoped. Roughly 28 are games. Grab one off the shelf and build it with me.

"The domains change. The method doesn't."— from the notes
Hall 03 · 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.

Hall 04 · Worlds & Stories

He's built worlds since he was eleven.

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.

"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
Hall 05 · Learning & Teaching

Building the courses he wishes someone had taught him.

How he learns anything fast — 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
Hall 06 · 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.

"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
Hall 07 · The Modern Bard

The half of himself he rebuilt on purpose.

Singing, standup, improv, voice acting, speaking — 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
Hall 08 · Photography & the Eye

One camera, a single 23mm prime, golden hour.

He shoots portraits, fits, and the cities he lives in — 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
Hall 09 · The Athlete

The same engine, 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
Hall 10 · 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
Hall 11 · Dreams

Things I haven't built yet.

01Write a TV show — he's watched thousands of hours of film and anime, only the best, mostly to take apart why they work.

02Finish the manga — the "next Death Note or Game of Thrones": a complex plot that's somehow easy to follow.

03Make Westworld real, as a game you can actually live inside.

04Open a café that's a third place for serious makers — writers, artists, builders, one room.

05Find the talented, curious people he'd do all of the above with.

Hall 13 · Writing

Distinct from the work — ideas, not portfolio.

How I Learn Anything in 30 DaysNot willpower — a method: find where the common advice is wrong, build a feedback loop, and let sleep do the heavy lifting.
The year I walked away from $250kAt 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.
What Actually Makes D&D PeakAfter 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.
Why the best schools taught me to forgetI optimized for the grade at every school I attended, and it worked — which is exactly the problem.
I Used My CS Degree to Debug My Weight LossI'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.
Hall 14 · The Quiet

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.

Hall 15 · 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.

© 2026 Sora Kalden · Sora Kalden is the name I go by. Legally, Swarnim Kalbande. · [email protected]

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 — walk the gallery, and let's build the next one together.

the long gallery

Hall 01 · The Building

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

A lead project, a few shipped things, and one move underneath all of them.

Hall 02 · The Maker

Find the right thing to build, then build the honest version.

Apps, ~160 ideas, and the one move underneath all of them. The domains change; the method doesn't. Roughly 28 of those ideas are games. The invitation is open: grab one off the shelf and build it with me.

"The domains change. The method doesn't."— from the notes
Hall 03 · 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.

Hall 04 · Worlds & Stories

He's built worlds since he was eleven.

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.

"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
Hall 05 · Learning & Teaching

Building the courses he wishes someone had taught him.

How he learns anything fast, and the courses — 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
Hall 06 · 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.

"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
Hall 07 · The Modern Bard

The half of himself he rebuilt on purpose.

Singing, standup, improv, voice acting, speaking — 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
Hall 08 · Photography & the Eye

One camera, a single 23mm prime, golden hour.

He shoots portraits, fits, and the cities he lives in — 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
Hall 09 · The Athlete

The same engine, 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
Hall 10 · 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
Hall 11 · Dreams

Things I haven't built yet.

Hall 13 · Writing

Distinct from the work — ideas, not portfolio.

Hall 14 · The Quiet
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.
Hall 15 · 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.

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