K. Prasad Rao
I design and build software products — end to end, alone. I hold a BSc in Computer Science and taught myself everything since by shipping. The three builds under KSM × Tech are all mine: the design systems, the code, the copy, the decisions, and the mistakes.
When I was a child, during a hard stretch for my family, a young girl asked me for money while I was eating an ice cream. I did not know what to give her — so I gave her the ice cream. Her face changed, and I felt something I had never felt before. A kind of peace.
I have been chasing that feeling ever since. Everything I build is an attempt to be useful to someone at the exact moment it matters. Not admired — useful. That is the whole reason KSM × Tech exists.
What I build
Book Is Your Friend — a mobile audiobook app that matches readers to AI-narrated book summaries by feeling, not by genre. In Odia, Hindi, and English. This is the build that has to earn. Design system: semantic colour tokens, a five-level elevation scale, motion tokens, Material 3 Expressive, with light and dark schemes. In development.
Mārgadarshak — a stage-aware system for Indian students and parents navigating career decisions. Free. This is the build all of this is for. Design system: a Bauhaus-derived visual identity, deliberately separate from the studio's other builds. In development.
Krishna as Sarathi — a steadying voice for moments when the mind becomes emotionally heavy. Live and in daily use. Seven response modes across 245+ mapped scenarios, with a crisis-safety protocol that overrides everything else.
Build with me
Build with me is the client-services side — websites for small businesses, from a one-page shopfront to a full custom build. It funds the products above.
I price it to say out loud that hosting a site like this can cost nothing, rather than invent a monthly fee to hide behind. Clients own their code, their domain and their accounts outright. That refusal is the same one that governs every build on this site — the pricing is public, including the parts that would earn me more if I kept them quiet.
KSM
KSM is a vow, not a brand. K for family. S for Satya — my father, who spent his working life in honest public service. M for Manga — my mother, who gave me grounding and kindness. The × is the forge, where inherited values and new tools turn together.
I do not chase trends. I craft tools that hold their weight. Read the full meaning →
How I work
Solo. Self-taught. AI-assisted where it genuinely helps, hand-built where it matters. I ship in public — every build on this site is real, running, and mine. I have never held a job. Everything I know, I taught myself by shipping — and everything on this site is real, running, and mine.
Book Is Your Friend is the build that has to earn. Mārgadarshak stays free because of it.
What I take on
Product & interface design — end-to-end product thinking, from research and information architecture through high-fidelity screens and interaction design. Mobile-first, component-driven, built to ship.
Design systems — tokens, components, patterns, and documentation that keep a product visually coherent as it grows. I build systems that other designers and engineers can actually use.
Documentation & technical writing — clear, structured writing for software products. API references, onboarding guides, architecture decisions, and everything that helps a team move without asking the same question twice.
Websites for small businesses — build with me. One-page shopfronts through to custom animated sites, built to load fast on a weak connection. Prices are published, and you own everything at the end.