Casa Maria
A short-term rental. Listing presentation, guest experience, property information, digital resources, and host systems. I began helping more actively around August 2026. There’s a fuller write-up, numbers and all, on the home page.
About
I’m Juan.
I like looking at something that feels outdated, confusing, or more complicated than it needs to be — and figuring out how to make it simple. That’s most of the job.
How I got here
It started behind a desk, not behind a keyboard.
I started in banking with no experience and no background in finance. What I had was a willingness to ask questions, admit what I didn’t know, and keep showing up until I got better at it.
Banking taught me the part of this work that has nothing to do with technology. How to explain something complicated without making the other person feel behind. How trust actually gets built — slowly, in small follow-throughs, not in one impressive meeting. How to sit with someone, work out what they actually need, and say it plainly.
Somewhere in there my attention shifted. I was still focused on the person in front of me, but I started noticing the machinery behind them: the same question asked a hundred times because a form was unclear, information re-typed in three places, the step everyone had quietly agreed to work around.
Serving one customer well helps one person. Fixing the thing that made it hard helps everyone who comes after them.
That turned out to be the part I liked most. So I started learning how to fix it — websites, forms, workflows, the small systems that sit underneath a business and either help or quietly get in the way.
What I do now
Mostly three shapes of problem.
A website that’s quietly embarrassing the business. A guest or customer experience that creates more questions than it answers. Or a process held together by text messages, a spreadsheet, and somebody remembering to do the thing.
I’m not precious about which tool fixes it. Sometimes the answer is a rebuilt website. Sometimes it’s a QR code and one well-written page. Sometimes it’s deleting three steps and adding nothing at all. I’d rather hand you something small you’ll actually use than something impressive that sits there.
AI is part of how I build now — it’s a tool I use, the same way I use every other tool. It’s not the thing I’m selling, and I’m not going to put it in front of you as if it were the point. The point is whether your Tuesday gets easier.
Background
What I’ve done.
Bilingual in English and Spanish, based in San Antonio, Texas, and working with people wherever they are.
Things I’ve worked on
Real projects, described honestly.
Including the parts that aren’t finished. I’d rather tell you what isn’t built than let you assume it is.
Anzures Boxing
A local boxing gym that was running on paper, text messages, and memory. The public website is live at anzuresboxing.com. A private admin dashboard for members and leads, with a foundation for payment tracking, is built and used internally. Event management, ticketing, online payments, and reporting are planned — not built.
Small business websites
Sites for businesses whose customers were calling to ask questions the website should have already answered.
Digital intake & workflow concepts
Forms, intake flows, and operational workflows designed to stop the same information being written down three times.
Budgeting & financial planning tools
Built out of the banking years — small tools that make a financial decision easier to see clearly.
Two things worth saying out loud
The useful half, and the honest half.
Most people who can build the thing have never sat across from the customer. Most people who understand the customer can’t build the thing. I’ve done both, and the valuable part is the translation between them.
The honest half: I’m not a senior engineer and I’ve never claimed to be. I’m not an agency either — when you hire me, you get me, which is the point. I’m young, hands-on, and still learning, and I think that’s worth knowing before you spend money.
What I’m actually good at: listening, figuring it out, building it, testing it, and improving it. If something isn’t finished, you’ll hear it from me first.
How I like to work
Four things I hold to.
Honesty over polish
I’d rather tell you what isn’t finished than let you assume it is. That goes for projects and for my own experience.
Clarity over jargon
If I can’t explain it plainly, I probably don’t understand it well enough yet.
Curiosity about how things work
The question I ask most is some version of “why is it done this way?” — asked to learn, not to criticize.
Follow-through
The unglamorous half of trust: doing what I said I’d do, on the day I said I’d do it.
So — what are you working with?
If something on your side is outdated, confusing, or taking more steps than it should, that’s the conversation I enjoy most.