Gary
Bickford.
Founder of Very Big Box LLC. Four-plus decades building software, companies, and products — from robotics research at Carnegie Mellon in the late 80s, through founding and operating startups (one taken public), to venture work in space technology and cybersecurity, to the current chapter: AI-native product development from a home base on the Oregon coast.
Building Very Big Box.
Founded VBB to develop products on his own terms — starting with allamericandog.club, a community and service-comparison platform for dog owners, built on Emergent.sh. Operating as a solo founder with AI as the second seat, and open to co-founders on UI, business development, and backend.
Engineer. Founder. Operator.
Four decades and change of building useful things: robotics research at Carnegie Mellon and RedZone in the late 80s; co-founder / VP of R&D at Audre Inc. (image recognition and document conversion — grew through IPO); consulting CEO at FXT Corporation through the 90s and early 2000s; partner or co-founder roles across Space Finance Group, Integrated Space Analytics, Starbridge Venture Capital, and Kaje / Bright Plaza; VP Business Development at ReSynth International. The thread that runs through it: identify the emerging thing, build a company or product around it, ship until it works.
(Full chronology lives on LinkedIn. Selected milestones below.)
What he brings.
- —Software development · full stack
- —Business development · deal structuring
- —AI-enabled development
- —Startup founding & operating
- —Semantic web · linked data · RDF
- —Systems engineering · infrastructure
- —Robotics · image recognition · data mining
- —Product management
- —Space technology · cybersecurity
Outside the box. From inside one.
The motto isn't a marketing line — it's a working theory. Every founder, engineer, and operator is shaped by the box of their experience. Naming it honestly is what makes stepping outside of it possible.
Selected markers.
Full career and education history on LinkedIn.