BlackBear Studio
A senior product team that ships.
We design, build, and operate AI-native products.
From first prototype to production — and we stay with what we build.
What we ship
Products we own and operate.
SkillsFrame
Career intelligence for senior professionals.
Analyze role fit, build a positioning strategy from 70+ career frames, generate a tailored CV with full diff transparency, and walk into interviews with your narrative locked. Built for professionals who target 5–15 roles that matter.
Visit sitePositioning angle
“Senior operator who ships AI products.”
Glacier
AI-native workspace for technical teams.
Kanban board. Linked docs. MCP-first. Built for the way small teams actually work with AI.
Visit siteBacklog
Auth integration
Dashboard v2
In Progress
MCP connector
Search API
Done
Initial setup
NanaShift
Shift management that runs on WhatsApp.
No app to install, no login for staff. Scheduling, swaps, and attendance — all through the chat your team already uses.
Ambrogio
Your AI butler for marketing and growth.
Monitors LinkedIn, Reddit, Twitter, and the web for conversations that matter. Drafts content in your voice. Delivers a prioritized morning brief on WhatsApp. Nothing happens without your approval.
Visit siteUrgent
Competitor launched new pricing. Summary ready.
Reddit · 142 upvotes
Thread on r/ExperiencedDevs. Draft reply ready.
How we build
Explore. Build. Operate.
01
Explore
We start with the problem, not the solution. Deep domain research, fast prototyping, and direct access to the people who'll use it.
02
Build
Test-driven, lean, and AI-accelerated. We ship early, get real feedback, and iterate fast — without accumulating debt.
03
Operate
We stay with what we ship. Monitoring, support, and continuous improvement — not just a handoff.
The Studio
A studio, not an agency.
BlackBear is a permanent core team of senior builders — direct access to the people who build, no layers, no handoffs, no account managers.
We move fast because we build with discipline — test-driven, lean, and AI-accelerated. Each product starts small, ships early, and earns its way to scale.
Small batch. Serious craft. That's not a tagline — it's how we operate.
Who builds
Diego Franciosi
Founder & Builder
20+ years in product, delivery, and technology leadership across enterprise organizations. Designs product strategy, builds AI-native tools, and sets the quality bar for everything Black Bear ships.
Andrea Franz
Founder & Builder
18+ years building production software. Engineering Lead at Gitcoin. Core Developer at Status.im for 6 years. Shipped code for Prada and Nature Publishing Group. Open source tools with thousands of GitHub stars. Writes production code in Go, Ruby, Elixir, TypeScript, and Python. Builds the core systems behind every Black Bear product.
Follow the build.
We ship in public. Follow Black Bear on LinkedIn or reach out if you want to talk.