Marc van Neerven

Independent Software Business Consultant

Fractional CTO 💡 Top Startups Voice⚡ Helping startups make better SaaS

You’ve got vision.

I help you turn it into something that actually ships, scalable, beautiful, and built to last.

As a Fractional CTO, I help founders and leadership teams:

Turn strategy into execution: translating boardroom vision into working code and real traction.

Build lean, high-performing tech teams: in-house, remote, or hybrid, with just the right balance of structure and speed.

Adopt AI the right way: embedding an AI mindset into products, workflows, and decision-making before it’s too late.

Create SaaS that sells itself: through a Product-Led Growth approach that puts value before friction.

Design for humans, build for scale: applying design thinking, solid architecture, and open-web standards to grow sustainably.

My work is transformational: when I leave, your company keeps moving faster, smarter, and with more clarity than before.

I’m not a slide-deck strategist. I still code, design, and build proof-of-concepts myself, focusing (and advocating for) the Open Web, and native cloud to prove what’s possible.

You want your SaaS to grow leaner, smarter, and more human.
Let’s build it.

Startup Expert

Writing blogs about the life of a CTO at Startups and Scaleups. 

Has the world gone mad? 🤯

I just read Paul Hebert's deep dive on the Shadcn radio button ¹.

It’s thoughtful. Detailed. Carefully engineered.

And it perfectly illustrates the problem.

We are writing React components, layering abstractions, wiring state machines, and debating micro-patterns…
…to recreate something the browser does natively (and very well).

What a radio button should be:

<input type="radio" name="beverage" value="coffee" />

That’s it.

Accessible. Keyboard-navigable. Screen-reader compatible. Form-compatible. Zero JS required.

And yet the modern stack says:
- Hide the native control
- Rebuild it with divs and spans
- Reimplement focus logic
- Synchronize state with React
- Hope accessibility survives the refactor

All to achieve… styling.

But styling is not a JavaScript concern.

Styling should come from your Design System, or at least from CSS that lives in a shared asset and is cached separately.

And styling radio buttons has long been extremely easy with pure CSS.

The deeper issue isn’t Shadcn however.
It’s that we’ve normalized rebuilding HTML in JavaScript.

When your design system requires a component layer to render a radio button, something fundamental shifted.

Not everything that looks modern is progress.

Sometimes the most radical move in 2026 is to trust the platform again.

The browser ships a radio button.
Maybe we should start there.

Article in the comments.

¹ Shadcn components have become a sort of automatic goto for LLM agents - together with React and Tailwind 😔...

#puredesignsystem #webstandards #shadcn

Fractional CTO 🚀 AI Mind, SaaS Soul, Human Heart

full://stack.founder/Building=The_Startupverse&role=CEO=true&company=RadHash

Lorde Astor West is a technology entrepreneur, systems architect, and founder building the infrastructure layer beneath the next generation of software companies. She is the Founder and CEO of RadHash, an AI-native operating system designed to eliminate the "messy middle" that quietly kills most startups between MVP and scale.

With more than two decades in software, Lorde has led or contributed to hundreds of production systems across industries including fintech, payments, healthcare, marketplaces, media, logistics, and regulated data environments. Her work focuses on a single, persistent problem: why most software fails after early traction—and how to design systems that survive real-world growth.

Lorde is known for seeing structural failure modes early. Long before “vibe coding,” no-code sprawl, and AI wrappers became mainstream, she identified the invisible cliff where startups lose eligibility for scale, capital, and exits due to fragile architecture. RadHash was built to address that moment directly—shipping the majority of a company’s production stack on day one, with rules legible to both humans and machines.

Her approach sits at the intersection of architecture, economics, and human judgment. Rather than chasing trends, she builds foundations: predictable systems, composable infrastructure, and software that can be safely extended by AI without collapsing under its own weight. Today, RadHash supports pilots across dozens of industries and countries, serving founders who are rebuilding real companies—not demos.

Beyond RadHash, Lorde is building a broader ecosystem focused on founder durability: vertical operating systems, embedded payments and financial products, AI trained on real operator behavior, and an on-demand fractional workforce designed for early-stage execution. Each business is autonomous, but designed to interoperate—mirroring how resilient systems work in the real world.

Lorde is also a vocal critic of fast-fashion software, performative metrics, and narratives that mistake speed for progress. She writes and speaks candidly about power dynamics in venture, the myth of “too early,” and why most startup failures are decided long before the market ever weighs in.

At her core, she is a builder. She believes software should last, founders should own their foundations, and technology should reduce risk—not disguise it.

Her long-term ambition: to reset how companies are built, financed, and scaled—by making durable infrastructure the default instead of the exception.

Lorde Astor West

Lorde Astor West🍀

Operator @ RadHash 🤘🏻 the Agentic OS

Wolf pack.  

Marianne Kaiser 🧶🐈 Creator and Chief
Elena Lunt 🦝 - Feral Marketing Prophet 🦝
Kayla McGuire - Just breathe 🧘🏻‍♀️
Jaye Yaple - The Sonic Empress of Soap🧼
Amy Schmidt - Ride or Die hide the bodies 
Kseniia Riabova 🐱  - Baby's got backend. 👩🏻‍💻
Natalie Charles, PMP - Trigger🔫 happy
Ela Shapira - Blowing 💣💥 up the patriarchy 
😎 Miglena G. - 💸Funding the female future
Michelle Howard - Mad scientista 🧪🥼 inventress extraordinaire 
Crystal Stabley🎡 - ✨🌟🎆🎇💖
Jessica Norris - "I'm here for her comments" 🍿
Gemma Rodgers - Where ya been girrrrrrl 🔍
Allison Rossi 🦄 - Strawberry with 2 rr's 
Natalie Hussey - Oh? Was I being ✌🏼cringe ✌🏼 Whoops 💅🏼.
Joey Ellis 💐 Ellis - Just doing it anyway 💁🏻‍♀️
Melissa Pearson Goodwin - 🏗 🌷
Kelly Voith - Secret Agent Girl 🕵🏻‍♀️
Vanessa Culver - Pay up! 💳 
Laura Anderson Riley 🧚🏻‍♀️ Fairy tech goddess
Jade Wilson - She's Elite
Brooke Sweedar - "Her Baddness" if your nasty
Karen Forde - 🚀 Lift Off! 
Fatou Samb - Builders go'n build
Briana Washington, MA - Farm fam 🐔🐮
Zoya Lehrer - 🏈🏏🏐🏑🏓🏌🏻‍♀️🥍🤾🏻‍♂️🥎🤾🏻‍♀️⛹🏻‍♂️⛹🏻‍♀️🏌🏻‍♂️📆

Anyone I missed - Add yourself to the comments. I'll sling shot you up in the post.

New trend.... #SelfieFriday. Let's keep it business casual. "Optimizing" for #FlashbackFriday

Founder/CEO, RadHash | f*ck “Fast-fashion SaaS” | build durable apps with Hash OSX the self-hosted operating layer for agentic businesses | Raising $5M

I’m sick of tech leaders laying of thousands they acquired during the hoard hiring run and calling it AI layoffs while running operations and legacy tech stacks that fall apart the second AI touches them.

Business Transformation Consultant- A focus on pragmatic use of AI and how it impacts culture, workflows and business structure | Author | Keynote Speaker | Trainer | 4 x LinkedIn #1 Voice in Marketing

I'm honestly fed up with tech leaders stepping onto stages and cheerfully declaring that AI is about to obliterate jobs, especially entry-level ones, while spreading massive fear, paranoia, distrust, and hopelessness across hundreds of millions of people.

The impact is real and unprecedented in its emotional toll.

What frustrates me most? 
Many of these leaders don't seem to fully believe their own rhetoric. 

Take Anthropic: their CEO has warned that AI could wipe out half of entry-level white-collar jobs in the coming years, yet they're actively hiring across engineering, research, recruiting, and more roles.

If they truly thought SaaS was dead or entry-level talent irrelevant, why keep building on it and posting openings?

If Advertising is all to be done by AI, why doesn't OpenAI use it to make their own ads?  If Marketing is so easy to do with AI, why does ChatGPT have the worst naming convention anyone has ever devised.

Yes, AI is profoundly transformative. 

It will reshape the workforce in complex, uneven ways.

Yes, we should be open eyed, cautious, agile, aware.

But what's truly sickening is how the Overton window has shifted: it's now somehow TOTALLY FINE to terrify hundreds of millions, just to hype valuations, raise funds, or sound "visionary."

Where are the PR teams, advisors, or peers saying, 
"Hey Guys, doesn't this make us seem like total sociopaths?"

"Errr, hello, this sounds  misanthropic, why are we throwing humans under the bus here?" 

We have a generation of leaders with unprecedented power to motivate and unite people around building a better future. Instead, they seem determined to trash talk humanity's potential, to line their pockets

This isn't okay. It needs calling out.

AI can amplify human ingenuity, create new opportunities, and solve massive problems, 

How about we lead with responsibility and optimism, guidance, wisdom, context, empowerment, not doomscrolling headlines.

I'd rather be aware and not blinded, but optimistic not terrified hopeless. 
Lets bet on Humanity 

What do you think?

A mistake a lot of first time entrepreneurs make. 

They get a little success
buy a bunch of expensive crap

Big house
Vacations
Expensive car
Expensive Clothes

and then have to work twice as hard to keep it. 

Then bad times hit
Keeping up becomes impossible
And they lose it all

Here's my advice. 

Bank your success

Instead of buying fancy stuff. 
Put it back into your business.
Into more revenue producing assets

That way it's an investment
You increase your revenue
You keep your personal costs low

You're happy

This is too real - AGI is that you??? EVERY . SINGLE . DEVELOPER wants to full on rewrite the last guys code because “It sucks”. Now AI is doing it too. [that’s the joke]

Investor | CEO AskSLM: Decentralized Full-Stack Sovereign AI as Infrastructure Platform for Secure, Air-Gapped, Local, Private & Compliant AI Execution

Everyone’s screaming that AI coding is the future. “SaaS is dead, AI will build everything, Engineers are obsolete” Blah Blah Blah 

Then an internal AI assistant decides existing production code is inadequate and deletes it so parts of Amazon Web Services (AWS) go down for 13 hours.

Writing code is easy but Operating production systems is hard and Governing execution is even harder. 

AI autocomplete ≠ Operational intelligence
Code generation ≠ System reliability
Speed ≠ Accountability

Markets are selling SaaS & Cybersecurity Stock like AI replaces engineering overnight. As if vibe code generation equals a substitute for operational systems, automation equals governance, and production risk disappears because a model can autocomplete. The reality is writing code is not the same as owning execution.

Hype builds headlines but Infrastructure prevents outages - AskSLM

#AI #AWS #AIInfrastructure #AskSLM #RealityCheck

Fresh eggies make the best toast. #Dbockles #FreshEggs

Fundraising is a great experience. It will make or break you.

It will uncover your weaknesses, 
It will tear you down, 

But if you're up for it, 
It will teach you how to build yourself back up 

and win. 

I would suggest this to anyone who wants to level up
And see what they are made of

Even if you're not planning on taking on investors.

Maybe give this sweet baby girl a second thought... #LoveABull #AdoptAPittie

Founder, DemandJen | Sales Trainer & SKO Keynote Speaker | Dog Rescue Advocate

Meet Mara 🩷

She’s a 7 year old, 59lb girl with the most gentle demeanor (especially with kids). 

Dogs like Mara always have a harder time getting adopted. She’s older + she’s a pittie mix. It doesn’t make her any less deserving of love. 

Every dog should be judged by their own demeanor. Not breed sterotypes.

We have a husky who never makes a peep and is scared of his own shadow.

We have a pittie who would throw herself in front of a bus to protect our kids. 

Mara is calm, easygoing, walks nicely on a leash, and does amazing in daycare. She’s a complete love.

Mara deserves a loving family. Will you help share her? 🩷

Available at Many Paws Global Rescue in Palatine, IL.

Photo credit: Nicholas I. Knuth 📸 

PS - I know many of you have pitties, too. I love seeing your photos in the comments - please share them!

A VC said. "It looks difficult". 

Because it is. 

No matter if
Automated and prompt generated 

There are no magic bullets

Software development is difficult. 
Automating software development is harder

Building generalized infrastructure
Inventing universal common components

Modularizing
Encapsulating
Creating rules

System thinking 
In multi-dimensional universes

Then delivering this in a coherent way
That can be utilized by any friend or foe
Without much of a learning curve

Software automation does not start with code automation
It starts with strong generalized foundations
Than anyone can build on
To deliver products

I had every intention of working today but instead I worked in the garden, K-Drama'd and chilled, took a nap, woke up to WWIII, helped dig a trench. Today was swell. Tomorrow muck the chicken house and maybe more hole digging. What are you up to this fine weekend? What's good.

What if what you were working on was truly unique. I've heard it a million times. No idea is novel. But what if yours was... And it wasn't just novel, it was relevant, on time, and in demand. What if your proof was irrefutable.

2026 - The year of 🤬 around and find out. [ grabs 🍿 ]

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The Battle

Marc van Neerven

Lorde Astor West

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The Battle

Marc van Neerven

Lorde Astor West

Followers

Posts

Engagements

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Marc van Neerven's LinkedIn Performance

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