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Gary Sheng - Head of Ecosystem @ Wabi Proposal

Date: November 12, 2025

Reporting to: Blas Moros, Go-To-Market Lead

Role: Head of Ecosystem (name TBD)

Mission​

Establish Wabi as the premier platform for accessible software creation through creating a consistent flow of user-generated "golden mini-apps" that serve as compelling case studies for Wabi's creator ecosystem.

Core Responsibilities​

1. Creator Education & Content Production​

For video-related things, it will be good to contract some affordable editing help. Over time, it will be good to have a studio built out.

Weekly Live Streams

  • Build mini-apps live with Wabi, demonstrating real-time creation process
  • Office hours format: "Come Build With Me" sessions with community
  • Showcase different app categories and use cases each week
  • Highlight new features and platform capabilities as they ship

Comprehensive Documentation & Tutorial Creation

Some kind of documentation platform

  • Complete platform documentation explaining every capability (assume nothing is too basic to explain)
  • Screen-shared video walkthroughs for visual learners
  • Step-by-step guides for specific app categories (e.g. habit trackers, journaling apps, content transformation tools, etc.)
  • PRD templates and best practices for specing mini-apps effectively
  • "How it works" explainers for platform features (authentication, data sharing, notifications, etc.)
  • Troubleshooting guides for common creator issues
  • Comprehensive onboarding documentation for new creators

Thought Leadership

Mostly on Substack

  • Philosophical pieces on topics like democratizing software creation, the personal software revolution, the future of human-AI collaboration, why Wabi represents fundamental shift in app development
  • Technical deep-dives on platform capabilities and architecture decisions; how Wabi team makes opinionated architecture decisions to serve its creators

2. Golden Case Study Development​

Hands-On Creator Support

  • Build in-depth relationships with creators through "whatever it takes" approach
  • White-glove onboarding and app development support
  • Help creators write effective PRDs for their app ideas
  • Iterate with them until mini-apps reach genuine utility (not just 90% working)
  • Document success stories with metrics (time to build, user acquisition, retention)

Success Criteria for Golden Mini-Apps:

  • Creators can confidently say they wouldn't have built this without Wabi
  • Creators get first real users 10-50x faster than if they were to do Cursor vibe coding
  • Real user traction and retention (not just novelty usage)
  • Showcase different verticals: wellness, productivity, education, entertainment, etc.

3. Developing Model Apps & Reference Implementations​

Early on, I'll need to lead by example by creating golden mini-apps myself. Over time, I'll shift more toward documenting, hand-holding, and supporting other creators as the ecosystem matures.

Create Showcase Mini-Apps

  • Build polished reference implementations for common app patterns
  • Create template mini-apps that creators can remix and customize
  • Demonstrate integration possibilities (Apple Health + Calendar + AI, etc.)
  • Show off platform capabilities through high-quality examples

Examples of (Types of) Apps That Could Pop Off:

  • Outfit morph
  • Image transformation apps leveraging new Hugging Face models
  • Wellness apps combining Apple Health data with AI coaching
  • Productivity tools with smart notifications and gamification

Purpose:

  • Establish quality bar for what's possible on Wabi
  • Provide templates for creators to learn from and build upon
  • Generate early proof points before broader creator ecosystem scales
  • Validate platform capabilities and surface technical limitations

4. Product Feedback Loop​

Regular Engineering Sync

  • Weekly meetings with product + engineering
  • Represent creator needs and surface technical blockers
  • Prioritize infrastructure gaps preventing golden mini-apps (auth, notifications, gamification logic, etc.)
  • Provide qualitative insights on what's working vs. what's frustrating users

Platform Capabilities Articulation

  • Document what Wabi (at least, over time) handles for developers so they understand the value proposition:
    • Authentication: User identity across mini-apps
    • Notifications: Email and push notification infrastructure
    • Gamification: Streaks, leaderboards, progress tracking
    • API Key Management: Zero config access to AI models, data sources
    • Distribution: Built-in discovery, social sharing, remix capability
    • Data Persistence: Database management without backend complexity
    • Shared Context About User: Wabi gets access to a user’s data like Apple Health, Calendar, Contacts, etc; user can share that data with select mini apps
  • Create clear documentation of platform boundaries (what Wabi can/can't support yet; with upvoting capabilities)
  • Identify gaps in infrastructure that limit golden mini-app creation

5. Strategic Partnerships & Ecosystem Growth​

Frontier Model Partnerships

  • Create go-to-market channel for specialized Hugging Face models
  • Position Wabi as fastest path from "new model release" to "viral app wrapper"
  • Demonstrate 4-minute model-to-app deployment capability

Let’s be real… most people will never open Hugging Face.

Value Proposition:

  • Model creators get instant distribution and user feedback
  • Wabi ecosystem gets access to cutting-edge specialized models
  • Creators get powerful new capabilities without infrastructure complexity

Indie Hacker Stable

  • Recruit 10-20 talented app builders who own different verticals
  • Coordinate weekly showcase apps demonstrating Wabi capabilities
  • Build community of practice around mini-app best practices

6. Community Management & Support​

Discord/Community Leadership

  • Support Blas on community management and moderation
  • Answer technical questions and troubleshoot creator issues
  • Identify power users and potential showcase app creators
  • Foster culture of experimentation, sharing, and remixing

Community Activation

  • Organize challenges and competitions to drive engagement
  • Highlight exceptional creators and their mini-apps
  • Facilitate knowledge sharing between experienced and new creators
  • Build community rituals around weekly showcases and launches

Success Metrics (~First Three Months)​

Quantitative

  • 10+ golden case study apps with documented creator testimonials
  • Weekly content cadence: 1 live stream, 1 tutorial; 1-2 thought pieces/month
  • 3-5 strategic partnerships with model creators or developer communities
  • Measurable improvement in creator success rate (more apps with recurring active users)

Qualitative

  • Engineering team has clear, prioritized feedback on creator needs
  • Wabi's value proposition is clearly articulated and discoverable
  • Community feels supported and knows where to get help
  • External perception: "Wabi has the best creator education in the space"

Why I'm the Right Person​

My Background is a 1-to-1 Fit

  • Started my career as a Google software engineer, leading small team on Google Cloud (and experiencing users’ challenges in building apps, even with cloud services).
  • Thousands of hours on Cursor understanding where AI-assisted coding breaks for average users; graduated top of my class of vibe-coding bootcamp Gauntlet AI
  • Deep experience with the "last mile problem" of shipping apps (App Store/Google Play hell, API management, infrastructure setup)
  • Extensive track record of community building, education, and technical writing
  • Intuitive brain for trends and social media
    • I’ve put out hundreds of videos online - got ~130,000 followers on TikTok; put out some semi-viral YouTube videos at one point
    • I have a niche but engaged Substack audience
  • I’m comfortable with "whatever it takes" unscalable early work
    • Brought hundreds of influential early users into Airchat and wrote guides like this
  • I can build a system for Wabi to document customer relationship in details (“CIA-like files”)
  • I have been ideating on a framework for managing intra-team cohesion and alignment (“truth management”) - where AI agents are part of the “team”

See some case studies about my career here: https://garysheng.com/stories

Compensation Proposal​

I’m open to discussion on exact equity percentage and salary mix based on:

  • How you're compensating other early team members
  • Wabi's compensation philosophy and benchmarks
  • Cash runway considerations given recent fundraise

Here’s my initial idea:

Equity​

1.6% over 4 years (standard vesting with 1-year cliff)

Rationale:

  • Head of Ecosystem is critical to product-market fit discovery at this stage
  • Role combines DevRel, community, product strategy, and partnerships
  • Success directly impacts company trajectory and valuation growth

Base Salary​

$250,000

Rationale:

  • Accounts for early-stage risk while enabling full focus on Wabi
  • Market rate for senior ecosystem/DevRel roles at well-funded startups
  • Allows me to decline other opportunities and commit fully
  • Reflects seniority and scope of cross-functional responsibilities

Total Package Philosophy​

Balancing meaningful equity upside (if Wabi achieves its potential) with enough cash compensation to make the bet rational given early-stage risk. I'm optimizing for working with great people on an important problem, not maximizing short-term compensation.

Open Questions​

  1. While I can work remotely, I have a preference for, at least over time, working in the same city as a lot of colleagues. What’s the current plan here?

Bottom Line​

I see this role as Blas's force multiplier for ecosystem development. While you handle strategic GTM and other executive-level duties, I'll be more in the trenches with creators making sure they succeed (both individually and at scale), documenting what works, feeding insights to product/engineering, and establishing Wabi's voice as the leader in democratizing software creation.

The goal: Make it inevitable that when someone thinks "I wish there was an app for X," their next thought is "I should build it in Wabi."

Let's discuss specifics tomorrow and refine this together.

Gary Sheng