Founder Log #7 – Details Shipped, Pipeline Begun

- 2 minutes read - 408 words

🧠 Weekly Overview

This week I made a strategic pivot. I was planning to start the meal planning functionality, but I realized that without a solid recipe base, planning makes no sense. So I zoomed out, changed direction, and focused on building the recipe ingestion pipeline.

It was the right call.

I finalized the cooking mode screen and pushed it to production. Now users can browse a recipe and follow step-by-step instructions. With that done, I turned fully toward designing and implementing the ingestion pipeline.

There were moments of demotivation, mostly due to lack of sleep and the feeling that I’m not moving fast enough. But looking back, I’m consistently building every day. That momentum matters.

🗓️ Daily Execution Summary

Monday – May 5

  • Finalized founder log, prepared SOP for weekly logs.
  • Started implementing recipe details screen.

Tuesday – May 6

  • Finalized cooking screen and tag components.
  • Cleaned up tag categories and UI.
  • Deployed to staging.

Wednesday – May 7

  • Finalized UX polish for cooking screen.
  • Added CTA buttons to home.
  • Finished testing and deployed to production.

Thursday – May 8

  • Created ADR + spec for recipe ingestion utility.
  • Generated first version of implementation using Aider.

Friday – May 9

  • Worked on recipe ingestion utility PoC with Langchain4j.
  • Debugged model responses and structured output.
  • Started planning image generation flow.

Saturday – May 10

  • Continued tuning AI pipeline prompts and output structure.
  • Finalized ADRs for image specs, metadata, storage, and sizing.

Sunday – May 11

  • Refined ingestion process spec.
  • Started implementing code for ingestion steps.
  • Set up folder structure for ingestion pipeline.

🏆 Wins of the Week

  • ✅ Finalized and shipped recipe details and cooking mode
  • ✅ Started implementation of the recipe ingestion pipeline
  • ✅ Created full ADR + design spec for recipe ingestion
  • ✅ Defined and documented image metadata, sizes, and storage plan
  • ✅ Used Langchain4j with structured output + prompt templates

✍️ Lessons & Reflections

  • Pivoting to ingestion pipeline before planning was the right move.
  • Daily progress compounds. Even when it feels small, it stacks.
  • When you feel stuck, zoom out. The roadmap gives perspective.
  • Bigger challenges feel scary until you start. Then it becomes exciting.
  • Going to bed on time is the #1 productivity habit I need to protect.

🎯 Plan for the next week

Main Goal

  • Finalize ingestion pipeline and ingest 50+ recipes

Stretch Goals

  • Start meal planning functionality:

    • Different meal schedules (3x/day, 4x/day, etc.)
    • Individual plans per family member
    • Manual meal scheduling per day