About J Cornelius
Decades making software.10 years in the service industry.Started 3 restaurants.One unique advisor.
For most of my career I helped giant companies solve their software problems: Delta, IHG, UPS, Coca-Cola. Then I opened a wine bar, then a restaurant, then added a second brand to it, and found out firsthand how badly operators are served by the tools they pay for.
Now I run SparrowSoft, an AI-driven software company, and I own and operate a dual-concept restaurant, Lucky Hare and Night Train Pizza. I'd rather work with the person who owns the problem than a committee that manages it. AI is what makes that possible: work that once took a team and a six-figure budget, one experienced person can now do for a fraction of that.
Along the way I wrote Loops: Building Products with Clarity and Confidence, an Amazon bestseller on figuring out what to build and validating it before you spend. I went through Wharton Executive Education, advised startups at Georgia Tech’s ATDC, and gave more than 70 talks on three continents.
The short version of a long story
- 1990s
Live sound, then a touring company
Sound systems at 16, then a touring sound and lighting company working with Nine Inch Nails, Metallica, B.B. King, and a long list of others. First lesson in operations: the show goes on whether the gear works or not.
- 1997 to 2012
CoffeeCup Software
One of the first HTML editors ever made. Fifteen years, roughly 60 products, millions of users, and a hosting company that reached 25,000 customers in under 18 months. Both businesses sold.
- 2012 to 2024
Nine Labs
A product strategy and design studio in Atlanta. Delta Air Lines, InterContinental Hotels Group, Travelport, UPS, Coca-Cola, Circle K / Couche-Tard, Fiserv, Experian, and many travel and hospitality brands that needed product leadership they couldn't hire full-time.
- 2021 to now
Lucky Hare and Night Train Pizza
It started as a wine bar. Three years behind the bar, WSET Level 3, and a fast education in margins, staffing, and the distance between what a vendor demo promises and what works on a busy Saturday. That grew into the dual-concept operation we run today: a gastropub and a wood-fired pizzeria in metro Atlanta. Kitchen, POS, scheduling, supply chain, seasonality. Present tense. This is where every gap on the home page was found.
- 2024 to now
SparrowSoft
The software side. Donna, MessageKit, PizzaCart, and Winote each started as something the restaurant or the wine list needed that nothing off the shelf would do. They're live, used by other businesses, and built on the same stack you'd get.
What you get
What decades of software and three restaurants actually buy you.
Someone who has worked the Friday
I know what the tool has to do when the printer jams, the POS drops, and the line is out the door. Nothing I build assumes a quiet office.
Someone who ships
Not a strategist who hands you a deck and leaves. Thirty years of shipping, six hospitality tools live right now, and a stack that turns a written brief into working software in weeks.
A straight answer
Including "buy the $30 subscription" and "leave it alone." You'll hear what's true, not what's billable.
Ownership
Code, accounts, keys, and documentation are yours from day one. If I disappear, your tool keeps running and any competent developer can open it up.
Who I work with
People who know their business and are tired of fighting with software.
Travel and hospitality brands between $1MM and $20MM in revenue
- Independent and multi-unit restaurants
- Boutique hotels, inns, and resorts
- Tour operators, travel brands, and booking platforms
- Wine and food distributors, importers, and brands going direct
- Local and regional hospitality groups
How I work
Rules I don't bend.
- I don't pitch. We talk first, and you get my honest read whether or not we end up working together.
- You'll know the price before I start. If the scope changes, we talk about it. No surprise invoices.
- The simplest thing that works is the right answer. Most gaps close with an agent or a workflow, not an app.
- I say no. To enterprise procurement, to marketplace ideas, and to problems that aren't costing enough yet to be worth fixing.
Tell me the one thing your software won't do.
Twenty minutes. No pitch. You'll leave knowing whether we're a fit and which step the job sits on.