The work of being a knot.

I have spent far more hours making coffee than writing code. After a stint as a web designer in my early twenties, I spent sixteen years at Tully’s Coffee Japan — first behind the counter, later running an area of stores. Since 2020 I have been at LEOC, where I launched a café business, moved into contract catering, and now sit in the group’s AI division.

On the floor, I always had ideas to spare. I could see what would make the work lighter, but I had no way to build it, and learning to program properly was too large an investment to justify. In April 2025 I started using AI, and the blockage cleared. Things that had only ever existed in my head started coming out as working software. I now ship around three internal business apps a week.

One more thing settled it. Running the AI training programme, I watched people with no background in IT make their own work easier with their own hands, again and again. That was not a story about talent. I started Kesher Works because the same thing should be possible for many more people, across far more industries.

The first conversation, the design and the build are all handled directly by me. Nothing passes through an account manager on its way to a developer. Building with AI is something I practise on my own work first.

My qualifications are bookkeeping, hospitality, and the ability to pull a good cup of coffee. In AI I hold none at all. What interests me is less the technology than whose day it makes easier — which is why the first meeting is mostly not about AI. Tell me what is getting in the way right now.