for such a small app I imagine, that the performance issue is from the tech stack itself vs anything he's coded. I would put that as a warning to those that are considering to using this stack. If it is within the code itself, he shouldn't be teaching bad code.

Thanks! It definitely doesn't have a team of designers/developers behind it...which is kind of the point. If you added a competent designer, and more than a week of work, you can see how a functional, smooth app could result. Not a guarantee of course, but the foundation is there.