HN user
Congrats on the launch Max and James!
We've been in this space for a lil bit too with eesel (https://eesel.app) and it's really cool to see more people tackling these problems. It's about time we fix this.
Keen to be inspired and learn! :)
This post resonates a lot! I think finding a clear focus and going deep on it takes you places no one (even you) can anticipate in advance. It's how you can create something amazing.
I felt that personally working on eesel [1]. We kept a tight focus on the problem (making it easier to refer back to your work more easily) and it's become far more than we could've expected. Ironically, the classic "is this a company or a feature" question might actually be a validation of keeping scope.
The only caveat I'd add to the post is that you should try to solve only one problem, but you should spend time exploring before hand to discover the broader set of problems and prioritise carefully.
It's so tough taking stances to defend things of 'intangible' (or at least hard to quantify) value like Apple has. I worry it's almost 'inevitable' for companies to cave in.
Indeed, they seem to be dealing with a tough situation really well.
After a while, we learned that what our users really wanted was to have everything in one place.
This is so spot on! We're having similar learnings with eesel [1] too. Work is far too scattered across apps. Thanks for sharing your journey so far and congrats on the launch!
Things are so weird here in Oz. There are tons of layoffs in tech, but there's also a huge labour shortage.
Curious, do you actively hide your agnostic liberal views?
Such a throwback to high school and every teacher talking about not trusting Wikipedia
Thanks for trying eesel out!
eesel works with anything in the browser and the intent is to be generic. You can add any app like so - https://intercom.help/eesel/en/articles/3936045-how-to-add-a...
Does that makes sense? Also out of curiosity, what apps do you use?
Thanks for trying eesel out and sharing your thoughts! Helps us heaps. Some pointers on that:
1. To edit the rules for a Folder, open the Folder and head to "Add pages" > "Automatically". We've heard it a few times that discoverability of this isn't great, and it's definitely something we should improve.
2. You can use eesel without having it in your new tab. Here's a help article on that - https://intercom.help/eesel/en/articles/3728989-how-to-remov...
3. To clarify, everything is local by default and only pages you explicitly share by adding to a Workspace, a shared Folder and so on are shared.
4. I imagine we'll want to support eesel profiles at some point to better separate personal and work things, but one workaround till then is to have different Chrome profiles and install eesel on both.
Let us know if you have any other thoughts that pop up!
Love it! I'm keen to add more keyboard shortcuts too. Is there anything in particular you wish had keyboard nav?
Thanks! Keen to see how your use goes.
Love that idea, it's something we've been floating around ourselves. We're not sure if the problems around that are painful enough for people to change existing habits (is it annoying enough for you to switch apps?), but let us know if you have any thoughts on that!
Thanks mate!
Foreign founders can make a Delaware C Corp. We used Stripe Atlas for that and it did the job well! From there, it's the same process.
Not quite, I did a poor job explaining it, sorry!
When a document is shared with you in eesel (say, your teammate adds it to a team folder), even if you haven't seen the document before, it'll appear in your eesel. It's a way to discover what teammates are up to.
The idea is that everyone can automatically push their work into shared folders, and build a team 'source of truth', without the overhead of maintaining things.
Does that makes sense?
Thanks! Keen to see if you find it valuable.
Everything runs fully locally by default, but to enable features like sharing pages with teammates, we need to have servers. The content of your pages is still only stored locally on your browser, no exceptions. We run through the details in our privacy policy - https://www.eesel.app/privacy
Fun fact - we did consider being totally serverless and having some distributed, peer-to-peer database, but there were too many unknowns to go down that path. Maybe one day!
Thanks, glad you liked the demo! We'll hopefully support Safari soon.
The feed works by pushing new pages you or your teammates make and share. For instance, if you make a new Notion page and add it to a Folder, it'll get pushed to other teammates who are members of the Folder. There's no automatic way to notify teammates of an update for now, but we're working on something related to do that right now.
You'll need to enable the add on for private windows - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/extensions-private-brow... - and it'll work as expected after
I just checked and the footer links work fine for me, and I'm not sure which links you're referring to. Privacy is really important to us, we've gone through security reviews in a bunch of notable companies, and we all take a lot of personal pride in our attention to detail here. Note how you can use eesel without even logging in.
Privacy - https://www.eesel.app/privacy Terms - https://www.eesel.app/terms
lol "later that year, Kim gave birth to their first son, Dan. While in labor, she caught Huh doing math."
I agree that a few points seem 'matter of fact' at face value. What's weird is that IMO even people that would see this to be obvious, sometimes behave counter to it. For example, I've seen good teams release things that pretty much anyone could classify as 'broken' from the outset, but they do it anyway because there's an overarching 'hustle obsession' and aphorisms like "ship to learn" make it easy to justify that. It's probably a mix of flawed incentives, company culture (glorification of failure?), and so on, but my point there is that in the weeds, it can be hard to put even the simplest rules in practice, with nuance.
I totally agree re books, blogs, tweets. Categorical statements are easier to remember and digest, nuance is kind of boring to talk about (read: politics atm, or always?). Maybe it's something about human psychology that we are collectively drawn to the simpler, discrete answers because they feel more comforting and approachable.
A part of me feels that with any acquisition ever. If it's really that good, why're you selling?
I think there's some element of passion (like you said), though also just around the skill set needed to really take the business somewhere.
Haha thanks!
If you're curious, we're keen to monetise with a 'Team' plan eventually. We intend to keep everything that's there today free.
A tad late but I missed this before. You're spot on, we (ironically) didn't do a good job at explaining our own game haha.
I think it's roughly: "It's hard to find docs -> A filter on your browser history helps a lot"
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the read.
It's definitely not some strict linear flow. Sometimes you just have a cool idea that you want to explore. You can then work backwards to find your base reality. You do need to inevitably find a base reality to really build a business.
You also don't need some 'perfect' base reality before you find some game. An improv show would be pretty boring if the characters were going into unnecessary detail about themselves, before finally finding something funny. In fact, you want to be establishing your base reality as fast as you can, with only the needed details, to leave more time for the game.
I think you're spot on that the most beautiful pieces are unexpected. I think that's a key thing that makes improv so beautiful. This is what you get by 'exploring' and 'heightening' the game, and I touched on that in the post. By building on each other's ideas with some kind of focus, you're able to go places no one expects.
I totally get where you're coming from.
The framework shown in the blog isn't meant to be a "step by step" guide to building product. In fact, this framework isn't even always followed in improv. And to be honest, the improv analogy isn't essential to communicate the lessons either (to build with focus etc.)
It's just a fun comparison, and I think you get a better appreciation of both crafts from it :)
Ah yeah good catch! Thanks.
We recently raised a round for eesel. It was our first time raising and just about everything was new to us. We learnt a few things, and while we're no expert, you may find our learnings handy if you're an early stage startup looking to raise.
Yes. I'm not a boomer but I do feel like one sometimes.
Obair (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/obair/jffaiidojfhf...) is a variant of the memex idea mentioned. It's not quite a universal memex for your digital life (which by the way is really inspiring) but rather made specifically for work docs across different work tools.
Disclaimer: I'm working on it and it's really early in the process :) Should I make Obair more broad?