Pretectal
Inside WhatsTheDx 01 / A daily product loop
WhatsTheDx
A daily diagnosis challenge that turns a clinical question into an interactive product for professionals and students.
1,100+sign-ups across a global community
Eugene Huang · Building with AI
Useful products. Built with AI.
I’m Eugene, an optometrist and builder. I use AI to turn problems I encounter into products that help people learn and teams get work done.
WhatsTheDx: 1,100+ sign-ups from a global community of professionals and students.
A recurring task. A better way. Spot the friction. Build something useful.
Product case studies
Useful ideas. Working products.
A daily challenge, a paid study resource, and a training tool for a practice team. Each project shows how a specific need can become a product people can use.
Inside WhatsTheDx 
Inside OptoConnections 02 / A focused paid product
OptoConnections
A focused set of optometry games and study resources that paying students use in their daily routines.
Paid, recurring usea resource in students' daily study routines
Inside OptoLearn 03 / A tool for the team
OptoLearn
A new-hire training platform that organizes instruction, practice, and assessment around optometric workplace tasks.
Learn → practiceeducation organized around workplace tasks
Traction reported by Pretectal's founder, October 2, 2026. The WhatsTheDx figure counts sign-ups; OptoConnections usage is qualitative. Each case study explains the evidence behind it.
Explore the decisions behind the products →Make the idea interactive.
- Uncorrected. Distant light focuses before it reaches the retina.
- Add a lens. A correcting lens spreads the incoming light slightly.
- In focus. Focus lands on the retina. The eye is unchanged; the light path is not.
A tool from my clinical field: an illustrative optics model, not a vision test. Source: National Eye Institute
The light converges too soon, before it reaches the retina.
Try the smaller builds.
Working examples from eye care: a model, a visual explainer, and a research explorer. Each turns one specific question into an interaction.
Interactive model
Why does distance become a blur?
Change the shape of an eye. Follow the light. Discover what optical correction actually changes.
1 source
Visual explainer
More than a drop of water.
Explore the components that help tears protect, nourish, and spread across the surface of the eye.
1 source
Evidence explorer
One trial. Three lenses. What changed?
Look inside a randomized trial of multifocal contact lenses, with the outcomes and their limits in view.
2 sources
Learn to build
Your first product
starts with a problem.
Pick a task you know well. Learn how to choose an AI tool, describe what you need, and build a small version someone can actually use. Then test it, improve it, and make it maintainable.
- Find one thing worth fixingWatch the task. Name the person and the friction.
- Build the smallest useful versionUse AI to turn a clear brief into a working flow.
- Try it with someoneWatch where they get stuck. Improve that part next.
Understand the work.
Build what helps.
Know the problem.
Start with a task people repeat, a question they struggle with, or a handoff that keeps breaking. Define what a better outcome would look like before choosing a tool.
Work with AI.
Give the AI context, examples, and a small job to complete. Inspect the result, test the behavior, and turn useful instructions into skills you can reuse.
Make it useful to others.
A working demo is the beginning. Test the real task, explain the limits, and give the team a way to maintain the product. Measure whether it actually helps.
Find your starting point.
A clinician’s curiosity.
A builder’s mindset.
I’m Eugene Huang, O.D. Wherever I work, I look for ways to make things easier for the people around me. My projects began with needs I could see in eye care: clinical practice, daily study, and training a new team member. Pretectal brings those builds together so you can learn from the decisions and start making useful products of your own.
I built my early MVPs with Lovable, Cursor, and Windsurf. Today, I work with Claude Code and ChatGPT Astra using reusable skills. The tools have changed; the goal is still to solve a real problem and leave the team with something that works.
Eugene HuangOptometrist & product builder
Connect with meA repeated task. A rough idea. A team that could use a better tool.