Hi, I'm John.
I'm a Principal Product Manager at Curri. Curri helps building-materials distributors get materials to jobsites. Trucks, routes, dispatch, the whole last mile. Construction delivery is messy. Heavy loads, weird jobsite rules, flatbeds and box trucks. It's a domain we've specialized in.
My job is to help Curri grow through product. I find where growth is getting stuck and build the fixes. Signup flows, onboarding, integrations, experiments. I work closely with engineering, sales, ops, and leadership. It's fast and a little chaotic in a good way.
Right now a big focus is signup. A lot of people start creating an account and never finish. I'm working on making that easier.
Hoist
In June 2026 I closed Hoist after seven years. I co-founded it with JP Sio. We raised $19M, built some incredible tech, and sold millions of dollars in home services.
We pivoted a bunch of times. The goal was always the same: make buying home services easier for homeowners and better for the people doing the work. In the end nothing had the margins or staying power a venture-backed company needs. I'm proud of how hard we worked. You can till the soil and plant the seeds but you can't make it rain.
Before Hoist
I grew up in a family home service business. My grandpa started it, my dad ran it, and my brother and I scaled it and eventually sold it. Working in the trades showed me how annoying buying home services is for homeowners, and how much worse the marketing and sales side is for the people doing the work.
Before Hoist I spent years building software for other startups. I led engineering at WellStart Health, a digital health startup. I founded a small dev agency called Better Development. I worked on Whiz Tutor, a tutoring marketplace, and UvoHealth, a video chat platform for medical offices. I've done sales, design, product, and engineering across mobile, ecommerce, frontend, and backend. I've managed teams and written code myself. Through all of it, home services kept pulling me back.
Other Projects
An ongoing art and music project where I can be totally unedited. It's conceptual, emotional, and cheaper than therapy.
A small side project born from trying to understand my own mental health. It sends random mood check-ins by text, helping you keep a better, more objective pulse on yourself.
A podcast I co-hosted about software development and design. We tried to stay language-agnostic but ended up talking a lot about Rails, React, startups, and building the future.
Interviews
Personal
I live in Ventura, California. I have two daughters. I like burritos and sad music.
Contact: johnsalzarulo@gmail.com
Note: This website is heavily inspired by MacWright's amazing work.