{"api_version":"1","generated_at":"2026-09-23T20:22:55.705Z","docs":"https://www.founder.best/docs","founder":{"type":"founder","username":"iamsethmedina","name":"Seth Medina","headline":"Child of God, Husband, Ohana, Coffee, Software Engineering","bio":"I didn't come to engineering through a classroom. I was homeschooled through twelfth grade, and my first real job was on the floor of a fast casual poke restaurant in Orlando. I showed up shy and unable to hold a knife properly; four years later I was running weekend shifts and helping train new franchisees, in a loud room where problems show up in real time. That's where I learned to read people, to push them honestly, and to find the gap: the one missing piece that, once you name it, makes everything else move.\n\nI started teaching myself Python in 2022, on nights and weekends. Toward the end of that year a mentor at Merchant Service Depot's parent company took me on, patient enough to let me break things, and steered me to what the business actually ran on: PHP and JavaScript. Payments came with it: gateways, card issuing, merchant acquiring, the unglamorous plumbing money actually runs on. Today I'm VP of Engineering at Merchant Service Depot, leading a senior team across a unified payments platform and the AI tooling around it.\n\nThe tools I build on my own time lean the same direction: local first, no accounts, no telemetry, nothing that competes for your attention. rotli keeps your notes as plain files in a folder you own. uNotch shows your AI usage from the edge of the screen. Honu lets you draw over your screen on a call and leaves nothing behind when you're done. Aetheria renders wallpapers in your browser and never uploads a thing. I like software that respects the person using it. The one that breaks the pattern is SE!ZE online, and it breaks it on purpose: a board game only comes alive with someone across the table, so that one lives online and is built for the people who show up to play. I grew up playing chess with my grandpa, and the love of a sharp, competitive board game never left. SE!ZE is just the one that has me right now.\n\nAway from the keyboard I'm a husband, a father of two boys, and a follower of Christ. There's more in More about me: life at home, what I believe, and who I look up to.","url":"https://www.founder.best/founders/iamsethmedina","api_url":"https://www.founder.best/api/v1/founders/iamsethmedina","markdown_url":"https://www.founder.best/founders/iamsethmedina.md","avatar_url":"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a/ACg8ocLPqlu5jLAR4CGkHyGwWC2FbSmd78gke4zaYZTr6UVsIvdwWezq=s96-c","product_count":1,"total_upvotes_received":0,"follower_count":1,"following_count":0,"social_links":[{"platform":"linkedin","url":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/seth-medina-921013291"},{"platform":"twitter","url":"https://x.com/iamsethmedina"},{"platform":"website","url":"https://sethmedina.com"}],"products":[{"name":"Rotli","slug":"rotli","tagline":"Transform your folder into a calm workspace.","url":"https://www.founder.best/products/rotli","api_url":"https://www.founder.best/api/v1/products/rotli","markdown_url":"https://www.founder.best/products/rotli.md","upvote_count":0,"launch_date":"2026-11-02","is_featured":false}]}}