Cameo Doran

Chief Product Officer ⇢ Fractional Prices with Full-Time Impact ◆ Digital Transformations ◆ Advising Startup Founders and Executives Building Innovative Products ⇢ AI / XR / Web3

I’ve always been fascinated (and a little frustrated) by how many great companies can’t seem to ship great software. I’ve sat inside teams where brilliant ideas died in Jira backlogs, and I’ve watched the opposite too: features rushed out fast, only to flop because they were poorly executed or customers didn’t care. Both hurt. Both waste time and burn cash.

Cameo Labs is my answer to that problem. I started it because I couldn’t stand watching founders lose momentum on ideas that should have changed their business and their lives. 

My mission is simple: help founders build the right product, fast enough to matter.

Since starting, I’ve led projects that:

- Shipped an EdTech platform that closed $3M in contracts in under five months.
- Migrated 1,000+ servers with zero downtime, saving $6M.
- Built an AI training platform that scaled to $1.5M ARR in 9 months.

I’m dorky about this stuff. I love the messy early product conversations, poking at assumptions, figuring out where speed really matters, and then helping a team pull off what feels impossible. That’s what gets me up in the morning.

If you’re a founder under pressure to ship something that can’t wait, I’d love to hear about it.

Chief Product Officer / Fractional Product Management

As the owner and founder of Cameo Labs, I am dedicated to helping CEOs and executives of $100M - $500M businesses in the Edtech, Fintech, and SaaS sectors achieve rapid and transformative innovation. 

At Cameo Labs, we understand that staying competitive in today’s market requires more than just innovative ideas—it demands strategic execution and a customer-centric approach.


I founded Cameo Labs to empower our clients by streamlining their product development processes, aligning their business strategies with technological advancements, and fostering a culture of continuous innovation.

We operate differently than most agencies. 

Our holistic approach combines technology, strategic foresight, and customer insights to create cohesive and impactful product visions. Our clients have experienced faster innovation cycles, improved product success rates, and higher customer satisfaction.

With a proven track record of success, we are committed to turning your challenges into opportunities for growth and success. Our goal is to be your trusted partner, helping you achieve your business vision and lead your industry.

Let’s Connect:
Discover how Cameo Labs can transform your business. Visit http://cameolabs.com or reach out to me directly to explore how we can work together to drive your business forward.

From Vision to Execution | Faster Products, Better Results, Bigger Impact | SaaS Companies | Strategic Software Partner

What fresh hell is this? 

I swear the point of AI was to make it so we didn’t have to work so hard but instead we’re using it to work even while we sleep? 

I actually really like the idea of seeing what my lucid dream brain could do with AI, but please don’t make it always be about work.

How is Sam Altman so sure he knows what people want?

Back in his YC days, he was famous for telling founders they didn’t know what their customers wanted until they actually talked to them. 

Now he’s out saying that cost isn’t the bottleneck, speed is.

Did he talk to anyone?

I work with founders and executives on AI strategy every week. Nobody is asking for more speed. 

Right now the biggest concern is accuracy. Can we trust this thing when it’s wrong so often? How do we build something reliable when the models hallucinate and we need human review for everything. 

Speed doesn’t matter if the answer is garbage.

You know what takes longer than waiting 10 seconds for a response? Spending 20 minutes fixing output that is screwed up.

Sam says people want results in 1/100th of the time even if it costs more. The people I talk to would pay more for results that are actually correct, even if they take longer.

But that’s OK because at this point, it’s pretty hard to take any claim from Sam Altman seriously anyway. 

What do you think? Do you think speed will be the competitive battlefield for LLM’s?

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A couple of weeks ago Satya begged people to stop calling AI output slop.

So of course someone wrote a Chrome extension that replaces “Microsoft” with “Microslop” all over the web. 😂😂

This is what happens when billionaires ask the internet to be nicer.

The Streisand effect is real. You can’t tell people to stop criticizing something and expect them to comply. 
Especially when that something affects how they work, what they create, and whether they have jobs.

If you don’t want people calling your output slop, make better output. If you don’t want people questioning your technology, build technology worth trusting.

Asking for less criticism while scraping human knowledge, justifying mass layoffs, and rejecting intellectual property rights is wild.

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On the surface, this seems like a nasty side effect of Al.

But really people have been trying to get away from reading the Classics for as long as there have been Classics.

That's why Cliff Notes had a thriving business for so long. But not anymore.
RIP Cliff Notes.

With Cliff Notes, you knew you were cheating. You knew you weren't reading the real book.

Do you think people realize the same for this?
"Maximize your reading potential and avoid difficult language today" sure does sound catchy.

I don’t want crappy software. 
I don’t wanna build it and I sure as hell don’t wanna use it.

I saw this post in my feed. 
The OP's argument? 
Human developers and teams always shipped garbage anyway, so AI-generated garbage is fine. 

We have lived with bugginess, and random software issues forever, so why should LLM code be different. 

This logic is insane. 

"We have always been bad at this" isnt a defense. It isnt even true. 
Yes, a lot of software is really bad. A lot of teams are bad at building software. 
But that sure as hell doesnt make it ok. 

As a consumer, I will continue to demand better from the software that I use, and as a builder, I will continue to demand better from myself and my team. 

His last line is a doozy too. 
Builders who care about craft aren’t protecting their egos. They’re protecting their users from garbage software.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Do you still believe standards matter? Let’s talk.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hi I’m Cameo, I help teams use AI without the garbage output.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

There is no moat. 

Cursor just released their 2025 year-end data and what it shows is fascinating. This image is about AI coding tools specifically, but I think we are seeing it happen to SaaS too.

Here is what this image shows. When there is reasonable similarity between quality, everyone treats the tools like a commodity.
Look at the pattern. Claude 3.5 Sonnet dominates for a bit, then Claude 4 Opus launches and usage spikes. Then Gemini 2.5 Pro, and Claud 4.6 Sonnet. 

Each time something new drops, developers jump.
Nobody is loyal. They're chasing "good enough for the task" and switching the moment something newer shows up.

I think this is coming for all of SaaS. Not just the AI wrappers. All of it.
If someone can vibe code a good enough replacement for your product in a weekend, why are they paying you $300/month? The old moats were switching costs, integration complexity, and internal learning curves. 

But AI is flattening all of that. 
- Switching costs drop when an AI can migrate your data. 
- Learning curves disappear when the AI can generate exactly what you need.

So what's the compelling reason for customers to stick with your product?

It's never been more important that your moat is a product people actually love. One that truly meets their needs. Because if it doesn't, they're gone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hi, I am Cameo
I help founders figure out the right thing to build and then actually ship it.

Happy Groundhog Day!

It’s funny how the same predictions get made again and again.

Claude code has improved significantly in the last year. But I’m still not firing my software developers.

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It’s fun to watch Sam A out hustling to try and justify a $830B valuation.

I feel like we dont really need anything more testing us right now.

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Essentially the whole LLM discourse on LinkedIn right now. 

Says “agents” three times in a row and suddenly you are a CTO

Most companies are slow for one boring reason. 
Work spends too much time waiting for someone else.

Most organizations vastly underestimate how much time their people spend coordinating and shuffling work through their systems.
In fact a lot of my time in Agile transformation with fortune 500 companies was spent trying to help people spend less time orchestrating work.

Right now, a lot of software companies and development teams are trying to figure out how to make AI effective. But they have insidious data problems or serious, unresolved technical debt. 
If you try to solve all of that first, you are going to fall behind.

Stop aiming AI at the hardest problems first. 

Use AI to show you what is blocking your teams. Use AI to show you where work is getting stuck, where it is waiting on approvals, where it is bouncing between people, and where nobody owns the next step.

Then remove the orchestration tax you are paying every single day.
Organizations who do that can feel the impact before they ever ship a single “AI feature.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hi, 👏 I am Cameo I help companies turn AI experiments into actual results.

RIP to VR/XR! 

Not so fast

I have long been bullish on virtual and augmented/extended reality, not the cartoon stuff that was in the horizon workrooms, but the potential.

The headlines want you to believe that Meta is giving up. That their recent laydowns and shutdowns mean they are admitting failure.

But reality labs only cut 10%. That leaves them with at least 13,000 people still working on extended reality.

I know a lot of people believe that in the future, human AI interaction will move entirely to voice, but I don’t buy it.

To be truly effective as a tool, AI needs to be able to see things in real time. As it is, I’m constantly feeding screenshots and photos into LLMsto shorten how much explaining I need to do. 

A picture is worth 1000 words, right?

And I see a ton of value in being able to overlay information into our view, especially if I’m trying to learn something new. That’s the promise of XR.

And yes, I’m sure Meta squandered a lot of that roughly $70B plus, but they also laid the groundwork for a lot of what comes after.

So what do you think is next for VR/XR?

The contrast between two images:

On the left…
I am sure you have seen people’s posts about their Lovable or Replit year in review.... Bragging about how many lines of code they generated. 

And of course, my first question is, when did we decide that lines of code is a useful metric at all? And who decided it? 
People don’t buy code. They buy products and functionally that solve problems. (To be fair, the US government often pays based on lines of code, but they’re infamous for making really crappy software)
But the implication is that those millions of lines of code are being generated to build software products that people want and need... Right? 

And then the image on the right is from a substack article that’s been making the rounds by Mike Judge. (Link in comments) 

His premise is that if vibe coding and AI enable development is actually having the enormous impact that everyone claims, we should see a huge explosion of shovelware, and even as we enter 2026, that has not happened. 

Personally, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. 

Over the last year I’ve built multiple applications in Replit and Lovable that I am using every day in my business and in my life. 

But I’m not trying to spin them up as businesses. I’m using these tools to solve inconveniences in my life with apps that I don’t need to be secure, scalable or any of the rest of the nonfunctional attributes that AI development fails at. 

I'm curious, have you read Mike's shovelware post? 
What do you think is happening?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hi I am Cameo
If your team is generating millions of lines of code but you're not seeing business impact, let's talk about what's actually possible versus what just makes for impressive demos.

The most important skill you need for 2026 is vibecoding.

This is especially true if you work in technology but aren’t a software developer. If you’re in leadership, marketing, sales, or HR, you need to understand what’s possible with these tools. 

More importantly, you should be experimenting with them and using them to build small things day to day.

Vibecoding was a game changer for me and my business in 2025. Don’t get left behind in 2026.

As part of Utah Tech Week, Krystee Miller and I are hosting a workshop on how to vibecode with Lovable. 
In 90 minutes, we’ll show you how to shape and refine an idea, determine what it needs and how it should work, and then prompt it into existence using only your voice.

The event is free. Lunch provided. Link to register below.

Guys, 
I have discovered OpenAIs secret plans to make ChatGPT profitable. 







*

"Stop being critical of our AI"

Over the last few days, a couple of billionaires came online to beg us to stop saying mean things about their LLMs.

First Satya asked us to stop calling it slop.
Then Jensen said being critical of AI isn't helpful.

Seriously, what kind of joke is this?

Over the last three years, we've watched these companies pour hundreds of billions of dollars into this technology. We've watched them use it to justify some of the largest layoffs in recent history. We've watched them scrape the entirety of human knowledge and completely reject concepts like IP and copyright that are supposedly the bedrock of capitalism.

And we're not supposed to be critical?

I use AI heavily. At Cameo Labs we use it effectively with our clients for developing software faster. I've vibed coded multiple applications for both my business and personal life. I've used to to create interesting and creative things that I think are pretty cool.

AND I'll still say a lot of current AI output is mid at best. The fact that they don't want us to criticize it tells you everything.
As members of society, we get to criticize things that seem detrimental to our collective success. 

You can be pro-AI and still demand quality and accountability. Using these tools every day doesn't mean accepting garbage or accepting evil described as progress. (looking at you Grok) 
That's not being a hater. That's having standards.

The difference between slop and substance isn't the tool. It's knowing what you're building and refusing to ship or accept crap.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Are you curious what vibe coding is and want to get your feet wet and still build something cool? I'm hosting a vibe coding workshop at Utah Tech Week 
Link in the comments.

Listen, I know it’s an awkward conversation, but we need to talk about pirates booty

This is a super popular snack in Utah, and is often served in corporate environments but I cannot see this package without instantly thinking about the Beastie Boys song, Professor Booty, from their seminal 1992 album Check Your Head. 

I quote: 
"Professor, what's another word for 'pirate treasure'?"
"Well, I think it's 'booty-booty-booty, that's what it is"

Now the song lyrics are NSFW, so having this song running through my head in a professional environment it’s sometimes problematic.
Plus I am trying to work, not sing Beastie Boys songs. 


Surely I am not the only one who has this problem?

Vibe coding works until it doesn't

Turns out the edge cases matter. They always do.

Your users find the problems you didn't think to look for. And they're not happy about it.
Test the weird inputs. Try to break your own code. Think about what happens when two things occur simultaneously, when files are too big, when numbers are negative. When security actually matters. 

Do it before your customers do.

Failure is your best teacher. 
But it's not just about being tough.

When you fail, it's like opening a book about yourself. Sure, it's sucks to go through, but here's what you really learn:

- Failing can teach you resiliency
- Failing can give you insights into yourself.
- Failing can teach what will work and what won’t.
- Failing can teach you who you can trust and who you can’t.

One of my favorite quotes is from J.K. Rowling. She says,

“It is impossible to live without failing at something. Unless you have lived cautiously, you might not have failed at all, but in which case, you might have failed by default. Failure taught me better things about my own self.”

So, what's your plan for being bold this week? I recommend trying something you will absolutely fail at.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hi I am Cameo
I help teams stop pretending their failures didn't happen and start using them to learn and win.

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