Interrupt Autopilot
Creative Arts G Giacomo C. ♥ 63
Main quest · Case study
Vaultt 
Young talent builds in public and gets hired on proof, not a CV.
I designed and built it from zero for founder Liam Jeffery. Live in three months, then rebuilt, rebranded and shipped to iOS. It has 12.4k users, and I'm still building it with him as fractional CTO.
- Client Liam Jeffery
- 2025 – now
- Live
- Design + build + fractional CTO
By the numbers 2025 – now
12.4k
users on the platform
3months
from kickoff to a live v1
65
database tables
23
server functions
One Flutter codebaseWeb + iOS (App Store beta)Row-level security on every table
01 The problem
Great young talent without a polished CV was invisible to companies. Liam had the vision and the network. He needed a real product to prove the idea, not another landing page, and someone to make every product and technical call, then ship it.
That was my job.
02 The belief
What you can create now matters more than a degree or a CV. Stop writing about your work. Start showing it.
The idea behind Vaultt, as it reads on vaultt.io
03 The journey
Dates are approximate
- Early 2025 Kickoff Liam brings the idea. I design the product and choose the stack.
- ~3 months in v1 goes live StudentVenture launches as an app and a website, built solo on FlutterFlow and Firebase.
- Mid-2025 on Fractional CTO I stay on. New features ship every week while the user base keeps growing.
- 2026 The rebuild A hand-maintained Flutter codebase on Supabase, an admin console and an accelerator intake flow.
- 2026 Vaultt StudentVenture becomes Vaultt, and the iOS app goes into App Store beta.
- Now 12.4k users Still building, together.
04 The rebrand
2025 · StudentVenture 2026 · Vaultt
The platform outgrew its name. StudentVenture is still the initiative behind it, and the product became Vaultt: a home for real work, for anyone who builds.
05 The AI hiring brief
One vague sentence in. A ranked shortlist out.
On the company side, hiring starts with a chat, not a form. The AI asks what a good recruiter would ask, writes the brief, then ranks real people by fit and shows its reasoning.
Vaultt · Find talent AI Why it matters A keyword search finds people who wrote “marketing” on a profile. This finds people whose work shows they can do the job.
06 What I built
Two sides, one platform. Plus everything that runs it.
Talent on one side, companies on the other, and the tools Liam's team uses to run it all. I designed and built every piece.
01 For talent
A portfolio that does the talking.
Films, games, designs, startups: every project lives on one profile. A build-in-public feed, feedback and kudos keep people coming back.
- Portfolios
- Showcase feed
- Projects
- Events
- Referrals
02 Challenges
Build something. Get seen for it.
Sponsored challenges give people a reason to start, a deadline to finish and a stage for the result. Every entry becomes a portfolio project, with judges, winners and prizes.
- Film
- Music
- Games
- Front end
- Community
03 For companies
Hire on a task, not a CV.
Companies post jobs, projects and events. Candidates apply by doing a real task, and the company rates the work before anyone gets hired. Only verified companies get in, and every post has its own analytics.
- Task-based hiring
- Applicant management
- Analytics
- Verified onboarding
04 Admin console
The control room.
A Next.js console for the team: people, verification, content, applications, analytics and live settings. The feed's ranking rules are data, so the team can retune the Showcase without shipping an app update.
- Next.js
- Retention cohorts
- Moderation
- Feed rules
05 Accelerator intake
Apply once. Get an account.
The application form for the StudentVenture accelerator. Submitting it creates a real Vaultt account and an application the team reviews in the console. Nobody copies anything between tools.
- Next.js
- One submit, two records
- Reviewed in the console
06 iOS app
Vaultt, in your pocket.
The same Flutter codebase ships to iPhone. Upload work, take on challenges and connect with people wherever you are. Now in App Store beta.
Download on theApp Store (Beta)
07 The pitch
Judged on your work, not the words on a page.
A CV or LinkedIn tells them
- The university you went to
- Your job titles and dates
- A list of buzzwords and adjectives
- What you say you can do
Your Vaultt shows
- Projects, builds and startupsThe real work you have shipped.
- Real resultsProof behind every claim.
- Tools in practiceShown in the work, not listed.
- Backed by othersPeers and employers vouch for it.
My job was to make the right column real: profiles that hold the work, and search that reads it.
08 Under the hood
Built for speed first. Then rebuilt to last.
v1 went live in three months on FlutterFlow and Firebase. As it grew, I moved it to a hand-maintained Flutter codebase on Supabase: 65 tables, 23 server functions and row-level security on every table.
v1 · 2025
FlutterFlowFirebaseCloud Functions
Now
Flutter, by handSupabase PostgresRow-level securityEdge functionsNext.jsOpenAI
09 How we work
Liam and I make the calls. AI does the typing.
AI made the code free. It didn't make the decisions free. That's the part I'm there for, as Liam's fractional CTO.
- 01 The decisions are ours.
Liam owns the vision. I own the product and technical calls. AI writes the code to my spec, and I decide what ships.
- 02 We ship every week.
Small releases in front of real users, then we look at what people actually do with them.
- 03 One head across the whole system.
Design, app, database, AI and console. Nothing falls between teams, because there is only one of me.
A call I'm proud of
The feed was burying new work.
New projects kept sinking under older ones in the Showcase. The obvious fix was a bigger boost for new work, but tripling it barely moved them.
The real lever was how the feed draws from the scores, not the scores themselves. One change there fixed it. Every feed rule now lives in the admin console, so the team can retune it without an app update.
A call about trust
Search can find people. It can't list them.
People search is sign-in only and capped, with no paging. You can find the person you mean, but nobody can scrape the talent on Vaultt.
10 In Liam's words
Working with Yanis has been game-changing for the success of StudentVenture. From design to development, his quick understanding and execution have turned ideas into reality within months. It's truly unbelievable what he can accomplish. Thanks to him, StudentVenture is now both an app and a website. His communication, transparency, honesty, and exceptional talent make him the perfect addition to any team looking to build a product.
Liam JefferyFounder, Vaultt (formerly StudentVenture)
LinkedIn
11 See it live
Go and look. It's all real.
Want something like this built? I decide, AI types. You own the code. Fixed price.