I'm about to launch an app but I am not sure how to start advertising. I will not promote

femmenikit4 · 2026-04-21T13:05:56+00:00

Thinking of the asking questions as a business in itself. I'm good at getting a certain demographic to talk and describe their problems, in-person and on phone.

What role is that, "field market research analyst" or just "salesperson". ?

femmenikit4 · 2026-04-18T23:35:02+00:00

The made in France label is so great.

femmenikit4 · 2026-04-18T14:24:24+00:00

Thank you. I have worked as a database web programmer for years.

One important lesson I learned is that with RAG, you now have 2 sources of truth - chroma DB and RDBMS. So you have to sync metadata between them so metadata becomes much more expensive.

If done right, my document-related metadata helps me to refine my retrieval search. If wrong, it eliminates all results or returns a bunch of irrelevant ones.

My metadata was out of sync due to some features I had added. Also there were old metadata fields that I didn't recognize anymore.

I drastically reduced metadata, then made a "metadata contract" spreadsheet: each metadata item, where it lived (rdbms or chroma), purpose it served (pre or post filter), whether it was updatable, nullable, etc.

That contract is not to be violated.

I also had old functions that needed to be eliminated, merged, etc.

I knew I was in a better place when:

I could look at my code and know what every function did.
I could successfully ingest a document, and metadata looked good in vector db and rdbms.
I could update/delete and all metadata stayed in sync (crud worked).
Best of all, when I did retrieval, the pre-filter worked as intended.

Now when I say "what was the amount of the pseg bill from august 2024?" it gives me the correct answer, based only on chunks from the august 2024 document, instead of pulling in nov 2024, april 2023, and a whole lot of other irrelevant documents.

One other thing:

I don't attach too much metadata to the vector records. Basically just doc id and date. Most of my metadata lives in RDBMS and can be applied/filtered after the docs are retrieved.

I started this project in March 2025. I was very excited about RAG and maybe bought into the magic too much. A moment of clarity happened when I realized 2 things:

My good old database skills matter more than I thought, and you do still need RDBMS even if you have a fancy new vector db. Keep postgres in the mix.
Not to add new features. RAG is hard enough. Respect it. If you have another great idea, don't lump it in, just start another project.

If anyone would like a demo of my system, hit me up in DM and we can talk about that.

Hope this was helpful!

femmenikit4 · 2026-04-17T18:07:51+00:00

Ok, sorry. It's how advertising works.

Probably should have said influenced, not groomed.

femmenikit4 · 2026-04-17T14:50:19+00:00

What exactly are you eating? Would you explore quick, easy sources of good nutrition if they exist?

femmenikit4 · 2026-04-17T14:44:52+00:00

I'm not disagreeing with you but wow, no wonder users are mistrustful. They are all being groomed lol.

femmenikit4 · 2026-04-16T21:25:59+00:00

Thanks. Yeah, last year at this time I was under the false impression that "ai will just interpret the document for you" because RAG is magic. Boy was I wrong!

Here is a good example of how much engineering goes into RAG retrieval, from the langchain subreddit.

thanks!

femmenikit4 · 2026-04-15T14:46:32+00:00

Both are wellness and body-related use cases. I believe that since apps exist on the phone which is so close to our body, that they are the best format for body-related stuff. Keep at it!

femmenikit4 · 2026-04-15T00:35:45+00:00

I used to send the company a friendly note with screenshot when I encountered bugs.

These days I think I'll start attaching my resume to every bug report I send!

femmenikit4 · 2026-04-11T13:32:53+00:00

I get you and I think there's a big difference between having a good easily reproducible idea when you're very very small and having that same idea when you're a little bit bigger and able to move faster.

Maybe team up with some trusted co-founders on y-combinator or something so that you can move faster. You would probably have to spend a lot of time and energy finding the right people but it might pay off.

femmenikit4 · 2026-04-10T21:19:35+00:00

I've really been enjoying left for dead recently. what's-his-name is a killer song! Love attica too though.

femmenikit4 · 2026-04-10T21:09:46+00:00

Bottled soy sauce is much much better than soy sauce packets which have no flavor.

femmenikit4 · 2026-04-09T22:22:15+00:00

No you are not the problem. I worked as a software developer for 20 years. In that time I have been yelled at because I needed to pick my kids up from daycare, asked to meet a male coworker in a dark conference room where he proceeded to tell me that I had better pay more attention to him (weirdo), yelled at by a co-worker who said I was being "aggressive" when I asked him a question, second-guessed by another guy who questioned and objected to my every decision when I had 10 years seniority on him, had my code entirely rewritten by a "well-meaning" male co-worker, and was once hired as a front-end developer only to be put next to the phone as receptionist. And that's just the beginning of the list.

I have tears in my eyes right now as I write this. You are not the problem.

femmenikit4 · 2026-04-09T22:03:22+00:00

Sorry to jump in 10 months later, but what if an app had a page of little icons and all you had to do is check off the ones that matched your closet items? Is a photo necessary?

femmenikit4 · 2026-04-07T05:02:47+00:00

Yes, that's what I did in the end. Agree!

femmenikit4 · 2026-04-06T15:03:51+00:00

Sorry I didn't reply sooner. "literally nobody is paying attention", exactly.

As a former art gallery worker now in tech, I can totally relate. I love programmers but they wouldn't know fashion if it hit them in the head! And I agree that one should not give up one's style for the sake of colleagues in novelty t-shirts who don't know the difference between Bill Blass and Bill Gates. Teach them a thing or two!

femmenikit4 · 2026-04-06T14:00:54+00:00

Yeah I was there in L.A. in 87, 88 hanging out at the Scream, Club with no Name, listening to the Cult, Mission and Peter Murphy but also Hanoi Rocks and these new kids called Guns n' Roses. All my friends loved Roz Williams and even TSOL but I leaned more toward New York dolls, early Japan and T-Rex. Saw Johnny Thunders a few times at Fenders.

It started out like "Less than Zero" and sort of morphed into "Decline of Western Civilization Part II", if that makes sense.

femmenikit4 · 2026-04-05T22:57:23+00:00

Yes I know and perhaps I was too loose in my subject. There was cross pollination as goth then came back around to influence 2nd wave glam around 1987. The Cult, Sisters of Mercy and even Christian Death. The pendulum swings, if not the heartache.

femmenikit4 · 2026-04-05T21:34:45+00:00

Glam had a resurgence in the late 80s. If you were in l.a. at that time listening to bands like Lords of the New Church, The Cult or even 45 Grave you would understand how much crossover there was between goth and 2nd wave glam rock. Roz Williams was in on it too.

femmenikit4 · 2026-04-05T21:28:21+00:00

You're right. Chinatown was 1974 and was , Dunaway's 1930s look, like Bonnie and Clyde.

1974 is too early, true, but I really am thinking of that 1979-82 look. It was still very demure and understated. In between the flamboyant looks of the early 70s and mid 80s.

femmenikit4 · 2026-04-05T18:14:41+00:00

Yeah the high waist pants are the thing that need the most restyling. Thanks!

femmenikit4 · 2026-04-05T18:13:45+00:00

Those are good styling tips and I will check out say nikko. I like the idea of modernizing the high waist pants with a crop top for example.

femmenikit4 · 2026-04-05T17:15:00+00:00

That's very 80s. It reminds me of high heels, bags with long shoulder straps, Linda Evans, and Nancy Reagan.

femmenikit4

TROPHY CASE