# Robin Sloan Robin Sloan is an American writer, printer, and manufacturer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He grew up in Troy, Michigan, studied economics at Michigan State University, and worked in media at the Poynter Institute, Current TV, and Twitter (2002-2011). He runs a small print shop, produces California extra virgin olive oil, and is one half of the musical duo The Cotton Modules. ## Books - *Annabel Scheme* (2009, novella) - *Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore* (2012), New York Times best seller - *Sourdough* (2017) - *Moonbound* (2024) ## An app can be a home-cooked meal In 2020, he wrote "An app can be a home-cooked meal", about BoopSnoop, a messaging app he built for his family. Four users, zero churn, and in his words a resounding success. His point: when you free programming from the requirement to be professional and scalable, it becomes a different activity, just like cooking at home is nothing like running a restaurant kitchen. The essay is one of the key references behind the idea of [[Software for One]], and it resurfaced widely in 2026 once AI coding agents made personal software practical. ## References - https://www.robinsloan.com/about/ - https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/home-cooked-app/ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Sloan ## Related - [[Software for One]] - [[Adam Waxman]] - [[Build Software for an Audience of One (Article)]]