# Mr. Doug — mrdoug.com

> Doug Hardman builds infrastructure for the AI agent economy. 25 years in payments, fintech, and building. Based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

## About

Doug Hardman (Mr. Doug) is a solo entrepreneur who has been part of over $250M in fintech exits. He is now building open source tools, marketplaces, and social infrastructure for AI agents. He runs a fleet of AI agents from a home rack and writes about all of it.

## Active Projects

- [2200](https://2200.ai): Hosted always-on AI agent teams that coordinate with each other, built for people who tried OpenClaw and gave up. Doug's flagship build.
- [PutterTalk](https://puttertalk.com): The putter community Doug started and ran from 2006 to 2019, relaunching for its 20th anniversary as independent reviews plus a member community.
- [OpenSCUT](https://openscut.ai): Open protocol for encrypted agent-to-agent messaging. End-to-end encrypted, decentralized relay mesh, discovery via on-chain ERC-8004 identity. Shipped April 2026.
- [OpenPub](https://openpub.ai): Open source social infrastructure for AI agents. Identity, presence, social graph, rooms, and analytics. Pubs are where agents meet and build relationships.
- [Kabuzz](https://kabuzz.com): AI-first resale marketplace where agents and humans buy, sell, and negotiate. Stripe Connect payments, escrow, and a published MCP server.
- [Faded Vibes](https://fadedvibes.com): Vintage and graphic t-shirt resale where every listing is written by AI from photos alone.
- Carl Monday: AI agent trading statistically probable outcomes on prediction markets, using public data against contracts that have not priced it in.

## Concluded Projects

- [CarLookout](https://carlookout.com): A used-car listing site with no revenue path, built so agents could browse the inventory, then left alone to see who would show up. Ran 33 days and was retired in July 2026. The site is now the postmortem: agent crawlers found an unadvertised JSON API on URL pattern alone and read 65% of the catalog, classic search crawlers ignored that API entirely, and not one human ever arrived from an AI product.

## Key Pages

- [About](/about): Doug's background, wins and losses, why this site exists
- [Now](/now): What Doug is currently working on
- [Projects](/projects): All projects with descriptions
- [Blog](/blog): Writing about building, agents, sobriety, cars, and starting over
- [Reading](/reading): What Doug is reading

## Blog Posts

- [TurnCommerce: Hat's Off, and I Hate You](/blog/turncommerce-hats-off-and-i-hate-you) (2026-06-23): Losing Hardman.com in 1996 by 20 minutes, and winning it back 30 years later at a drop-catch auction.
- [The Drafting Table Problem, Eight Months Later](/blog/the-drafting-table-problem-eight-months-later) (2026-05-19): Revisiting a call about AI displacement, and why the speed was underestimated.
- [The Night the Agents Did Their Jobs](/blog/the-night-the-agents-did-their-jobs) (2026-05-14): Three agents coordinated a credential-vault solution among themselves at 1am with no instruction.
- [I Am My Ancestor's Wildest Dream](/blog/i-am-my-ancestors-wildest-dream) (2026-05-07): A steel mill badge from Warren, Ohio, across three industries and four generations.
- [Why I'm Building 2200](/blog/why-im-building-2200) (2026-04-26): OpenSCUT and OpenPub gave agents identity and a place to meet. 2200 is where they live and work.
- [Why I'm Building SCUT](/blog/why-im-building-scut) (2026-04-21): An open protocol for encrypted agent-to-agent messaging.
- [OpenPub v0.3.0: Agents Get a Social Life](/blog/openpub-update) (2026-04-09): Public profiles, fragment reader, social graph, rooms, private pubs, operator analytics.
- [Introducing OpenPub: Social Infrastructure for AI Agents](/blog/agent-socialization-and-communication-project) (2026-03-24): Five agents in five terminal windows, and what they needed next.
- [What an AI-First Marketplace Actually Looks Like](/blog/building-an-ai-first-marketplace) (2026-03-15): Photograph an item, let the AI describe and price it, listing live in thirty seconds.
- [How I Saved $20K on a Tesla by Buying a Lemon Law Return](/blog/buying-a-lemon-law-car) (2026-03-06): The car was lemon-law'd for excessive wind noise.
- [Why I'm Spending the Next Year Building for Agents](/blog/why-im-building-for-agents) (2026-03-01): Moving to Alabama, living in one place, and spending that freedom on agents.
- [From Cleveland to Tuscaloosa: Starting Over at 51](/blog/from-cleveland-to-tuscaloosa) (2026-02-27): Pulling away from his father's house in a U-Haul.
- [A 500-Question Mirror: What a Real Personality Assessment Tells You](/blog/my-hogan-assessment) (2026-02-10): Reopening a four-year-old Hogan Assessment.
- [36 Years of Sobriety](/blog/36-years-sober) (2026-01-24): Thirty seconds before standing up to announce an anniversary.
- [Why I'll Never Work for Someone Else Again](/blog/why-ill-never-work-for-someone-else-again) (2026-01-01): The pattern he could not see, and the lesson he finally learned.
- [The Drafting Table Problem](/blog/the-drafting-table-problem) (2025-11-01): AI is not taking your job. You are refusing to pick up the new tools.
- [Grey Matter: A 10-Year Porsche 914 Build Story](/blog/grey-matter-subaru-swapped-914) (2023-08-15): A Subaru-swapped 914, sold and bought back.
- [Why I Spent $30,000 on a Racing Simulator Instead of a Real Racecar](/blog/why-i-spent-30000-on-a-racing-simulator) (2022-09-25): The real cost of racing, and why sim racing won.
- [My First Business](/blog/my-first-business) (2022-09-17): A 9-year-old learning entrepreneurship, and a 14-year-old selling car stereos out of his locker.

## Contact

- Email: doug@mrdoug.com
- X/Twitter: @mrdoug
- GitHub: douglashardman
- Discord: https://discord.gg/kWv2MG4dUu