Saad Malik

Founder, Cerebrix Tech. Remote engineering team building Shopify stores, web & mobile apps and AI tools for growing brands.

[Saad Malik @Saad_Cerebrix]

Hi @X , I'm Saad.

I run Cerebrix, a small remote team. We build websites, Shopify stores, web apps and AI tools for businesses that have outgrown their first site.

20+ projects shipped so far: DTC apparel and beauty brands, a real estate home-search platform, construction operations software, a trading card marketplace.

Here I'll share what we build, what breaks, and what we learn fixing it.

If you run a store or brand, what's the one thing on your site you keep meaning to fix?

[Saad Malik @Saad_Cerebrix]

Renting is fine until the landlord changes the terms. For a small product I think the practical version is keeping the parts you can’t afford to lose, like your data and your prompts, portable, so switching providers doesn’t mean starting over. Do you build Homy with that in mind, or is that a problem for later?

[Saad Malik @Saad_Cerebrix]

@steveruizok Offline plus real-time multiplayer is the hardest pair to get right, since two people can edit the same page while one of them has no signal. How are you handling conflicts when the offline person reconnects?

[Saad Malik @Saad_Cerebrix]

@pmitu Producing got cheap, so everyone’s page looks fine now, and that makes the page itself a weaker signal. What did your first 10 customers have in common?

[Saad Malik @Saad_Cerebrix]

@ericdegaardt A tab that renames itself to ChatGPTWork is either a glitch or a leak. Did the one-signup landing page get any more since the first?

[Saad Malik @Saad_Cerebrix]

A small shop’s homepage has about 5 seconds to answer three questions:

What do you sell?
Is it for me?
How do I buy it?
If a stranger can’t answer all three without scrolling, the fancy design doesn’t matter.
Open your homepage on your phone right now. Which of the three is missing?

[Saad Malik @Saad_Cerebrix]

That’s fair, and it changes things. If the image has to come before the sale, one option is to show a fast low-detail preview straight away and let the full render replace it when it’s ready, so the wait feels shorter. Another is generating a few likely designs in advance for the popular products. Is the long wait on every product, or mostly custom ones?

[Saad Malik @Saad_Cerebrix]

@theandreboso The bookmark folder is where good intentions go to die. Do you have a rule for what earns a spot in the top 1%, or is it gut feel?

[Saad Malik @Saad_Cerebrix]

@denisyurchak Sending it a video instead of typing the numbers is the smart bit, since the logging effort is what usually kills tracking. How does R2 decide when to act on its own and when to check with you first?

[Saad Malik @Saad_Cerebrix]

@thejustinwelsh The gap exists, but so does the risk the employer is carrying. When you work for yourself, you keep the gap and take the volatility with it. Which of the two surprised you more in your first year?

[Saad Malik @Saad_Cerebrix]

@trpatchwork Beginner kits are a smart idea, since the first project decides whether someone keeps sewing. Do most buyers get these as gifts for kids, or for themselves?

[Saad Malik @Saad_Cerebrix]

@harpie38 That mustard colour with the open lattice stitch looks really warm. Is it a pattern you designed, or do you adapt existing ones?

[Saad Malik @Saad_Cerebrix]

@ericdegaardt The first signup is the one that proves a stranger found it. Do you know where they came from, or was it someone you already knew?

[Saad Malik @Saad_Cerebrix]

A hearing aid just did something engineers have chased for decades: picking out one voice in a loud room.

Phonak says Roger On Sphere runs a neural network on the device in real time, with a 3 dB signal-to-noise gain over its predecessor.

The bigger point: tasks we filed under “needs human judgment” keep moving onto chips. What’s yours?

[Saad Malik @Saad_Cerebrix]

Anyone can get a website online in an afternoon now. Most of them still lose customers, and not because they look bad.

Lately I’ve been going through small business websites on my phone, the way a customer would. The same things keep showing up:

→ The first screen has photos but no headline and no “Shop now” or “Book” button

→ The logo or business name is missing from the header

→ Products listed one per row, with no reviews and no “Add to basket”

→ Template text still on the page, like “lorem ipsum” or a placeholder name

→ Treatments or services listed as plain text, with no photos and nothing to click

None of these are design problems. They are “what should the visitor do next?” problems.

A website doesn’t need to be clever. It needs to make the next step obvious.
Before your next redesign, open your site on your phone and ask: in 5 seconds, can a stranger tell what you do and what to click?

If not, that’s the first fix.

What’s the first thing you’d fix on your own site?

[Saad Malik @Saad_Cerebrix]

@NaivaidyaY66600 Retention is also where product details show up. Slow load times and confusing onboarding quietly kill week-two return rates, long before anyone says “no PMF.”

[Saad Malik @Saad_Cerebrix]

@jackfriks The images are the small part. The bigger point is that agents inherit whatever you’re logged into. A separate Chrome profile for the agent, with only the accounts you want it to use, is worth setting up.

[Saad Malik @Saad_Cerebrix]

@david_attisaas The agency-managed clippers part is interesting. Are you tracking which creators actually drive sign-ups, or just views?

[Saad Malik @Saad_Cerebrix]

@MaxHirsch13 Honest question: does the app make going over feel worse or better? Seems like the hard part of tracking is not quitting after a bad day.

[Saad Malik @Saad_Cerebrix]

@MaxHirsch13 Do you switch models by task, or stick to one for a whole build? I’ve found the bigger difference is usually how you hand work off between sessions, more than which model it is.