JDM

Jean-Dominique Michaël Casanova, Founder of Drafted By: EdTech, FinTech and AI engineer

Introduction, JDM Casanova professional journey
Present

Founder, Drafted By

EdTech · FinTech · AI

Solo operator behind a focused suite of AI products: lesson planning across 13+ national curricula, retirement audit reports for French advisory firms.

Lesson planning AI, four markets

Retirement audit SaaS, France

  • carriva.fr: RAG audit of French career records (RIS): parsing, anomaly detection, audit reports

1-on-1 tutoring

  • jdteachai.com: 1-on-1 in AI tools, English & French, for professionals
Chess coaching and analytical training
Ongoing

Founder & coach, JD Chess

1-on-1 coaching · group masterclasses · digital tooling

Solo coach: 1-on-1 sessions, group masterclasses, and a content layer. The mix of structured training and per-game analysis takes most students up to +500 Elo in 10 weeks.

Key Achievements

  • Site & booking: FR + EN, lesson archive, testimonials. Built and shipped solo. (jdchess.com)
  • Volume: 5,000+ individual sessions delivered worldwide. Verifiable Elo gains per student.
  • Ranking: Top 3 chess coach in France on Superprof, 5-star average.
  • Group program: Launched JD Chess Masterclass: structured group format, theory + live practice.
WhatsApp operations and process management
2019 - 2023 • WhatsApp, Ireland & Remote

Head of European Automation

Support automation · ML · Project Management

Headed European Automation across WhatsApp's support ops. Automation, ML deployments, vendor management, and the internal platform that runs underneath. Built tooling that took a sizable share of manual work off the queue.

Key Projects & Impact

  • Automation: As Head of European Automation, cut manual ticket handling by ~50%.
  • ML: Shipped ticket-closure ML models. Cut manual work and response time by 10%.
  • Platform: Built WASP, the internal support portal: ticket management plus automation.
  • Misinformation: Privacy-preserving analysis of misinformation patterns in French-speaking Africa.
  • Interop: Worked with legal and engineering on cross-app messaging interoperability across the Meta family.
OpenText technical operations role
2016 - 2019 • OpenText, Ireland

Business Network Engineer

B2B data exchange · EDI infrastructure

Technical liaison for enterprise clients on the GXS/OpenText Trading Grid. B2B data integrity, security, and transmission across global supply chains.

Technical Responsibilities

  • Network migration: Zero-downtime migrations for critical trading partners under strict security compliance.
  • EDI architecture: Trading partnerships and EDI-boxes across global supply chains.
  • Forensic debugging: Granular data tracking across ANSI X12 and EDIFACT. Caught transmission failures before client impact.
  • Protocols: AS2, SFTP, OFTP2 connectivity, gateway interoperability.
Apple technical support and customer service
2014 - 2016 • Apple, Ireland

Technical Support Senior Advisor

Escalation management · mentoring · documentation

Senior advisor on Apple's technical escalation desk. Owned advanced cases, mentored juniors, wrote the guides the team used.

Key Contributions

  • Escalations: Owned advanced hardware and software cases for high-value clients.
  • CSAT: Top-percentile customer satisfaction scores across tenure.
  • Mentoring: Coached junior advisors on troubleshooting and customer-facing communication.
  • Documentation: Authored troubleshooting guides used across the support team.
Early career roles and experiences
2010 - 2014 • France TV, Europcar, Orange

Foundations in Communication

Media · sales · service

Early-career roles across media (France TV), retail (Europcar), and telco support (Orange). Foundations in client work, on-the-floor service, and clear communication.

Core Competencies Developed

  • Client work: Sales and service across multiple verticals.
  • Media: Communication and audience-facing operations at France TV.
  • Communication: Active listening and clear writing, habits I still rely on.
Education and academic background
Academic Background

Multidisciplinary Background

Cinema · economics · sciences

Studied across disciplines: cinema, economics, sciences. The mix maps surprisingly well to engineering: narrative structure, system incentives, hypothesis testing.

Fields of Study

  • Cinema: Visual storytelling, narrative structure, audience engagement.
  • Economics: Complex systems, incentives, data analysis.
  • Sciences: Hypothesis-driven thinking applied to troubleshooting and process design.
Get in touch, contact and networking
Next Steps

Let's Connect

Contact & Networking

Open to talk shop on solo product work, RAG-heavy SaaS, and the parts of operating seven sites alone that nobody publishes about. If you want to send something my way, the form below works.

Software studio: draftedby.com · Private lessons: jdteachai.com · Workshop notes: jdmcasanova.com/blog

The Kernel
Analytical Core

The Kernel

The analytical engine: where raw data becomes logic, and tangled problems become tractable components.

  • Problem Solving: Systematic diagnosis of root causes, not just symptoms.
  • Process Automation: Workflows that remove friction and eliminate redundancy.
  • Strategic Planning: Long-term direction broken into milestones you can verify.
The Interface
Communication Layer

The Interface

The kernel needs an interface. Translating technical complexity into language non-engineers can act on.

  • Cross-Cultural Communication: Adapting tone, examples, and stakes per audience.
  • Escalation Management: Turning high-pressure conflicts into structured resolutions.
  • Technical Writing: Docs that make readers more capable, not more confused.
The Application
Execution & Pedagogy

The Application

Where pedagogy meets execution. Coaching chess or rebuilding a support team uses the same loop: structure, practice, feedback.

  • Structured Teaching: Breaking down complex skills into learnable steps.
  • Performance Tracking: Metrics that guide improvement, not decoration.
  • Mentorship: Building independence, not dependency.
System Output
Tools & Results

System Output

Output is what's shipped, measured, and still running. Tools, sites, and outcomes you can verify.

Tooling Stack

Next.jsReactTypeScriptFastAPIPythonPostgreSQLPrismaDrizzle ORMTailwind CSSStripeResendDockerCoolifyCloudflareProxmoxMinIOMeilisearchLangChainOpenRouterBetter AuthSentryUmamiPostHog

Key Metrics

  • Products: 7 sites in production: a 4-market EdTech suite, retirement SaaS, AI tutoring, and a chess academy.
  • Automation: ML-driven ticket routing reduced manual handling by ~50% at WhatsApp.
  • Infrastructure: Self-hosted production stack on Proxmox: Docker, Cloudflare Tunnels, PostgreSQL, Meilisearch.
  • AI/RAG: LangChain + OpenRouter for document analysis, lesson generation, and Carriva's retirement audit pipeline.

Field notes

Latest from the workshop

Tactical posts on shipping production EdTech, retirement-advisory SaaS, and AI tooling as a solo founder. Concrete patterns, mistakes, and trade-offs.

All notes →