MORALES LABS

Morales Labs — a founder-led product studio

Useful ideas,engineered

Two apps are in testing now: SalsaCoach, for salsa dancers who want to find the 1, and TalkEstimate, for solo contractors who want to price a job before they leave the driveway. Neither is in a store yet. Here is what each one is, what you can do with it today, and what is still missing.

See SalsaCoach See TalkEstimate All projects

The two main products

In testing now, with honest statuses

Private beta · in developmentMobile App

SalsaCoach

Hear the music. Own the count.

Who it is for. Salsa dancers who want to find the 1 and stay on time, from first classes to social dancing.

The problem. Most dancers practice timing to a click or a counting voice, then lose the 1 as soon as a real band plays.

What it does. A guided path takes away one piece of help at a time: count with the voice, count without it, fill in a missing count, then hold the time alone. The app works offline and keeps your practice on your phone.

What you can do today

Not available today: the Android app, a store listing or an iPhone version.

Private beta, in development. SalsaCoach is in private testing and is not available to download. Its Android release candidates have been tested on a real phone (a Samsung Galaxy S25) as well as on emulators. The app's band audio isn't cleared for public release yet, so SalsaCoach stays in private testing. There is no release date, and an iPhone version is planned but has no date either.

Join the invite list See how it works Full details
SalsaCoach on Android, Tap the One: a round at 180 BPM with a large ONE button and a Play button.
Tap the One: tap on beat 1
SalsaCoach on Android, Practice with dancers: two dancers on a floor with the footwork for count 1, labelled generated motion, not motion capture.
Practice with dancers
SalsaCoach on Android, Learn tab: short guides including How to hear the 1 and On1 and On2 in this app.
Short guides to the count

Real screenshots of Android release-candidate builds (RC1 to RC3), captured on an emulator, not a phone. English, guest data, unedited.

Early access · private testingMobile App

TalkEstimate

Talk the job. Get a priced estimate your customer can approve.

Who it is for. Solo contractors and small trade businesses: handymen, painters, repair and remodel crews.

The problem. Solo contractors price jobs in their head between site visits, then lose evenings rebuilding those numbers into paperwork.

What it does. Describe the job once. The app lists the work it heard, you check it, and every dollar comes from your own price list. Customers approve from a simple link, and what they approve is locked. Extra work goes through a change order the customer approves before it is done, and the invoice is built from what was approved.

What you can do today

  • Join the waitlist on talkestimate.com to hear when more contractors can try it. Join the waitlist
  • See how it works: the TalkEstimate site walks through record, review, price and send, in English and Spanish. See how it works
  • Customers approve an estimate on talkestimate.com/p/. That page only opens from a link a contractor sends, so on its own it shows a "link isn't available" message. Customer approval page

Not available today: a download, a pilot slot or an iPhone version.

Early access, private testing. TalkEstimate is in private testing on Android and is not available in any app store yet. A small pilot with a few contractors is planned once testing finishes; there is no public sign-up date. The waitlist on talkestimate.com is open.

Join the waitlist See how it works Full details
TalkEstimate on an Android test phone: a sent estimate with a door installation and shelf mounting, a note that it is locked and changes go through a change order, and Make a change order and Share it again buttons.
A sent estimate is locked
TalkEstimate on an Android test phone, Change Order screen: a prompt to say what changed on the job and a large record button.
Extra work: record a change order
The customer approval page after approving: carpentry and general work lines, a total of $210.00 and a green Approved confirmation.
The customer approves from a link

Real screenshots from a Samsung Galaxy S25 test phone, pilot build, September 26, 2026. All data is fictional test data. They show the build as tested; features still being built are not shown.

Also from the studio: two kits on sale today

All projects →

Business systems for solo operators, sold on Etsy and Gumroad. They are smaller than the apps above and they are a different kind of product: files and guides, not software you install.

Live Product

WhiskLedger

A connected business system for solo home bakers.

WhiskLedger Starter is available on Etsy for $24. WhiskLedger Pro is available on Gumroad for $69.

Starter on Etsy Pro on Gumroad
Live Product

XPIRL

A guided first-client operating system for new video creators.

XPIRL Starter is available on Etsy for $29. XPIRL Complete is available on Gumroad for $99.

Starter on Etsy Complete on Gumroad
All projects →
Pilot Prep

StoreVoice AI

Reviews and support messages, turned into evidence-linked findings.

AI Product

The Workbench collects small tools that are still being prepared. None is on sale yet.

How Morales Labs builds

The same discipline, every product

Find a real problem

Every product starts with work someone actually struggles with — pricing a cake, quoting a job, finding the one.

Engineer the system

Not a template, a system: parts that connect, so one entry does many jobs.

Test it on real work

Pilots, betas, and validation prototypes before anything is called finished.

Ship what survives

The strongest ideas are released with honest statuses and documented limits.

More projects

Release Review

SitterStack

Business and client management for independent pet sitters.

Digital Business System
Pilot Prototype

BriefShield AI

Scattered client messages, converted into an evidence-backed brief.

AI Product
Portfolio Project

FaroQuant

Local-first, bilingual portfolio analytics and scenario exploration.

Finance Software
Experimental

15/7: Orison Terminal

A terminal-driven psychological mystery you play by typing.

Experimental Game
Carlos Morales Jr., founder of Morales Labs

The builder

Built by Morales.

Carlos Morales Jr. is a Puerto Rican electrical engineer and product builder (M.S. Finance candidate, expected December 2026). Morales Labs is where his work ships: business systems for real side hustles, apps for people who work with their hands, rhythm tools that actually sound like the band, and AI products that show their evidence.

He writes down what actually happens while building these — including the parts that fail — at Carlos Builds.

More about Carlos and the studio →

Writing

All posts on Carlos Builds →

Carlos Builds is where Carlos Morales Jr. writes about the work — the products, the experiments, the numbers that came back zero, and what he changed his mind about.

The Clave Is Silent on the One

Why SalsaCoach exists, and what happened the first night it ran on a real phone — including the two bugs nobody was looking for.

2026-09-17Read on Carlos Builds →

Start here

I build a lot of things. I decided to start keeping receipts.

2026-09-15Read on Carlos Builds →

Building something similar? Curious about a pilot?

The studio door is open for collaborations, beta testers, and good questions.

Get in touch