The view from the cockpit at dusk on a stable final approach: the runway straight ahead with its lights on, and the PAPI lights showing two white and two red.

Software has become easy to build. Software you can trust has not.

I'm W!lfred: helicopter pilot, entrepreneur and builder. I design and build websites and web applications the way I fly: calmly, on course, and with a plan for when things don't go as expected.

Mail W!lfred See what I make

Two worlds in one.

In the air

For more than ten years I have flown offshore helicopters, now as Senior First Officer on the Leonardo AW139 and as Flight Safety Officer. Before that I was a captain on the EC135. Search and rescue, medical flights, hoist operations: work in which you follow procedures and weigh risks the way other people make coffee. My office has rotor blades and a view of the sea.

Online

For some twenty years I have been building businesses on the internet: websites, online marketing, bookings and automation for my own companies. I know how an online business runs in practice, from the first click to the customer who comes home happy. And how it feels when a site is suddenly down.

With today's tools

I have been working with AI for about five years. It makes building fast: what used to take months now takes days. But speed without discipline is where things go wrong. Aviation brings that discipline; entrepreneurship brings the question of whether it really pays off. Together: build fast, and still land safely.

Why Farmersdance?

Not a slick name, and that is exactly the point. You'll remember it, though. A little different from the rest: I fly my own course and am not led by what everyone else does.

What clients want, on the other hand, I listen to very closely: that is what they pay for. And feedback is always welcome on board, big or small. I weigh it like any risk, and keep whatever makes things better.

Stay on course. And dare to go around.

On course

Lined up with the runway and on the right glide path: everything checks out, so we fly calmly on to the landing. In software that means: we know what we are building and why, and it works as agreed.

Go-around

If something is not right, we don't force the landing. We go around, take our time, look together at what happened and resolve it safely. A go-around is not a failure. It's called captaincy.

Look over your shoulder first.

In aviation we are constantly weighing things up: what could happen, and what do we do then? You do the same in everyday life. Before you push your chair back in a restaurant, you check that nobody is walking behind you. That is how I build software: look first at every step, then move.

AI is my autopilot.

I use it a lot, and gladly, but I keep flying. An autopilot holds its course nicely; where we are going is up to me. To be honest: I am not a trained programmer. AI writes most of the code. I decide what gets built, test everything on my own phone and stand behind the result. Where specialist knowledge is needed, I work with people who have it.

AUTOPILOT ON
Autopilot on. The pilot decides.

What I make

From first sketch to working software. Everything below is running for real, and I use most of it myself.

First we talk. Then we build.

I want to make software that leaves people genuinely better off. Do you have an idea, or a process that could work better? Mail me. Sometimes the answer turns out to be that nothing needs building. That is a good outcome too.

I work in blocks: four weeks flying, four weeks building. Even during a flying block I read my mail, often faster than at home.

Mail W!lfred wilfred (at) farmersdance.nl

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