About Just Like Popcorn Labs

Experiments That Pop 🍿

Just Like Popcorn Labs is where AI experiments meet real-world infrastructure. We’re building, breaking, and documenting the journey from “what if” to “it works” — sharing the wins, the failures, and the $0 solutions that actually scale.

What We Do

We run experiments in three areas:

AI Agent Architecture
Building societies of AI minds that work together. Not chatbots — actual autonomous systems that run 24/7, make decisions, and get work done while you sleep.

Cost Optimization
Figuring out how to run production AI infrastructure for pennies instead of hundreds of dollars. Local LLMs, strategic model selection, and infrastructure that doesn’t burn your budget.

Automation That Actually Works
No-code isn’t the answer. Low-code isn’t either. Real automation means bash scripts, Docker containers, and systems that survive restarts. We document what works.

Why “Just Like Popcorn”?

Ideas should pop. They should be surprising, fast, and satisfying. They should start small and expand into something bigger than expected.

That’s what we build here.

What You’ll Find

• Technical deep dives — Real architectures, real code, real results
• Cost breakdowns — Exact numbers, not hand-waving
• Honest failures — What didn’t work and why
• $0 solutions — Free alternatives to expensive tools
• Automation systems — Councils, agents, and scheduled work

Who This Is For

You’re building something. You’re tired of tools that promise magic and deliver invoices. You want AI that works, infrastructure that’s reliable, and costs that don’t spiral.

You’re comfortable with Docker, comfortable with code, and comfortable with trying things that might break.

You’re here because someone told you AI had to cost $100/month, and you think that’s ridiculous.

You’re right.

The Stack

Everything we run:

• Docker on bare metal (no Kubernetes complexity)
• Local LLMs via Ollama (Granite, QWen, Mistral)
• Claude Sonnet for quality work
• nginx-proxy for routing
• Hugo for content
• Bash for automation
• Git for everything

All self-hosted. All documented. All designed to survive failures.

Get Updates

New posts hit when they’re ready — usually after we’ve proven something works, broken it twice, and figured out why.

No newsletter (yet). No email list. Just RSS and the occasional Twitter thread.

Revenue Model

We run affiliate links for services we actually use. If you sign up for DigitalOcean, Vultr, or Linode through our links, we get a small commission. You get credits. We both win.

No sponsored posts. No paid reviews. No “partnerships” that compromise recommendations.

If we recommend it, we run it.

Contact

Questions? Challenges? Want to show us what you built?

• Twitter: @justlikepopcorn (coming soon)
• Discord: Join the lab (coming soon)
• Email: hello@justlikepopcornlabs.com

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