Chris | Fractional CTO

Fractional CTO & founder. Building in public, sharing successes and misses. Let's talk about AI, entrepreneurship, and scaling tech products.

[Chris | Fractional CTO @FractionalChris]

🧭LeanCompass #BuildInPublic Day 8

🚀 𝐋𝐚𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐝 🧭 https://t.co/XHgcfhz1kC !

🤔 Unsure about your startup idea?

Let 🧭 LeanCompass AI analyze it, give feedback, and suggest next steps!
Example: https://t.co/PubwFakrME

🤐 Free & confidentiality assured !

[Chris | Fractional CTO @FractionalChris]

What's the best AI infra for you?

- API: Quick & easy but costly and no control
- Inference: Still easy, cheaper, but fewer models
- Hosted: More Control, but tied to cloud vendor
- Self-hosted: Total autonomy with high overhead

Full breakdown: https://t.co/i8nW51b53Q

[Chris | Fractional CTO @FractionalChris]

🧭 https://t.co/2fGv3191wp #BuildInPublic Day 16 & 17

🐞 Wanted to fix a data sync bug ...
🔀 ... ended up redoing whole state management.

🎓 Lessons: Bug fixed, for massive effort & side-effects. Underestimated it. 😬

⏩ Next: User outreach & feedback. Try it & let me know!

[Chris | Fractional CTO @FractionalChris]

🧭 https://t.co/2fGv3191wp #BuildInPublic Day 14 & 15

💬 Chat with the AI mentor about analysis results
🔎 Automatic analysis after generating a canvas

🎓 Lessons: Claude sucks at UI, lots of lines & dead space

⏩ Next: Gather user feedback. Advanced access control & sharing

[Chris | Fractional CTO @FractionalChris]

🧭 https://t.co/2fGv3191wp #BuildInPublic Day 13

📊 Created always-visible analysis sidebar
💬 Chat with AI about analysis items (ongoing)

🎓 Lessons: Vercel AI SDK is very handy!

⏩ Next: Analysis AI chat testing and polish

[Chris | Fractional CTO @FractionalChris]

🧭 https://t.co/2fGv318tGR #BuildInPublic Day 11 & 12

🌟 Reworked page metadata for clarity
✉️ Set up Brevo for sending emails
🗃️ Structured analysis data for future processing

🎓 Lessons: Google Analytics is complex. 😵

⏩ Next: Sidebar UI to make analysis always visible.

[Chris | Fractional CTO @FractionalChris]

🧭 https://t.co/2fGv3191wp #BuildInPublic Day 10

🧐 Analytics to better understand user needs
💬 Monitor keywords on Reddit, respond to relevant posts

🎓 Lessons: F5Bot is great for tracking Reddit!

⏩ Next: Set meta tags & text as startup coach/planner rather than validator.

[Chris | Fractional CTO @FractionalChris]

🧭 https://t.co/2fGv318tGR #BuildInPublic Day 9

🤗 On-boarding improvements (deep linking, copy canvas)
🧠 Prompt improvements for more actionable analysis
👋 Outreach on Reddit to build user base

🎓 Lessons: Figured out database migration. Found promising Reddit keywords.

[Chris | Fractional CTO @FractionalChris]

🧭LeanCompass #BuildInPublic Day 7

🦋 UI de-uglification
🧐 End to end testing
🧹 Cleanup, so much cleanup

🎓 Learned: Taking a close and critical look, it's astonishing how many little issues you find! 🔍

⏩ Next up: Prompt optimization

[Chris | Fractional CTO @FractionalChris]

@david_attisaas Automated end to end tests are great for staying sane through that.
Unless you're doing highly specific OS interactions you don't need to test on a real phone, and running the whole test suite at the click of a button is 🧘‍♂️

[Chris | Fractional CTO @FractionalChris]

🧭LeanCompass #BuildInPublic Day 6

🤖 AI integrated:
✍️ Generate canvases from text description
🏅 Evaluate canvases w/ recommendations

🎓 Lessons: Claude Code generates decent first-time prompts but isn't great at refining.

⏩ Tidying & loose ends. Lots.

[Chris | Fractional CTO @FractionalChris]

🧭LeanCompass #BuildInPublic Day 5
(been quiet, vacation)

🔎 Lots more e2e testing and🐞squashing.
✨ Core is stable, ready for AI integration 🎉

🎓 Automated e2e tests:🩸to write, but💎for confidence in the app.

⏩Next up: AI integration.

[Chris | Fractional CTO @FractionalChris]

@icanvardar I've used it for landing pages and clickable prototypes (gets there faster than Figma). 🏃‍♂️

Wouldn't build anything serious with it though. 😬

[Chris | Fractional CTO @FractionalChris]

@david_attisaas Had a guy once offer me LinkedIn brand management.

He got like 5 likes for each of his own posts. 😂

[Chris | Fractional CTO @FractionalChris]

@david_attisaas The guy's full of 💩, but isn't it time to move on at some point?

[Chris | Fractional CTO @FractionalChris]

🧭LeanCompass #BuildInPublic Day 4

🗑️ Ability to delete canvases.
🕵️ Specified & partially implemented thorough end-to-end tests.
🐞 Found and fixed several loading/routing bugs.

🎓 Lesson: Concurrency around saving and loading is tricky.

⏩Next up: More testing & stability.

[Chris | Fractional CTO @FractionalChris]

🧭LeanCompass #BuildInPublic Day 3

🔢 Multi-canvas support & switcher
🔗 Shareable links, public/private canvases

😵 Claude prefers new API endpoints to refactoring existing ones.
🎓 Lesson: Plan endpoints and logic in detail before implementing.

⏩Next up: Browsing & search.

[Chris | Fractional CTO @FractionalChris]

@0xTyllen Not sure about the $5 for 5 price point, but if you're looking to offer higher value advice like architecture planning I'll be happy to help!

[Chris | Fractional CTO @FractionalChris]

🧭LeanCompass #BuildInPublic Day 2

🔑 Added user accounts and Google login.

😵 Spent a lot of time on overly complex header logic.
🎓 Lesson learned: Tell Claude Code more clearly how to organize the code.

⏩Next up: Multiple canvases per user.

[Chris | Fractional CTO @FractionalChris]

@To_Me_Digital 📝 Notion for medium term roadmap.
🤖 https://t.co/Vqcgs2TTmq for the next few development tasks.
📆 Calendar tasks for other stuff that needs to get done.