Founder Log Week #6 – Slow Week, Clear Lessons

- 3 minutes read - 476 words

🧠 Weekly Overview

This week was difficult. I got distracted by Menuvivo Family comics, social media, and friends and family visits. I felt like I wasn’t making progress and spent too much time on things that didn’t move the product forward.

The Menuvivo Family comic series was a decent experiment, but it took a lot of time and energy for little return. The realization: I need to go back to building the product. Until the MVP is ready, marketing and community building can wait.

Despite the chaos, I still made tangible progress: finalized the recipe API backend, deployed image hosting, got the real data live in production, and started implementing the recipe details screen. Just not as much as I expected.

Also: staying up late kills me. No more late nights. When the go-to-bed alarm rings, I’m done.

🗓️ Daily Execution Summary

Monday – Apr 28

  • Prepped and ran internal AI workshop at 9-5 job (~100 attendees).
  • Issued invoice for pre-sale #4.
  • Created and published quick social post about Menuvivo.

Tuesday – Apr 29

  • Fixed search bugs in RecipeService (ingredient + Polish logic).
  • Wrote additional test cases and troubleshooting.

Wednesday – Apr 30

  • No coding (annual tax return + 9-5 workload).
  • Posted first Menuvivo Family comic.

Thursday – May 1

  • Spent most of the day preparing 7 Menuvivo Family comic episodes.
  • Scheduled social posts through May 7.
  • Quick fix for ingredient search in backend.

Friday – May 2

  • Finalized and tested recipe search logic.
  • Migrated and verified 8 recipes.
  • Set up image hosting on S3 + CloudFront.

Saturday – May 3

  • Generated recipe images with AI.
  • Uploaded and integrated images into YAML + UI.
  • Mixed results, not happy with speed or quality.

Sunday – May 4

  • Finalized UI image display.
  • Started implementation of recipe details screen.
  • Built tag chip component.

🏆 Wins of the Week

  • Finalized recipe search and details API backend.
  • Created draft for recipe tagging system.
  • Image hosting for recipes live in staging and production.
  • Started generating recipe images with AI (manual flow).
  • Production now uses real recipes with hosted images.
  • Built and integrated tag chip component.
  • Menuvivo Family comic manual publishing pipeline created (scheduled posts).
  • 8 recipes fully migrated and working with new structure and visuals.

✍️ Lessons & Reflections

  • Sleep is non-negotiable. No more working after bedtime.
  • Product comes first. Marketing can wait until MVP is real.
  • Comics were fun, but not worth the effort right now.
  • Social engagement is a long game. Focus on delivering value first.
  • I need to always do coding first thing in the morning. Life always ruins “later”.

🎯 Plan for the next week

Main Goal

  • Finalize recipe details screen
  • Test full flow: search → details → cooking mode

Stretch Goals

  • Basic CRUD operations for meal plan
  • UI for manual meal planning (meal times, portions)
  • Basic family configuration

Stretch Goal 2

  • Add more recipes to the DB