u/bjgrosse

My daughter and son (7 and 5) produce literal mountains of artwork. I'm hugely sentimental and love their creativity. Many of their pieces are truly special with delightful back stories.

I can't bring myself to throw it away. I sometimes take photos of it, but this doesn't capture the back story, and also they disappear into my Google photos abyss.

Anyone found a good solution to this? What do you do with your kids creative projects?

My daughter and son (7 and 5) produce literal mountains of artwork. I'm hugely sentimental and love their creativity. Many of their pieces are truly special with delightful back stories.

I can't bring myself to throw it away. I sometimes take photos of it, but this doesn't capture the back story, and also they disappear into my Google photos abyss.

Anyone found a good solution to this? What do you do with your kids creative projects?

I've been doing complimentary tech consulting calls with vibe-coders the last week. And I've noticed something:

• 70-80% of the people I've talked to are overbuilding.

Their apps/platforms are sprawling bigger and bigger: more features, more ideas, etc. And most of them still say, "I just have a few more things I'm going to add before I launch."

It's clear: one huge downside of vibe-coding is that it's so easy to just keep building. Not just easy, but addicting.

After 25 years of building and delivering SaaS products, let me tell you: more is not better. You think it is, but it's not. You don't need more features to succeed.

My calls this week were supposed to center on addressing vibe-coder's technical questions and roadblocks. But mostly I found myself giving the same advice over and over again:

You need to go narrower. You need to find the core value of your product, strip everything else away, and absolutely nail the user journey to receiving that core value. Users will land on your site/app with the assumption that they're going to be disappointed. That's the truth.

Within seconds, you have to show them something that creates a crack in that assumption. They have to react with, "Oh wow, maybe this thing is actually exactly right for me!"

Once they are open to that possibility, then you need to deliver on that promise as quickly as possible. You have a few minutes and a few clicks to do that.

That motion of "land -> overcome doubt -> deliver value" needs to be your sole focus. Strip everything else away, stop building, and start testing that flow with real users. You underestimate how hard it is to get that right, and how many iterations you need to get there. Everything else is a waste of time right now.

If you can't stick the landing on that simple flow, more features only makes it worse.

Once you get the core flow working, then you can look at adding adjacent value, features that will keep them coming back again and again, etc. You can add breadth and depth, but you won't know how to do it effectively until you've nailed the narrow flow.

I've been doing complimentary tech consulting calls with vibe-coders the last week. And I've noticed something:

• 70-80% of the people I've talked to are overbuilding.

Their apps/platforms are sprawling bigger and bigger: more features, more ideas, etc. And most of them still say, "I just have a few more things I'm going to add before I launch."

It's clear: one huge downside of vibe-coding is that it's so easy to just keep building. Not just easy, but addicting.

After 25 years of building and delivering SaaS products, let me tell you: more is not better. You think it is, but it's not. You don't need more features to succeed.

My calls this week were supposed to center on addressing vibe-coder's technical questions and roadblocks. But mostly I found myself giving the same advice over and over again:

You need to go narrower. You need to find the core value of your product, strip everything else away, and absolutely nail the user journey to receiving that core value. Users will land on your site/app with the assumption that they're going to be disappointed. That's the truth.

Within seconds, you have to show them something that creates a crack in that assumption. They have to react with, "Oh wow, maybe this thing is actually exactly right for me!"

Once they are open to that possibility, then you need to deliver on that promise as quickly as possible. You have a few minutes and a few clicks to do that.

That motion of "land -> overcome doubt -> deliver value" needs to be your sole focus. Strip everything else away, stop building, and start testing that flow with real users. You underestimate how hard it is to get that right, and how many iterations you need to get there. Everything else is a waste of time right now.

If you can't stick the landing on that simple flow, more features only makes it worse.

Once you get the core flow working, then you can look at adding adjacent value, features that will keep them coming back again and again, etc. You can add breadth and depth, but you won't know how to do it effectively until you've nailed the narrow flow.

I’m the former CTO of a successful SaaS company in the insurance industry, with long-term enterprise clients including Farmers, State Farm, and New York Life. I have 25 years of experience delivering production software, managing development teams, and, most recently, spearheading AI initiatives, including complex AI agent implementations and a cohesive agentic coding strategy across the development team.

My superpower is helping non-technical founders make technical decisions that align with their business needs and goals. The unlock comes from combining extensive experience in the technical process of software delivery with an comprehensive, ongoing understanding of your business.

The arrangement begins with an onboarding process in which I become deeply familiar with your business, your goals, and the current state of your technology. From there, I’m available to attend regular team meetings and provide support with ad hoc questions and decisions.

Depending on the engagement level, this can range from as little as two calls per month to unlimited, on-demand access.

As a consistent technical partner, I develop an ongoing understanding of your business, your story, and how it is unfolding.

That allows me to offer real-time advice and insight that is closely aligned with your actual needs--and help you avoid the six-figure mistakes and multi-month detours that can seem like the right decisions at the time, simply because no one involved has the full context across both the business and the technical landscape.

The best way to do a quick compatibility check is to jump on a 30-minute call. You tell me about your business and the challenges you’re facing, and I’ll offer some expert input. You’ll be able to tell pretty quickly whether what I have to offer is a good fit for what you’re looking for.

I've been a software engineer for 25 years. I keep seeing evidence that more and more non-coder business people are using tools like lovable, bolt, base44, etc, to just create the software they need for their businesses. Have you tried any of these tools for your business needs? Did you have success? I'm curious what you ran into.

The software industry is undergoing a revolution right now, and I'm curious to see how it's unfolding at the front lines of small businesses.

Have you launched, or are you building, something AI coding tools like Lovable, Replit, Cursor, etc, but are not a software engineer yourself?

I'll jump on a free 30 minute zoom call with you. No sales pitch of any kind. Bring whatever questions, worries, or confusion you've got. I've been shipping production software for 20 years, so chances are I can help with whatever it is.

Why am I doing this? I'm researching the vibe coding space and I want to hear first hand what challenges people are running into. You get some free expert time; I get useful information. I've got nothing to sell (yet).

Drop a comment if you're interested.

(Yes, I know. Free stuff seems sketchy, must be a scam etc. I understand. All I can say is, if you're interested, let's have a call and if it's a scam, come back here and flame me :)

Have you launched, or are you building, a product using AI tools like Cursor, Lovable, etc, but not a software engineer yourself?

I'll jump on a free 30 minute zoom call with you. No sales pitch of any kind. Bring whatever questions, worries, or confusion you've got. I've been shipping production software for 20 years, so chances are I can help with whatever it is.

Why am I doing this? Simple. I'm researching the vibe coding space. I want to hear first hand what challenges people are running into. You get some free expert time; I get useful information. I've got nothing to sell.

Drop a comment if you're interested.

Have you launched, or are you building, a SaaS using AI tools like Cursor, Lovable, etc, but not a software engineer yourself?

I'll jump on a free 30 minute zoom call with you. No sales pitch of any kind. Bring whatever questions, worries, or confusion you've got. I've been shipping production software for 20 years, so chances are I can help with whatever it is.

Why am I doing this? Simple. I'm researching the vibe coding space. I want to hear first hand what challenges people are running into. You get some free expert time; I get useful information. I've got nothing to sell.

Drop a comment or DM if you're interested.

Have you launched, or are you building, a SaaS using AI tools like Cursor, Lovable, etc, but not a software engineer yourself?

I'll jump on a free 30 minute zoom call with you. No sales pitch of any kind. Bring whatever questions, worries, or confusion you've got. I've been shipping production software for 20 years, so chances are I can help with whatever it is.

Why am I doing this? Simple. I'm researching the vibe coding space. I want to hear first hand what challenges people are running into. You get some free expert time; I get useful information. I've got nothing to sell.

Drop a comment if you're interested.

Have you launched, or are you building, a SaaS using AI tools like Cursor, Lovable, etc, but not a software engineer yourself?

I'll jump on a free 30 minute zoom call with you. No sales pitch of any kind. Bring whatever questions, worries, or confusion you've got. I've been shipping production software for 20 years, so chances are I can help with whatever it is.

Why am I doing this? Simple. I'm researching the vibe coding space. I want to hear first hand what challenges people are running into. You get some free expert time; I get useful information. I've got nothing to sell.

Drop a comment or DM if you're interested.

Are you building something with Base44, but not a software engineer yourself?

I'm offering free 30-minute calls. No specific topic needed: bring whatever questions, worries, or confusion you've got. I've been shipping production software for 20 years, so chances are I can help with whatever it is.

Why am I doing this? Simple. I'm researching this space. I want to hear first hand what challenges people are running into. You get some free expert time; I get useful information. I've got nothing to sell.

Drop a comment or DM if you're interested.

Are you building with replit, but not a software engineer yourself?

I'm offering free 30-minute calls. No specific topic needed: bring whatever questions, worries, or confusion you've got. I've been shipping production software for 20 years, so chances are I can help with whatever it is.

Why am I doing this? Simple. I'm researching this space. I want to hear first hand what challenges people are running into. You get some free expert time; I get useful information. I've got nothing to sell.

Drop a comment or DM if you're interested.