Jan 2025 – Present · 1 yr 2 mos

• I founded Cartique to solve a specific gap I noticed in the fantasy map-making space.
• The Problem: Existing tools like Inkarnate and Dungeon Draft are powerful but have steep learning curves - users spend days learning the software before creating anything meaningful. This created a barrier for casual creators who just wanted to quickly bring their fantasy worlds to life.
• My Approach: I validated this was a real problem by analyzing competitor reviews and looking at similar products in the games category but also across adjacent sectors like creativity and productivity tools. A lot of own product intuition was involved here as I wanted something like Cartique for myself too!
• The Solution: I built Cartique from scratch (23k+ lines of React/TypeScript) with three core principles:
• 1. Instant gratification - Users can start creating within 30 seconds, no tutorials needed
• 2. Performance as a feature - Optimized for 60fps canvas performance so maps feel alive and responsive, not laggy
• 3. Starter templates - Pre-built foundations so users can modify rather than start from blank canvas
• The Impact:
• 1. Grew to 500+ users across 29 countries organically through X and LinkedIn
• 2. 4min 5sec average session duration - users were genuinely engaged, not bouncing
• 3. Validated there's a real market for "casual creativity tools" - planning Steam launch with $20k month-1 revenue target
• It's currently available in early access at cartique.deeepsig.me, and I'm iterating based on user feedback every week. The technical deep-dive is on my site at deeepsig.me/cartique if you're curious about the architecture decisions.