Jake Cox, founder of TenHours

Hi, I'm Jake.

I started my career as a minimum-wage web intern, stocking grocery shelves at night to cover the bills, and attending college classes in between — all while starting a family. That experience taught me one thing clearly: the only way to build something real is to commit to it and do the work.

Fifteen years later, I've helped companies achieve SOC2 and HIPAA compliance, led innovation teams at the County of San Luis Obispo, and built enterprise software that runs in production for organizations that can't afford for it to fail. I've held certifications and security credentials, and I was recognized as one of the top 100 technology professionals in a New Zealand technology exchange program.

Now I run TenHours. The same engineering practices that large organizations pay millions for — properly deployed, on your own cloud, owned by you — built for Central Coast small businesses at a price that makes sense.

How I got here

01
Enterprise software, from the ground up
Worked through several industries like advertising, e-commerce, and insurance — each step adding scope and responsibility. I've revitalized legacy SaaS platforms, helped pioneer a new product line, and worked directly with CTOs on SOC2 and HIPAA compliance. That's where I internalized what "production-grade" actually means: software that handles real data for real people, every day, without excuses.
02
Public sector and innovation work
Led diverse technology projects on an innovation team at the County of San Luis Obispo. Government-scale constraints teach you to build for real users in imperfect conditions — not just ideal demos. Working across departments with varied needs and tight budgets is surprisingly good training for the work I do now.
03
TenHours — enterprise engineering for Main Street
Central Coast small businesses don't have a multi-million dollar IT budget, but they have the same operational bottlenecks that enterprise automation solves. TenHours is my answer to that gap: custom AI tools built on your own cloud infrastructure, deployed properly, and actually maintained — not a generic SaaS subscription you'll outgrow in six months.
I founded TenHours to close that gap. We now serve small businesses across SLO County — the same engineering practices that large organizations pay millions for, built on your cloud, maintained by us.
.NET C# Azure AWS OpenAI API Anthropic Claude React SQL Server GitHub IaC

Outside the office

I live on the Central Coast with my family. Most weekends involve hiking the hills behind SLO, swimming at the beach, or camping in the mountains somewhere between here and the redwoods. When I'm not in the big outdoors, I'm playing pickleball or softball, tracking down good coffee and local spirits, or reading something I don't know enough about yet.

The Central Coast is where my home is, where I built my career, and where TenHours operates. That's not a coincidence — I care about this community, and that's part of why I started this business here.

Homes on a bluff above the California Central Coast shoreline

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