Michael
Sitarzewski.

Lead innovation strategy and technical architecture across AI systems, attribution infrastructure, privacy-first analytics, and realtime marketing platforms. Partner across Strategy, Creative, Data, Media, and Engineering to ship systems that improve operational efficiency, customer intelligence, and campaign performance. Host of Tandem Theory’s recurring AI Happy Hour series on emerging tools and applied AI strategy.

Currently architecting two platforms:

• EDWARD 2.1 — multi-tenant agentic AI platform on Anthropic Claude with OpenAI and Gemini integrated as specialist sidecars. 10+ custom MCP servers powering 200+ agents, skills, and tools in production across Google Workspace, Slack, Trello, Domo, BugHerd, Webvantage, and internal Laravel systems. Built “Roboflow,” a visual workflow builder for non-engineers, plus realtime voice (gpt-realtime), sandboxed collaborative artifacts, and distributed Laravel queue orchestration.
• Tandem Beam — privacy-first attribution platform capturing first-party events at the Cloudflare edge and dispatching deduplicated conversions across Meta, Google Ads, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Microsoft Ads, GA4, Reddit, X, and Invoca. CIPA-compliant consent with default-deny under CMP timeout. Multi-tenant Laravel with database-per-tenant isolation. Public Reporting API with Snowflake/Domo integration.

My family sold nearly everything we owned and moved into a 37-foot fifth wheel. We spent a stretch traveling the country and crafting a high-tech, off-grid lifestyle — solar, satellite, and a mobile office. Proof that “where you work” is a choice, and that constraints are just design problems in disguise.

Founded Epic Playground, originally launching Callisto.fm in 2009 — a podcast portal (think Pandora for podcasts) that grew into mediagauge, a realtime audio/video analytics platform focused on behavioral engagement and media interaction signals. Accepted into Techstars Cloud 2012 in San Antonio. The company pivoted in 2013 toward inboundgeo, a location-aware marketing automation and direct mail intelligence platform bridging digital engagement with offline conversion.

Led strategy, product, infrastructure, ops, fundraising, customer development, and GTM across all stages of growth.

Raised ~$985K to build it:

• Raised approximately $985K across DFJ Mercury and DFJ Esprit, plus several convertible notes.
• Built a self-service SaaS platform on LAMP with scalable campaign orchestration, customer segmentation, realtime filtering, and automated fulfillment pipelines.
• Built a high-volume engagement engine processing and qualifying visitor activity for triggered postcard, messaging, and attribution workflows.
• Designed a fully automated print-on-demand direct mail system — dynamic template rendering, printing, postage, and reporting integrated end-to-end.
• Built proprietary crawling/enrichment systems on Node + MySQL to expand behavioral targeting capabilities.
• Integrated Stripe, Twilio, Slack, and third-party fulfillment / analytics services. Scaled from small-volume tests to recurring production runs across multiple customers.

Graduated the inaugural class of Techstars Cloud. Lifelong network, lifelong scar tissue. Part of the first cohort that helped define what a vertical Techstars program looked like — and walked away with a sharper view of how to ship under real constraints.

Went deep on personal publishing and owned media — creating or co-hosting Blipcasts, the Boulder Open Podcast, Three Insight, and OS Perspectives, and producing This Week in Techstars with David Cohen. It was all an experiment in owned audiences and audio as a medium. Fifteen years later the same thread runs straight through openstudio and oneye.

Was in the room for the very first Startup Weekend — Andrew Hyde’s experiment in Boulder that Techstars would later acquire and scale into a global program. Being present for v1.0 shaped how I’d design and run community events for the next decade.

Built a strategy for creating and monetizing content inside Second Life and other virtual worlds. I came away convinced the immersive social internet was missing exactly two things: real-time graphics quality, and a head-mounted display. That was years before Oculus, and well over a decade before Apple Vision Pro — and it’s the same instinct behind my visionOS work today (glas.sh, glassdb).

Browser-based web development software for web designers — a category that wouldn’t have a name (Wix, Squarespace) for years. Original founder and primary architect/engineer, responsible for the full application platform and core product development through the company’s formative years.

• The rendering engine used HTML tables instead of JavaScript and CSS — a pragmatic call for the browsers of the era.
• Relocated the company to Boulder, Colorado in 2006 to raise $500K. The round didn’t close — a hard, useful lesson in pricing, focus, and the custom-software-development abyss.
• Sold HyperSites to a Dallas investment group in 2007.

Though I didn’t know it at the time, zerologic was founded to support individuals in their quest for the digital lifestyle. Web development, business and personal technology support, and Apple Value Added Reseller — a boutique Apple/Mac shop whose clients were Dallas ad agencies and design firms. Did roughly $500K in business before I wound it down to chase the next thing. (The name stuck — it’s my studio again today.)

Planned, developed, and implemented the technology stack, and ran operations. Built everything from scratch and leaned on LinkExchange, MSN, Yahoo!, and the early directories for traffic. We tried every monetization idea going and settled on scanning members’ photos at $5 each. Ran it on a T1 in our den in Richardson, Texas, and sold the company in 1999.

Apple Value Added Reseller. Sold and supported Apple-branded products. Specialized in desktop support, networking, and training. Clients included Group Baronet, Targetbase Marketing, and several other Dallas-based ad agencies.

A friend and I decided to build “internet things.” First came Apartments On-Demand, an online apartment guide. We reused the engine for Classifieds On-Demand — online classifieds the same year Craigslist launched in San Francisco — and again for Coupons On-Demand, distributing digital coupons for customers like National Tire & Battery and Schlotzsky’s. Early marketplaces, built before anyone called them that.

Walked in as a freelance desktop publisher and left as the company’s youngest Director of Information Systems — running UNIX, supporting a 65-Mac network, and rolling out their first internal corporate email. My first taste of technology at real organizational scale, and proof that the design bench can lead the tech org.

Where it all started. A self-taught high-school dropout — I tested for my GED the next day and placed in the top 5% of Washington state — I’d already worn out a TRS-80 MC-10 and a Commodore 64 and basically lived on bulletin board systems.

Advanced Imagesetting was my first company: graphic design, desktop publishing, and prepress on a Mac with PageMaker, laser printer in the corner. First client was the Tacoma Dome Guide. Then I packed up for Dallas and never looked back.