How I'd build Lectern
I'd reach for Next.js on the frontend with TypeScript, Postgres for the database, and Next.js API routes for the backend to keep the deployment surface simple. Stripe for payments, Resend for transactional email, and the Anthropic Python SDK to call Claude for the actual deck generation logic. I'd use the pptx library to build PowerPoint exports server-side and host everything on Vercel. Rough estimate: 160-180 hours of build and testing work, which gets you to a launch-ready MVP with three pricing tiers and basic multi-tenant isolation.
Day-by-day plan
Day 1: Provision auth schema, JWT tokens, and a basic multi-tenant model in Postgres. Set up NextAuth.js for user sessions. Day 2: Wire Stripe webhooks and the three pricing tiers (Starter, Pro, Enterprise), add subscription status to the tenant schema. Day 3-4: Build the core deck generation prompt - iterate with Claude on what brief inputs actually produce investor-ready slides, then implement the async job queue for generation requests. Day 5: Scaffold the customer onboarding flow - brief form, deck preview, download trigger. Day 6-7: Build the PowerPoint export using pptx library, including templating so we can A/B test deck styles. Day 8: Add rate limiting, API cost tracking, and error handling for Claude timeouts. Day 9: Build the admin dashboard so you can monitor usage, spot abuse, and refund fraudulent charges. Day 10-11: Deploy to Vercel, set up Postgres backups, configure CDN for file downloads, and bake in monitoring and error tracking with Sentry. Day 12: End-to-end testing, stress test the generation pipeline, and document the runbook.
What's hard about this build
The technical risk sits squarely in the Claude integration. Prompt engineering for consistent, presentation-quality output is an iterative discipline - you'll discover edge cases (vague briefs, 50-word briefs, briefs for markets you don't have training data on) that require prompt rewrites. PowerPoint generation is also notoriously fragile; pptx will generate valid files, but rendering fidelity across PowerPoint versions, Mac vs. Windows, and with embedded images is a dark art. There's also the throughput question: Claude's API has rate limits, and if you hit them during a product launch, you need graceful degradation and a queue. Finally, the legal surface is uncomfortable. If a founder uses your generated deck, loses a meeting because investors smell AI, and demands a refund, you're in murky territory - you need terms of service that disclaim liability without killing the product's appeal.
What's fast because of AI
Claude massively compresses what's usually a week of busywork into a day. Scaffolding the entire Next.js boilerplate - auth flows, database migrations, API routes, error boundaries - takes hours with Claude and the prompt cache eliminates redundant API calls for repetitive tasks. Writing tests for the Stripe webhook logic, the deck generation queue, and the export pipeline would normally be tedious; Claude writes comprehensive test suites in minutes. The prompt engineering itself is faster: I'd draft 5-10 deck generation prompts with Claude, test them against real founder briefs, and iterate in parallel. Edge case enumeration (what breaks when the brief is too short, when it's in a non-English language, when it references a market with no Wikipedia coverage) is where Claude saves the most time - you get a 50-item checklist instead of discovering them in production.
How I'd hand it off
I'd record a Loom of the entire user flow: creating an account, filling a brief, generating a deck, and exporting it. Then a second Loom walking through the admin dashboard. I'd write a runbook covering the most likely production failures (Claude rate limit, PowerPoint export timeout, Stripe webhook duplicate) and how to resolve them. I'd hand over all Linear tickets marked as resolved and leave 30 days of on-call rotation available to you; you call me if the generation queue starts backing up or Stripe alerts spike refunds. I'd transfer the Stripe and Resend API keys, the Vercel deployment credentials, and a PDF checklist of what needs to stay in your browser bookmarks.