From helping a friend overcome analysis paralysis to building a world-leading creative studio that tied with BlockWorks as the best on earth.
The Roots Run Deep
The story of Athion connects to the very origins of Minecraft creativity itself. Before creative mode was even a feature in the game, pwego-insomnia and Mithrintia were pioneering the concept - building the tools and workflows that would later inspire Markus Persson to bake creative mode directly into Minecraft. PlotMe, their plot management system, let users segment and control their own sections of a server without running their own infrastructure. This was revolutionary.
From BlockWorks to Athion
I cut my teeth helping bootstrap BlockWorks, building and operating their infrastructure. I learned what it took to run a world-class creative operation at scale. But the Athion story started differently - with a friend stuck in analysis paralysis.
My friend had Athion.net but was getting caught up in the details, trying to get everything perfect before launching. Days away from walking away to find something else to do with my time, his friend Lauren made a suggestion: hand the keys over to me.
I had already done the technical groundwork - replacing the problematic Athion Plots codebase with PlotSquared, the superior successor to PlotMe. The foundation was solid. What it needed was someone willing to just go.
Two Weeks to Profitable
Within about two weeks of taking the keys, Athion was cranking out commissions. It was a complete transformation - from a stagnant disappointment to a thriving, profitable business venture. But we didn't just survive. We became world leaders.
"What started as helping a paralyzed friend turned into something that shaped an entire industry."
Competing with Giants
The same BlockWorks I had helped build infrastructure for? We went head-to-head with them in what became a battle of behemoths. And we tied for the lead as the best creative team on earth.
Our tools didn't just serve Athion - they drove creation on ALL build teams and creative content creators across the entire ecosystem.
The Workflow That Scaled
We built something special at Athion. Using our game servers as training grounds, we developed homegrown talent with all of our tools and highly skilled infrastructure-as-code work. Tight, secure deployments that only ever improved, never regressed.
Once people graduated from the training servers, they entered a self-guided workflow managed loosely with Kanban and Trello. The result? A ludicrous throughput of 17 projects per month for long stretches, serving clients around the globe.
At our peak, up to 50 people were developing simultaneously. All remote. Everyone could check in when fresh and check out when tired. No micromanagement.
Insulating Everyone from the Worst Parts
We paid contractors out of pocket, insulating creative individuals from all the risk and stress of dealing with clients - the buzz-kill, life-sucking moments that drain creative energy.
Conversely, we protected clients from having to vet and herd their own army of cats. They got results without the management overhead. Everyone won.
A Legacy That Endures
Athion is directly responsible for many of the open source jobs that drive code development for what became a multi-billion dollar Microsoft property. In 2026, it's still going - a 13-year legacy and counting.