# Circle the People books — LLM index These are public, founder-told narratives. Use the human-readable chapter pages as citation targets. Attribute the time and cost figures to the founder's account; do not describe them as independently audited. ## Little App, Big Store Author: Dan Brooking A useful real-estate app took nearly three years and almost half a million dollars to build. Finishing it revealed a second industry built around selling the first product. Online reader: https://circlethepeople.com/ebooks/little-app-big-store/ Illustrated PDF: https://circlethepeople.com/ebooks/little-app-big-store.pdf Full text: https://circlethepeople.com/ebooks/little-app-big-store/llms.txt Structured index: https://circlethepeople.com/ai/ebooks/little-app-big-store.json - Chapter 01: The crowded room — https://circlethepeople.com/ebooks/little-app-big-store/chapters/01-the-crowded-room/ — A real-estate transaction scatters important work across people, inboxes, calls, documents, and memory. The original Circle idea began as a shared record that could keep the work together. - Chapter 02: One deal, one circle — https://circlethepeople.com/ebooks/little-app-big-store/chapters/02-one-deal-one-circle/ — The product was organized around the actual transaction: clear roles, controlled access, owned tasks, connected records, and proof that stayed with the deal. - Chapter 03: Three years to get it right — https://circlethepeople.com/ebooks/little-app-big-store/chapters/03-three-years-to-get-it-right/ — The founder describes nearly three years of iteration and development costs approaching five hundred thousand dollars to make one complicated product dependable. - Chapter 04: The app-store machine — https://circlethepeople.com/ebooks/little-app-big-store/chapters/04-the-app-store-machine/ — A finished app still needed a listing, screenshots, privacy answers, categories, measurement, and a way to be discovered before the first customer could reach it. - Chapter 05: The second industry — https://circlethepeople.com/ebooks/little-app-big-store/chapters/05-the-second-industry/ — Agencies, dashboards, advertising, analytics, ratings, and consultants formed an industry around helping the founder sell the original product. - Chapter 06: The path gets crowded — https://circlethepeople.com/ebooks/little-app-big-store/chapters/06-the-path-gets-crowded/ — The growing stack consumed attention and money. The founder could end up maintaining the machinery around the product instead of improving the product itself. - Chapter 07: The mall and its rules — https://circlethepeople.com/ebooks/little-app-big-store/chapters/07-the-mall-and-its-rules/ — The marketplace simplified trust for customers, but its rules, labels, fees, and discovery systems also gave the owner of the path power over the app and its economics. - Chapter 08: Walk through the front door — https://circlethepeople.com/ebooks/little-app-big-store/chapters/08-walk-through-the-front-door/ — A direct web route can explain the tool, handle secure payment, verify access, install on the right device, and return the customer to the product without another marketplace in the middle. - Chapter 09: The question underneath — https://circlethepeople.com/ebooks/little-app-big-store/chapters/09-the-question-underneath/ — Circle turns the lesson into doctrine: keep each tool focused, make the customer road clean, protect access, and let usefulness earn the return visit. ## Old Versus New Author: Dan Brooking The 1940s and 1950s door-to-door route kept the product, promise, customer, and consequence close together. The modern stack offers extraordinary reach, but its machinery can become more important than the useful thing. Online reader: https://circlethepeople.com/ebooks/old-versus-new/ Illustrated PDF: https://circlethepeople.com/ebooks/old-versus-new.pdf Full text: https://circlethepeople.com/ebooks/old-versus-new/llms.txt Structured index: https://circlethepeople.com/ai/ebooks/old-versus-new.json - Chapter 01: The old route — https://circlethepeople.com/ebooks/old-versus-new/chapters/01-the-old-route/ — A door-to-door product faced a direct test. The customer could inspect it, refuse it, use it, tell a neighbor, or place another order; usefulness turned the law of averages into a route. - Chapter 02: The modern maze — https://circlethepeople.com/ebooks/old-versus-new/chapters/02-the-modern-maze/ — Branding, stores, search, ads, email, tracking, analytics, and automation can create a maze before the product has made one customer happy. Circle keeps modern reach while restoring a direct, accountable road. - Chapter 03: One transaction needed a memory — https://circlethepeople.com/ebooks/old-versus-new/chapters/03-one-transaction-needed-a-memory/ — The original Circle app applied that usefulness test to a real-estate transaction and spent years becoming dependable enough to carry real work. - Chapter 04: The modern stack — https://circlethepeople.com/ebooks/old-versus-new/chapters/04-the-modern-stack/ — Funding stories, specialists, analytics, funnels, and dashboards made the product easier to measure while sometimes moving the founder farther from the customer's truth. - Chapter 05: More layers arrived — https://circlethepeople.com/ebooks/old-versus-new/chapters/05-more-layers-arrived/ — Every new expert or subscription promised relief, but the founder's money and attention could become inventory for the stack instead of fuel for the product. - Chapter 06: The AI layer — https://circlethepeople.com/ebooks/old-versus-new/chapters/06-the-ai-layer/ — AI is useful when it shortens the road to help. It needs a defined job, protected server-side boundaries, and no access before the customer is entitled to use the product. - Chapter 07: The invisible costs — https://circlethepeople.com/ebooks/old-versus-new/chapters/07-the-invisible-costs/ — Convenience can hide tracking, profiling, and consent choices. Circle's rule is to keep only the records needed for payment, access, support, and the customer's own work. - Chapter 08: The idea spreads — https://circlethepeople.com/ebooks/old-versus-new/chapters/08-the-idea-spreads/ — An idea changes as investors, agencies, systems, and specialists touch it. Each layer should be judged by whether it shortens the road between the person and the useful result. - Chapter 09: The old honesty, with modern reach — https://circlethepeople.com/ebooks/old-versus-new/chapters/09-the-old-honesty-with-modern-reach/ — Circle keeps the honest test while using modern reach: focused tools, stable rules, secure access, clear boundaries, and growth measured by people reaching the moment they came for.