Founded
2025
An LLC headquartered on the US coast, building for a global audience.
About Coastal AI
A small studio, shipping software that pays for itself.
Coastal AI LLC is a software studio that designs and ships production software end-to-end — native mobile apps, web apps, and the secure backends behind them, plus the AI decision systems on top. We build our own consumer apps and partner with businesses on software measured against real numbers.
We started on a coastline because that's where the team lives, surfs, and thinks clearest. The Morning Set and The Morning Lap came from problems we had ourselves — and the same pragmatic, "ship the smallest thing that works" instinct shapes the client work too.
AI is our craft. We write the code, we run the evals, and we leave behind systems your team can own.
How Coastal AI works
How we work
Tight scope
Small engagements with measurable outcomes. We'd rather ship one durable thing than ten demos.
Stack
Full-stack
TypeScript throughout — Expo / React Native for mobile, Next.js for web, Supabase (Postgres + Row-Level Security) for the backend. Claude on the model side.
Principles
Honest evals
Everything we ship comes with a plain way to check it's doing its job. If we can't measure it, we don't ship it.
How we build
Shipping is the differentiator.
We build fast, build it right, and get it into real users' hands — including the parts most shops hand off or skip.
Security at the database
Access rules enforced with Row-Level Security, privileged actions isolated in service-role functions, sensitive columns locked from client writes, and every sensitive action audit-logged.
We handle store compliance
Privacy labels, data-safety forms, background-location justifications, private distribution, and the platform-policy edge cases most teams underestimate.
Honest status, always
We track exactly what's live vs. in review vs. planned, and say so plainly — on this site and in every update.
Disciplined, surgical changes
Read before writing, verify before shipping, small focused diffs, and CI on every change.
Full ownership of delivery
We publish under our own developer accounts and manage the release pipeline, so you get a working login — not a pile of platform paperwork.
AI reads. Code computes. Humans decide.
In our AI systems, models only read and route through structured outputs; every number comes from tested code; and every consequential change needs human approval — each one shown with its work.
Stack: Expo / React Native · Next.js / React 19 · Supabase (Postgres, Row-Level Security, Edge Functions) · TypeScript & Python · Apple App Store & Google Play · Netlify / Vercel · Claude API · retrieval (hybrid search, neural reranking, RAPTOR, Self-RAG) · Model Context Protocol · LLM-as-judge evaluation.
Founders
The people behind Coastal AI.
Two operators who ship. Reach out and you'll hear from one of us directly.
Tom O'Neill
Founder, Coastal AI LLC
Tom founded Coastal AI to build software that pays for itself. He leads the studio's consumer apps — The Morning Set and The Morning Lap — and partners directly with businesses on systems measured against real numbers.
Dan Swensen
Co-Founder, Coastal AI LLC
Dan spent eleven years as a U.S. Air Force Pararescueman in special operations — solving hard problems under pressure, with incomplete information and real stakes. Decorated for it, he brings that same calm, methodical discipline to the systems we build.
After Wharton and operating roles across private equity and healthcare, he built an enterprise document-intelligence platform that reads dense financial and operational filings and returns sourced, self-checked answers. He anchors Coastal AI's document intelligence and AI decision systems.