I’m Brandon.

I make music, build products & lead product teams, write about music & technology, and raise a daughter with my wife in central Massachusetts, US.

Product 🏗️

People on LinkedIn know me as a product guy. I’ve worked as a product manager and leader for 12+ years, at several startups and a few big pre-IPO and public tech companies, mostly around Boston, USA. I pride myself on having tackled highly complex problems in a variety of industries and focus areas, including consumer & enterprise SaaS, food & furniture delivery, immersive 3D experiences, and the music business. I currently work for Buffer, an online social marketing SaaS, as a Staff Product Manager.

I’m a proponent of the Jobs-to-be-Done framework, consumer-grade product design, asking a ton of questions, and async/remote work, as well as a passion for improving how teams work together.

Music 🤘

I’m a classically-trained pianist, self-taught bassist & guitarist, and composer who now writes and produces music under the alias Kid Lightbulbs. You can listen to my music anywhere, but especially on my Bandcamp site.

I won a few awards for piano performance as a kid. During my teens, I taught myself bass, guitar, trombone, tuba, and now I dabble with software. While in music school at Northeastern University, I composed modern avant-garde music, including a Theme & Variations piece for solo 5-string bass and live electronics. I’ve played in an instrumental prog metal group (now known as Earthside), in a Talking Heads tribute band, and alongside noted singer-songwriters and DJs.

This is me playing bass with the band Earthside:

Writing ✍️

I aspire to write a lot, but I only get an opportunity to every so often. Most of what I’ve written is available on this site, and I plan to post more here over time.

I have 2 or 3 long-form writing ideas, including a speculative fiction novel and a playbook around maintaining an online presence completely free of VC-funded tech platforms. Maybe I’ll get around to those at some point 😬

Alicia & Talia 🥰

Alicia and I met online in 2011, started dating seriously in 2012, and got married in 2016. We’ve now known each other for more than 1/3 of our lives, and we’ve been through a ridiculous amount together: seven different places we’ve lived together, a stint in Berlin just eight months after our wedding, job/career crises, chronic disease, artistic collaboration, probably other things.

Alicia is an artist — photographer, designer, craftsperson — and her stuff is mostly online here.

Talia is our daughter who was born in March 2021. She is a highly sensitive bundle of joy, and most of what I do is in her best interest at this point.

Me & my tools

This site is built with Blot in plain text and Markdown, hosted in a private Dropbox folder.

• The newsletter is powered by RSS and Buttondown.
• I use Simple Analytics for simple, transparent site analytics.
• I use Bandcamp and LANDR to distribute my music.
• I capture my thoughts in Apple Notes, flesh them out in IA Writer, and repurpose them for social promotion with Buffer.
• I make music on a Macbook Pro with Apple silicon, primarily using the stock capabilities of Logic Pro & Reason 12.
• I record (& occasionally perform) with:
  • a MXL 990 condenser mic
  • a Yamaha P-115 digital piano
  • a G&L L-1000 bass
  • a Schecter Stiletto Studio 5-string bass
  • a cheap PRS guitar
  • JBL 104 reference monitors
  • Sony MDR-7506 reference headphones
• I mostly browse the internet on said MacBook Pro & an iPhone 15 Pro Max.

---

Subscribe via RSS or email below: