About Ben Brannen

Builder · Investigator · Operator

I’m Ben. I build practical tools around messy systems: dashboards, automations, market notes, source-backed research, and small experiments that turn confusion into something useful.

What I’m building now

My current work is centered around Small Town Capital: a research-driven operating identity for market speculation, local intelligence, automation, public proof-of-work, and eventually real-world capital allocation.

The public version is not a guru page or a victory-lap feed. It is an operator journal: what I’m seeing, what I’m building, what I’m learning, and where the process still needs work.

Systems and project themes

The common thread is turning scattered information into cleaner decisions, repeatable workflows, and public proof-of-work.

  • Research dashboards Turning notes, data, filings, and watchlists into decision systems.
  • Automation workflows Using scripts, APIs, spreadsheets, and agents to remove repetitive work.
  • Source-backed research Keeping claims tied to original sources, context, and open questions.
  • Trading Command Center A private dashboard for market research, options structures, decision logs, and review discipline.
  • Options Council An agent-style framework for debating convexity, theta, risk, tactics, and final trade verdicts.
  • Operator journal Writing publicly about the process without pretending every idea is already polished.

How I think about the work

The loop is simple: research → structure → publish → build → invest → learn → repeat.

I’m interested in overlooked markets, overlooked towns, overlooked data, and overlooked workflows. The goal is to build machines that remember the thesis better than my emotions do.

Tools and background

I studied finance at Georgia Southern University and have spent years working across spreadsheets, data visualization, automation, scripting, and practical problem solving.

  • Google Sheets
  • Excel
  • Apps Script
  • Python
  • SQL
  • Bash / Linux
  • Looker Studio
  • Power BI
  • Astro
  • HTML / CSS / JavaScript
  • Raspberry Pi
  • Google Cloud Certified Digital Leader

Outside the terminal

I’m also a runner, skier, self-directed guitar player, and someone who has learned a lot from turning personal challenges into data projects.

One example: I once ran 102 straight days of 5K+ and turned the streak into a dashboard. That is basically the theme here: do the thing, instrument the thing, learn from the thing.

Let’s connect

If you’re interested in dashboards, automation, source-backed research, market structure, Small Town Capital, or weird useful systems, reach out.

Email: benjamin.m.brannen@gmail.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/benjamin-brannen

Nothing here is investment advice. This site is a public notebook for projects, experiments, research habits, and lessons learned while building.