WA’IL ASHSHOWWAF WASHINGTON, DC ↔ EVERYWHERE

big ideas.
good trouble.

PLAYER 01 01/03
still human.click to change character ↗

hey, i’m wa’il*. ↳
I build things. Back people. Ask too many questions.
And help founders get unstuck.

a serious love of tech.
a healthy disregard
for boring.

curiosity has no off switch.click to speed up
SCROLL FOR THE LONGER VERSION ↓BUILDER · INVESTOR · TECH GEEK · DO-GOODERSIDE QUESTS 0/7
A dithered old CRT television with rabbit-ear antennas
WA’IL TV / CH. 01
* YES, I HAVE AN APOSTROPHE IN MY NAME.

Fear and loathing
in the name field.

My name is Wa’il. I have an apostrophe in it because it’s an Arabic name. The apostrophe represents the hamza (ء)—a small stop between “Wa” and “il” when you say it.

People usually type Wail. Fair enough. But some forms tell me my actual name is invalid. Others turn it into Wa'il. Apparently I’m HTML now. Nobody told me.

Keep the apostrophe.
Fix the damn form.

NAME_CHECK.EXE
PLEASE ENTER A VALID NAME
Wa’il

ERROR 01: name contains a name.

01 / THE STORYPLAYER ONE

I tried staying
in one lane.
It didn’t take.

why “unstuck”? +

In the ’90s, I was in a Jeep stuck in the Saudi desert. We pushed harder. It sank deeper. A few locals stopped and got us out in about 90 seconds.

All that heroic pushing. They just had a better idea. That stuck with me.

the longer story ↗

Disney. Pepsi. HSBC. I’ve been inside some big machines. I kept asking questions. Mostly, “why are we doing it like this?”

Eventually I wanted my hands on the thing itself. I co-founded Unstuck Labs in 2017 with Ibrahem, a friend I’ve known since elementary school. Since then: products, founders, and a lot of Tuesdays pulling apart problems together.

I like the first ugly version. The one that barely works, but works. There’s something to poke at. A person can try it. Now we’re getting somewhere.

there’s always another barrel. keep going.click to jump

Well, that didn’t work.
Try something else.

02 / MY WORKIDEAS → ACTUAL THINGS

Less talking.
More making.

A few things I’ve built, backed,
or refused to stop thinking about.

01SummonAI × HUMAN BUILDERS

AI writes code. Then comes the bit where nothing works and it insists everything is fine. I’m building Summon to bring in a real developer and help finish the thing. Yes, an actual human.

summon a human ↗
02REYETS / “rights”JUSTICETECH

I co-founded REYETS because knowing your rights shouldn’t require an emergency and twenty browser tabs. Rights information. Incident reporting. Tools for taking action. Stuff you can use when you need to think straight.

know your rights ↗
03FiftyOne AI / JustAskAI WITH A CONSCIENCE

If someone’s asking for help, the AI shouldn’t create another problem for them. JustAsk, through FiftyOne AI, puts advocacy and intake tools to work. I also co-authored privacy research with collaborators at Howard Law. The personal stuff deserves some care.

meet FiftyOne AI ↗read the research ↗
04NOTES TechnologyMUSIC · MONEY · KNOWLEDGE

Artists make the music. Then they’re expected to become a finance department. NOTES gets into that mess: music, money, and knowledge for independent artists. I want talented people to have a better shot at doing their thing.

meet NOTES ↗
05PRYZEWORK → PROGRESS → REWARDS

A shift. A target. A reward you actually want. PRYZE rewards employees for focus and hitting goals. It’s one of the builds that came through my work at Unstuck: the product questions, the founder questions, all the bits that had to come together.

see PRYZE ↗the founder story ↗
06Unstuck LabsVENTURE STUDIO

I co-founded the studio in 2017. It’s one of the places where I build software, back founders, and help get their ideas out the door. There’s usually something half-built that needs a pair of eyes.

one place I build ↗the studio’s projects ↗
07UnstuckOSFOUNDER OPERATING SYSTEM

My brain is a terrible filing cabinet. People, projects, tasks, nineteen unfinished things. UnstuckOS is an attempt to get that lot into one place so I can get back to making stuff.

explore UnstuckOS ↗
08Unstuck TuesdaysFOUNDERS HELPING FOUNDERS

Every Tuesday. Since 2017. Free. Bring the thing you’re stuck on. There’s usually someone in the room looking at it from a different angle. That’s the whole point.

come hang out ↗
one little idea can unlock a whole world.click to collect
03 / BUILDING & BACKINGA SECOND PAIR OF HANDS

Bring the thing.
We’ll get into it.

I build and back founders. AI, software, fintech. I like getting close enough to help with the actual work.

the first version is allowed to be ugly.

how I work

  1. Show me the thing.

    Prototype. Demo. Half-broken link. Give me something I can poke at.

  2. Ask a better question.

    Who needs it? What have they tried? What keeps getting in the way?

  3. Get my hands on it.

    Product, experiments, awkward problems. I like helping with the bit that’s actually stuck.

  4. Tell me what’s broken.

    If it isn’t working, say so. Then we have something useful to do.

who I click with

  1. People who keep making things.

    You’ve tried something. It may be ugly. Excellent. Now we can talk about it.

  2. The slightly obsessed.

    There’s a problem you keep noticing. You’ve started doing something about it.

  3. People who can change their minds.

    Strong opinions. Curiosity. Room for “hang on, that didn’t work.”

  4. People who remember the people.

    The person using it matters. So do their rights, privacy, and trust.

building / backing / a second pair of eyesgot something I should poke at? ↗

some receipts.

01 / 05 — Dan Parkinson
PEOPLE I’VE WORKED WITH

“His positive, optimistic outlook and passionate approach drove everyone forward.”

Dan ParkinsonMountainview Learning UK / HSBCexcerpt from wail.ceo ↗
a little conviction. a lot of lift-off.click to launch
04 / THE WHYGO BELOW THE SURFACE

The people.
Remember them?

I’m a tech geek. I can get carried away with a new toy. Then I remember somebody has to live with the thing we build.

REYETS. JustAsk. The privacy work. There’s a person on the other side of every one of them. What do they need? What could we accidentally make worse?

I like AI. I also like people having rights, privacy, and a say in what happens to them. I’d prefer to keep all of those things.

the interesting stuff is below the surface.click to dig close → then pump
A COUPLE OF RECENT SIDE QUESTS ↙
PRIVACY × HOWARD LAW

V.E.I.L.

People put some very personal stuff into intake forms. I co-authored this research with collaborators at Howard Law to help protect it before it reaches an AI service. V.E.I.L. is built into JustAsk.

get into the details ↗
DUOLINGO FOR VIBE CODING

BAD PIZZA

Duolingo for vibe coding. I wanted something you could learn by poking at it and making stuff. So I built BAD PIZZA. Go make a thing.

try a slice ↗
OFF THE CLOCKSTILL MAKING THINGS

There’s a record
on somewhere.

I love vinyl. Coltrane. Biggie. My Morning Jacket. It makes sense to me.

Have a dig. Flip through the covers. Double-tap a record if it’s your thing too.

WA’IL’S RECORD CRATE 33⅓opening the crate…

drag to dig.
double-tap the cover to leave a little love.
BUILT ON SUMMON

Nightcap

I made an app that turns vinyl records into drink recipes. Built on Summon. Apparently the turntable needed a drinking buddy.

give your record a drink ↗
ANOTHER PERFECTLY REASONABLE EXPERIMENT

Wu-Tang chess

I also made a Wu-Tang chess game. A very reasonable thing to do with my time.

protect ya king ↗
05 / OUT LOUDTHINKING IN PUBLIC

A few things
I won’t shut up about.

AI should help people. And protect their privacy.RESEARCH · 2026 ↗ Test the idea before you fall in love with it.READ ↗ The F word. Failure, obviously.WATCH ↗ Whatever I’m thinking about this week.LINKEDIN ↗
momentum beats waiting for the perfect moment.click for turbo
CONTINUE?ALWAYS.
the next good thing starts with a new connection.click to hop · arrows to steer

Tell me
the weird part.

Raising money? Building something? Stuck on the bit
nobody warned you about? Start there.