Sam Manning
Builder · GTM & AI Strategy · Enterprise Operations
Production systems. Not prototypes.
Live portfolio at tanobuild.com
SATS: Social Arbitrage Trading System
2025 - PresentArchitect, builder, operator
Proves the full cycle from raw signal to live risk decisions can run autonomously on infrastructure one person owns.
Fuses social, macro, and technical inputs through an 8-gate signal pipeline and seven specialized agents into paper-trading execution.
Ships disciplined risk: quarter-Kelly position sizing and a 5-state circuit breaker governing live runs.
Stack: 13-container Docker deployment on self-hosted Linux, Postgres and Redis, Alpaca and Polygon.io market data, Claude API as the reasoning layer.
APEX: Autonomous Project Execution System
2026 - PresentArchitect, builder
Self-building coding agent that writes, validates, and deploys its own build roadmap without human intervention.
FastAPI backend, SQLite state persistence, Telegram control interface, Claude Code executor with git snapshot and rollback.
Completed Phases 1-4A autonomously: scaffolded its own repo, built working artifacts, and pushed to GitHub without a developer in the loop.
Designed to eventually build Conductor, a project management SaaS, proving the loop from instruction to shipped code closes without an engineer in the seat.
Appliance Uprising
2026 - PresentSolo builder, commercial lead, in development
Browser-based hex-grid strategy game built in Phaser.js, React, and TypeScript targeting a Kickstarter launch.
Six playable appliance characters with distinct passive abilities, turn-based combat on a hex board.
Deployed to Vercel via a Telegram-controlled builder agent wired directly to the repo.
TanoBox
2025 - PresentHardware + software bundle, go-to-market
Replaces five recurring SaaS subscriptions for small operators with a single one-time hardware purchase.
Ships pre-configured on a GMKtec mini PC so a non-technical buyer plugs it in and is running same-day.
Full stack: Ubuntu Server on Docker with pre-wired ingestion, dashboards, and a local LLM gateway.
Career Engine + Partner Intelligence Dashboard
2025 - PresentDesigner, builder, operator
Career Engine turns a job posting into a tailored one-page resume (.docx), cover letter, role-fit analysis, salary brief, and interview talking points in a single pass.
Partner Intelligence Dashboard is a GTM asset: live AI developments at NVIDIA, Google, and Anthropic contextualized to energy, utilities, and commercial real estate buyers.
Both shipped as production Next.js apps on Vercel, orchestrated through the Claude API with a persistent DNA prompt architecture.
Clayton Korte
Austin, TX. A 35-person firm delivering enterprise client programs in hospitality and commercial development.
Partner
2020 - 2025Ownership group: P&L, pipeline, enterprise client relationships, and firmwide systems.
Grew a single enterprise account from $80K to $1.3M in annual revenue, a 16x expansion without a dedicated sales team.
Closed and delivered $75M+ in aggregate enterprise programs across multi-year, multi-stakeholder cycles.
Retained 100% of active revenue through post-pandemic restructuring and volatile deal windows, on relationships the business could not afford to lose.
Owned the long-cycle sell and long-cycle delivery: enterprise hospitality and commercial development buyers, where trust is the actual product.
Championed AI into the firm: built the business case, picked the stack, and shipped working tooling without a dedicated engineering team.
Deployed LLM-backed workflows for proposal drafting, meeting synthesis, and specification review, running across the full staff.
Built and maintained internal agents while holding a full Partner-level revenue and client load simultaneously.
The AI and operational infrastructure is still running in production at the firm after my departure, which is the real proof point on quality.
Rebuilt the firm's delivery, scheduling, and resourcing systems to run a 35-person services business at enterprise margin.
Introduced the reporting cadence and dashboards senior leadership still runs the business on.
Stood up finance and ops tooling that became the operating backbone, replacing ad-hoc process with systems the team actually adopted.
Project Architect
2014 - 2020Enterprise delivery and client management at scale.
Led delivery on multi-million-dollar enterprise programs including Stable Hall, Bottling Department Food Hall, and Savor at the Historic Pearl, San Antonio.
Managed consultant teams, client reviews, and on-site execution end-to-end.
Converted early relationships into repeat engagements and a referral pipeline that seeded the Partner years.
Project Manager
2010 - 2014Program delivery and client ownership on recurring enterprise accounts.
Delivered Eberly, Clark's Oyster Bar, Josephine House, and Jeffrey's in Austin end-to-end.
Owned schedule, budget, and vendor coordination across concurrent programs.
Became the primary day-to-day contact for a portfolio of recurring restaurant and hospitality clients.
Tooling
Notes
15 years inside enterprise client cycles in private equity and commercial real estate, where the deal is slow, the stakeholders are many, and the revenue is real.
Self-taught builder, no formal computer science or business degree. Which is the point: ships fast, figures it out, no headcount or budget runway required.
Deployed all the AI tooling above at Clayton Korte with no dedicated engineering team and no budget carved out for it. Shipped anyway.
The operational and AI infrastructure built there is still running in production after my departure, a proof point on permanence and quality, not just demo-ware.
Targeting GTM Strategy, AI Strategy, and Founding PM roles at early-stage AI companies where the gap between what AI can do and what the business is using is the opportunity.