Why I'm building Trim at 5 AM before flight lessons
Most aviation software is built by people who don't fly. Trim is built by someone who flies six days a week — and the schedule shows in the product.
I teach instrument students starting at 7 AM. The 5 AM hours are mine. That's when I'm writing the code that runs the business that lets me teach those students without drowning in spreadsheets.
Most aviation software is built by people who've never sat in the left seat. It shows. The calendar app doesn't understand that a 09:00 lesson means the airplane is wheels-up at 09:00, not that someone's walking into a conference room. The logbook app doesn't know what an endorsement is. The scheduling tool happily double-books a CFI because it has no concept of currency or duty time.
Software that respects the work has to be built by someone who does the work.
The bar Trim has to clear
Trim has to be faster than a spreadsheet. A spreadsheet is unbeatable on speed because there are no rules — you click a cell, you type, you're done. A "real" app loses every time it asks for one more click than the spreadsheet needs.
So every screen in Trim gets the same test: how many clicks to do the thing a CFI actually wants to do? Schedule a lesson — three clicks from the dashboard. Mark a lesson complete and grade the student — two from the calendar. Log an endorsement — one. If it takes more, that screen is broken.
Why a software solutions company, not just a SaaS
TarmacLabs is a software solutions company first. Trim and AutoBrief are products we ship, but the company is the broader thing — we build aviation software for the industry. When a flight school asks for something the off-the-shelf market doesn't make, that's a custom-build conversation, and that conversation is part of TarmacLabs.
Two reasons. First, products take time, and shipping custom work alongside them keeps the lights on without taking outside money. Second, every custom build feeds back into the products. The dispatcher who asks "can it do X" is teaching us what AutoBrief needs next.
What this journal is for
Build notes. Lessons from running the business and flying the line at the same time. The product decisions I had to make at 5 AM with a cup of coffee getting cold. The customer conversations that changed what we're building. Nothing polished. Just field notes from the flight deck.
More to come.