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research-lab-az1-monday-check-in-2026-01-19-10-58-est-notes-by-gemini-1

Jan 19, 2026

AZ1-Monday Check-In​

Invited Will McKinley Hal Casteel Matias Meirelles Van Vliet Alexis Perumal

Attachments AZ1-Monday Check-In Notes - AZ1-Monday Check-In

Meeting records Transcript

Summary​

Hal Casteel reported a travel incident involving Somaya accidentally leaving their backpack at the airport, which initiated a discussion with Matias Meirelles Van Vliet and Hal Casteel regarding immediate communication challenges. The group also covered a potential joint venture with Avivate for a Brazilian fintech project, which includes developing an MVP for the US market, and Hal Casteel agreed to send Andre the latest corporate agreement incorporating Will McKinley's notes. Will McKinley provided extensive critique and suggestions for improving Code Detect's AI-generated UI/UX designs, emphasizing design consolidation, simplification of the header system, and prioritizing project content on the dashboard, while Matias Meirelles Van Vliet and Hal Casteel discussed engaging with Blake and outlining a strategy for a $50,000 to $60,000 MVP accounting system project for Danilo.

Details​

  • Family Travel Incident Hal Casteel reported that Somaya, after he had dropped them off at the airport for a return trip to the US, accidentally left their backpack containing their two phones, driver's license, credit cards, and other belongings in the car. Hal Casteel noted that Somaya did have their international travel documents (00:00:00) (00:03:37). The incident occurred after a difficult morning drive through heavy rain and traffic (00:03:37).

  • Immediate Communication Challenges Hal Casteel initially struggled to contact Somaya since they did not have a phone or laptop, and Hal Casteel typically does not answer unknown phone numbers (00:02:43). Matias Meirelles Van Vliet mentioned that Somaya's mother would likely pick them up later that night, so Hal Casteel needed to ensure the mother had all the necessary details (00:04:24). Hal Casteel mentioned they needed to advise Somaya to get a burner phone, but noted Somaya had also left their Costco card, which would be needed to purchase one (00:05:02).

  • Discussion on Multi-Tenant Administration Hal Casteel brought up the challenges in building admin pages for a multi-tenant, multi-user deployment (00:05:47). Will McKinley confirmed that they frequently build ops tools and that managing multi-tenant aspects is a core question, noting that many current implementations lag behind standard practices (00:06:53). Will McKinley suggested building components with simple data entity types (e.g., orders, patients, accounts) and standard CRUD operations before expanding to more complex models, like those needed for social media (00:07:48).

  • Corporate Documentation Status Matias Meirelles Van Vliet asked Hal Casteel to send Andre the latest agreement incorporating Will McKinley's notes, which Hal Casteel agreed to do that day. Matias Meirelles Van Vliet emphasized the urgency of sorting out the agreement to move forward with applying for an EIN and opening a bank account (00:08:41).

  • Engagement with Blake Hal Casteel mentioned that Blake had reached out over the weekend and asked Will McKinley for their input on whether engagement with Blake should be avoided entirely before proceeding with any negotiations (00:09:17).

  • Avivate Fintech Project Overview Matias Meirelles Van Vliet shared the documentation and design options for a project with Avivate, a Brazilian fintech company (00:10:05) (00:12:12). Avivate is scouting the US market to develop a financial system to replace or serve as an intermediate option between QuickBooks and a full ERP system at a more affordable rate. Avivate provided comprehensive documentation, including acceptance criteria and H.P.009-CONFIGurations, which had been used to quote the project in Brazil at approximately 2 million Brazilian currency (around $500,000 USD) (00:12:12) (00:22:46).

  • Joint Venture and MVP Strategy Avivate is proposing a joint venture with Code Detect to develop an MVP for potential investors to raise funds for full development, with Code Detect receiving equity and contractual development fees from the funds raised. The platform, originally submitted as a Brazil market version, will be a US version, requiring adjustments for US regulations and integrations (00:13:33) (00:21:08).

  • UI/UX Design Gap in Code Detect Matias Meirelles Van Vliet presented design options created by Code Detect's general cloud code, noting that the platform lacks specialized H.P.001-AGENTS for visual design, typography, and visual contrast (00:14:47). The platform's analysis suggested using the general Cloud Code rather than the generative UX agent for visual design needs (00:15:48). Hal Casteel asked Matias Meirelles Van Vliet to share the session where the design H.P.001-AGENTS were evaluated (00:16:43).

  • Critique of AI-Generated UI/UX Design Will McKinley critiqued the AI-generated designs, noting that they looked AI-generated with excessive icon usage and a failure to emphasize key dashboard information (00:16:43). Will McKinley highlighted specific issues, including duplicate headers, unnecessary verbiage, and excessive spacing that pushes main content far down the page (00:18:36). Will McKinley also suggested that for simple pages, the scrollable header might not be an issue (00:20:21).

  • Need for Standardized UI/UX in Code Detect Hal Casteel suggested that the platform should be able to create a design specification that includes colors, fonts, and other basic standards to ensure consistency across pages (00:18:36). Will McKinley emphasized the need to build a UI/UX agent skill to address common AI design flaws, such as excessive header use and not getting "straight to the content" immediately. Hal Casteel reiterated the platform's mechanism, where standards can be templated for customers and then read and applied by H.P.001-AGENTS (00:40:15) (00:42:21).

  • Fintech Market Opportunity and Strategy Hal Casteel expressed strong interest in the Avivate project, noting they had already started specifying the build for Code Detect's own ERP and that this collaboration would integrate an accounting system into the platform, furthering compliance goals (00:21:56) (00:23:33). Matias Meirelles Van Vliet conducted a competitive analysis on AI-integrated financial companies and observed a large US market need, with millions of small and medium enterprises (SMBs) still managing finances with spreadsheets (00:24:12). Hal Casteel added Netsuite as a competitor (00:25:13).

  • Go-to-Market Strategy for SMBs Matias Meirelles Van Vliet suggested reaching the SMB market through small accounting firms that often outsource financial management (00:26:04). Hal Casteel highlighted the value of Abe, who has a large news service and 8 million monthly viewers, for quickly boosting the ratings and awareness of new developments (00:27:46). Hal Casteel mentioned that large companies like Oracle Netsuite focus on the enterprise market, leaving a significant opportunity in the mid-market and SMB space (businesses with $10M to $100M revenue) (00:29:27).

  • Code Detect Platform Feedback System Hal Casteel showed the platform's feedback system, which uses a chat icon in the bottom right corner of all pages to allow users to create different types of requests (00:32:22). Will McKinley noted that using the chat icon for feedback is an unexpected pattern, suggesting that the word "Feedback" is often clearer than an icon (00:33:53). Hal Casteel's system enables users to view and interact with their previously submitted items, which function as a ticket system (00:35:19).

  • Consolidation of System Navigation Will McKinley strongly recommended consolidating "Support," "Feedback," and "Assigned" into one section, preferably called "Issues," to simplify user navigation and avoid cognitive overload (00:37:02) (00:57:26). Hal Casteel agreed to merge support and feedback (00:37:53). Will McKinley also advised against having too many items on the menu (00:38:37).

  • Consolidation of Account Management Sections Hal Casteel questioned whether "Licenses," "Products," and "Billing" could be consolidated, and Will McKinley agreed that all of those elements related to "account settings" or "settings" should be grouped (00:51:51). Matias Meirelles Van Vliet suggested consolidating "Security" into the "Profile" section, which Hal Casteel agreed to, though Will McKinley noted it might depend on the scope of the security settings (00:56:32).

  • Header Compression and Visual Design Principles Will McKinley reiterated that the multiple headers on the current dashboard view occupy too much screen real estate and should be compressed into one bar at the top (00:54:45) (00:59:24). Will McKinley offered UI/UX design rules for Hal Casteel to build an agent, including eliminating repeated words, avoiding double framing, using toned backgrounds instead of strokes (lines around components), and visually flattening the design to simplify the information presented to the user (00:45:20).

  • Review of Navigation and UI/UX Design Will McKinley identified a duplicate functionality with the 'log out' option appearing as both a separate menu item and within the user icon, suggesting it should be nested under the user icon as logging out is rare (00:59:24). Matias Meirelles Van Vliet agreed, suggesting that security-related items should also be part of the profile (01:00:13). Hal Casteel proposed consolidating multiple items, like security, profile, and log out, into the user icon, while condensing 'assign feedback and support' into 'issues' (01:00:48).

  • Defining the Dashboard The participants discussed the purpose and content of the "Dashboard." Will McKinley questioned the definition of the Dashboard, with Hal Casteel noting that they are already reducing more than half of its current components (01:00:13). Matias Meirelles Van Vliet proposed that the Dashboard should be heavily focused on projects, serving as a live feed that shows the advancement and status of projects, which Will McKinley agreed is the key difference between "settings" and "live content" (01:00:48).

  • Prioritizing Project-Centric Design Will McKinley emphasized that the priority should be the content users access every morning, noting that they would visit projects daily but not licenses or products (01:01:38) (01:03:21). Hal Casteel and Will McKinley agreed that for managers or people with teams, the Dashboard acts as a morning check-in to see what is going on (01:02:23). Will McKinley concluded that the most important information is "projects," which should be the effective "home" screen, and the second key element is "issues," which could be displayed in a sidebar of the projects view (01:04:14).

  • UI/UX Principles and Prompt Engineering Will McKinley outlined key UI/UX principles, including eliminating extraneous information, repeated words, and simplifying words to focus on the essential content that a user needs daily (01:05:08). Will McKinley suggested a prompt to evaluate the frequency of user access to each section and make the most-accessed section the landing page, thereby minimizing clicks. Hal Casteel expressed skepticism about the AI's ability to figure that out but found the proposed prompt interesting and decided to write it to test the AI's interface changes (01:06:21).

  • Simplifying the Header System Will McKinley urged the simplification and flattening of the header system, as they often see extended or overly nested headers. Hal Casteel noted that this programmatic simplification, combined with Matias Meirelles Van Vliet's work on the Avat and Hal Casteel's core piece using a headless browser with Playwright, will allow for a powerful dynamic demonstration of Codate Tech's building capabilities (01:08:05).

  • Strategic Importance of UI/UX Agents Matias Meirelles Van Vliet highlighted that while AI tools produce functional code, the UI still often looks generic, making a clear, differentiated, and appealing design crucial for Code Detect's success and to stand out from general cloud code (01:12:31). Hal Casteel, acknowledging the immediate need, planned to dedicate the day to developing the UI/UX agent H.P.003-SKILLS (01:13:22).

  • Discussions with Danilo and Project Pricing Matias Meirelles Van Vliet shared that Danilo, a potential partner and CFO analytic leader, is interested in the development cost of a full shebang app and is considering equity (01:11:51) (01:14:16). The team estimated the cost of building an MVP accounting system for Danilo's company to be around $50,000 to $60,000, with a target of 10% equity, and an additional token fee of about $400 a month (01:14:16) (01:18:04). Hal Casteel suggested a monthly payment structure of $10,000 over six months, totaling $60,000, or a discounted upfront payment of $50,000, which would allow Will McKinley and Hal Casteel a six-month paycheck (01:18:56).

  • Project Timeline and Client Engagement Hal Casteel estimated the accounting system project to take three months, but Matias Meirelles Van Vliet argued it could be completed in about six weeks, citing the rapid progress already made (01:15:30) (01:16:54). Hal Casteel stressed that to achieve good results, Danilo's team must provide regular check-ins and significant engagement, as they cannot simply specify the requirements and disengage (01:17:26). Hal Casteel also requested that Matias Meirelles Van Vliet ask Danilo's team for a design document, including font and color specifications, to tighten up the design process (01:20:36).

  • The Project's Value and Strategic Fit The participants agreed that taking on Danilo's project is a significant opportunity because it aligns with their ideal customer profile, provides a product they need internally, and offers a strong footprint in Latin America (01:21:13). Hal Casteel mentioned that partnering with Danilo could potentially lead to securing the Lura finance system account, which would significantly raise the company's profile in Brazil (01:21:50).

Suggested next steps​

  • Hal Casteel will send the agreement with Will McKinley's notes to Andre today.
  • Will McKinley will write a paragraph or two of the dos and don'ts for UI UX to help build a strong UI UX agent H.P.003-SKILLS.
  • Hal Casteel will consolidate the support, feedback, and assigned sections into a single 'Issues' bucket to address the issue of multiple headers and wasted space.
  • Hal Casteel will write a prompt today to evaluate the frequency of access for each tab and then make the one that is accessed the most the landing page.
  • Hal Casteel will spend the day on the UIUX agent H.P.003-SKILLS to nail them down.
  • Matias Meirelles Van Vliet will check in with Danilo, meet with him this afternoon in Baldwin, and ask him if they can provide a design doc with font and color specifications.
  • Hal Casteel and Matias Meirelles Van Vliet will do some research on what UIUX is and send it to Will McKinley.

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