Brian Mohr · Chicago

Designer.
Engineer.

I've been the founding designer at three software companies.
Now I build and ship AI products.

See the work
Foodbe AI brain

Case study — Foodbe

Food content is broken. Nutrition advice contradicts itself. All the data is the same.

Foodbe is an AI food intelligence engine that reasons, resolves, and never guesses. It runs on a Gated Truth Architecture — every response generated from a curated, verified fact library. If it doesn't know the answer, it says so. Every failure is tracked and a new fact is added to the library. Because it goes deeper than data — into the science, culture, and technique behind each food — it gives users insights they've never seen before, surfaced at the exact moment decisions get made.

Case StudyDownload on the App Store
Foodbe app screen 1
Foodbe app screen 2
Foodbe app screen 3
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Foodbe app screen 7

What I designed

  • Cross-platform design system — iOS, desktop web, mobile web with full feature parity
  • Conversational chat with persona switching, typing indicators, traceable citations
  • Spark chip system — 29 curated prompts that show users what Foodbe can do
  • Grocery list with point-of-decision insights per item
  • Food comparison — user defines what to compare
  • Meal plan with per-meal cost integration and grocery list generation
  • Recipe surface with diet tags, ingredient intelligence, persona tips inline
  • Onboarding — typewriter intro, persona introduction, spark chip discovery
  • Subscription flow — RevenueCat, 7-day trial, $4.99/month

What I built

  • Gated Truth Architecture — every response from a verified fact library
  • AI food intelligence engine with 3 expert personas — Neuro, Oracle, Chefy
  • Fine-tuned GPT-4.1-mini on 10,000+ hand-curated seeds
  • Brain API — 8 endpoints for external platforms
  • Developer portal — sandbox keys, API docs, real-time usage dashboard
  • Token system — bundles, pricing tiers, usage metering, deduction per API call
  • Failure tracking — every unknown routes to a new seed
  • Privacy controls — user data stored on device only, full data export available, option to disable all data storage

10,000+

hand-curated seeds

500+

ingredient profiles

190+

recipes

8

Brain API endpoints

3

published cookbooks

Gated Truth Architecture

AI wasn't built to tell the truth. That's not its goal.

Its goal is to pattern-match — to guess the best response to your input. Nowhere in its design is it told to validate from quality sources before it responds. That's a foundational problem.

Even the best RAG system runs at 91% accuracy. That means 1 in 11 answers is wrong. At 500 questions a day, that's ~3,000 wrong answers per month — silently delivered with the same confidence as correct ones.

GTA is different. It gates the AI and only lets it generate a response from a curated, verified fact library. The AI doesn't retrieve — it reasons from facts we know are true.

How the Foodbe brain works

01

Intent layer

Cleans input, determines intent — how, what, why

02

Expert routing

Routes to Neuro, Oracle, or Chefy

03

Seed matcher

Scores 10,000+ seeds using 4 methods — exact phrase, keyword, word, anchor

04

Fact library

Winning seed's verified anchors passed to fine-tuned model

05

Response

Model generates answer in persona voice with traceable citations

Gated Truth Architecture diagram — click to enlargeDownload GTA schema PDF ↓

A real seed — "Is oat milk healthy?"

{
  label: "Is oat milk healthy?",
  entity: "oat_milk_health",
  thesis: "Oat milk is legitimately healthy because its fiber
    actively lowers cholesterol and fortified versions match
    dairy's calcium. Commercial brands undermine this with
    rapeseed oil and added sugars.",

  neuro_anchors: [
    "beta-glucan forms viscous gels that bind bile acids
     in intestines",
    "liver pulls LDL cholesterol from blood to replace
     bound bile acids",
    "drops LDL ~5-7% at doses of 3g per day"
  ],

  neuro_citations: [
    { text: "beta-glucan LDL reduction ~6.5% meta-analysis
      of 28 RCTs",
      url: "https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25411276/" }
  ],

  oracle_anchors: [
    "Oatly co-founded in Sweden in 1994 by Rickard and
     Björn Öste to address lactose intolerance",
    "U.S. dairy industry received over $1.3B in federal
     payments in 2023 while plant milks receive none"
  ],

  chefy_anchors: [
    "froths well for coffee without curdling",
    "works best in recipes where slight sweetness fits"
  ],

  toneGates: { neuro: true, oracle: true, chefy: true }
}

Tools & how I work

I use many tools to design and build products.

Mainly I use my experience and knowledge. I also pair-program with Claude and ChatGPT.

Frontend

  • React Native (iOS)
  • Next.js
  • TypeScript
  • Tailwind CSS
  • Figma
  • Cursor
  • Vercel v0

Backend & infra

  • Node.js / Express
  • MongoDB
  • Railway
  • Vercel
  • AWS S3
  • Xcode

AI & model

  • OpenAI API
  • Fine-tuned GPT-4.1-mini
  • Gated Truth Architecture
  • Claude / Anthropic API
  • Prompt engineering
  • Agentic routing

Payments & subscriptions

  • Stripe
  • RevenueCat
  • Token bundles + usage metering

Analytics & auth

  • Mixpanel
  • Google Analytics
  • Firebase Auth

UX/UI

Prior work

2021–2025

GAINSystems

Founding Product Designer

Company's first dedicated product hire. Owned design across an enterprise SaaS suite used by global manufacturers, distributors, and retailers to forecast demand, optimize inventory, and manage supply chain performance.

  • User research and usability interviews with 20+ enterprise client organizations
  • Led design across forecasting dashboards, inventory planning, supplier management, and BI reporting within a unified design system
  • Led daily standups with a team of 3 developers as product lead

Work samples available on request under NDA

Case Study

2015–2021

ArrowStream

Founding Product Designer

First dedicated product hire at North America's largest foodservice supply chain platform — 100K+ operator locations, 1,500+ distributors, 260+ brands.

  • Unified a fragmented product suite into a cohesive platform experience and established a design system
  • Embedded with a team of 10 developers — wrote HTML and CSS for pixel-accurate production interfaces
  • Shipped a QM system, Item Pricing portal, and Traceability tracking tool

Work samples available on request under NDA

Case Study

2011–2015

amSTATZ

Founding Product Designer

First dedicated product hire at an early-stage startup building business management software for gyms and personal trainers.

  • Owned UI/UX, design system, and frontend development from day one
  • Part of the founding team — hiring, budgets, fundraising, agile environments
  • Built in HTML5, CSS3, jQuery, Bootstrap. A/B testing, SEO, analytics, email campaigns

Work samples available on request under NDA

Case Study

Get in touch

You found the right person.

I'm a founding AI product engineer and designer available now. I build and ship production AI systems end to end — from the first conversation to a working product in users' hands.

Based in Chicago. Open to founding engineer, forward deployed, and fractional AI product roles.

brianleemohr@gmail.comLinkedInfoodbe.ai