How I Built a TDAH-Friendly Blog as a Tech Entrepreneur with ADD

Rico — Cerveau Papillon — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 22:55:41 +0000

I was diagnosed with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder — no hyperactivity) at 38 years old. By then, I had already built several tech companies, shipped dozens of products, and burned out more times than I can count. The diagnosis explained a lot. But it didn't change the fact that I still had a chaotic brain to manage every single day.

So I did what any neurodivergent tech entrepreneur does: I built a system.

Why a blog? Why ADHD?

After my diagnosis, I spent weeks looking for French-language resources about ADHD in adults. I found a lot about children. Almost nothing for adults, especially nothing that combined technical depth with lived experience.

That gap became Cerveau Papillon — literally "Butterfly Brain" in French. A blog about adult ADHD by a tech entrepreneur who transformed chaos into systems.

The tagline? "Mon cerveau ne fonctionne pas comme prévu — il fonctionne différemment." (My brain doesn't work as expected — it works differently.)

The tech stack (because we're on dev.to)

I built it on Astro 5 deployed on Cloudflare Pages. Here's why that combination works well for an ADHD brain:

Zero runtime overhead — static site generation means nothing to maintain at 2am when hyperfocus kicks in
Markdown content — writing in .md files without a CMS matches how I think: structured but flexible
Cloudflare Workers — serverless functions for the newsletter, quiz, and analytics without managing servers
Edge deployment — fast globally, which matters for SEO

The whole stack was chosen to minimize cognitive load. No database to babysit. No complex deployment pipeline. Git push → live in 90 seconds.

ADHD-friendly UX features I built

The blog is also a UX experiment. Every feature was designed for a neurodivergent reader:

Bionic Reading toggle — bolds the first half of each word to guide eye movement. Controversial scientifically, but users love it.

RSVP Reader — displays one word at a time at 150-400 WPM, with smart pauses at punctuation. Based on research showing +13% comprehension for ADHD readers (Cheung et al., 2025).

Reading progress bar — because knowing "I'm 60% done" makes finishing feel achievable.

Dyslexia font toggle — OpenDyslexic font on demand.

Dark mode — WCAG AAA contrast, purple palette. Because fluorescent white screens are hostile.

What I'm building next

The blog currently has 55+ articles, all cited from peer-reviewed research. The next phase: interactive tools. I'm building an ADHD tax calculator (the hidden cost of ADHD in time and money), an AuDHD screening tool, and a French-language medication comparison guide — nothing like these exists for French-speaking adults.

If you're curious about the technical side, the full codebase follows the same principles as the content: minimal dependencies, zero CMS, everything in git.

What I learned building this

Hyperfocus is a superpower with an off switch. I can go 12 hours straight writing and coding. Then I can't open the laptop for three days.

Systems beat willpower every time. I don't rely on motivation. I have deployment scripts, content templates, keyword research pipelines — all designed so that the "what to do next" decision is already made.

Building for yourself first is a competitive advantage. I'm not guessing what an ADHD adult needs. I am one. Every feature I ship, I test on myself first.

If you're a dev with ADHD (or suspect you might be), you might find the blog useful. It's in French, but the tech articles transcend language barriers. And if you're building for neurodivergent users, I'm happy to exchange notes.