What I’m up to - October 2023
This is my monthly newsletter about what I'm up to, which I send in place of social media.
✨ What I was up to in September
I launched Booklet, a forum as an alternative to chat. It's my attempt to make communication more asynchronous for professional groups. Knowledge workers check chat every 6 minutes, fracturing their attention and preventing deep work. Booklet solves this by encouraging long-form, threaded discussions - and summarizing all activity into one single email per day.
I wrote about my motivation for Booklet on the Contraption Company site.
The actual launch of Booklet went better than expected - with thousands of visitors in the first day, and hundreds of communities created. I've been iterating rapidly based on user feedback, including rolling out a variety of OpenAI-powered tools to improve the email summary.
Some of the early use case for Booklet have been:
I wrote about my motivation for Booklet on the Contraption Company site.
The actual launch of Booklet went better than expected - with thousands of visitors in the first day, and hundreds of communities created. I've been iterating rapidly based on user feedback, including rolling out a variety of OpenAI-powered tools to improve the email summary.
Some of the early use case for Booklet have been:
- Investors connecting their portfolio founders in a network
- A marketplace building a community of workers to engage them between gigs
- A Substack newsletter adding a subscriber community
- Companies replacing Google Groups for internal announcements
If you know anybody looking for a solution like these, please send them to Booklet. And, you can try out Booklet by joining its customer community at hq.booklet.group
Besides that, I had a wonderful trip to Stockholm where the Vasa Museum fascinated me, I ate too many cardamom buns, and I stopped by the Nobel Prize Museum. I also attended the New York Coffee Festival, and briefly stopped by Chicago for a wedding.
Besides that, I had a wonderful trip to Stockholm where the Vasa Museum fascinated me, I ate too many cardamom buns, and I stopped by the Nobel Prize Museum. I also attended the New York Coffee Festival, and briefly stopped by Chicago for a wedding.
🤔 Things to share
- Articles: The Magical Japanese Art of Luggage Forwarding, The Loneliness Economy, Protocol Daddies, The Jargon File.
- Books: Coddling of the American Mind.
- Podcasts: Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on early rejection, customer focus - a look at how Jony Ive is turning Airbnb into a centralized product organization (see "Trend" below). Three Star Coffee Service: Coffee at restaurant Noma.
- Apps: Helicone for OpenAI monitoring and caching.
- Video: "How to Live an Asymmetric Life"
- Trend: With the downturn, more tech CEOs seem to be retaking the "Head of product" role.
- Coffees I'm drinking: Man Vs. Machine Supernatural, Heart Guatemala Amate, and notable IRL coffees at Café Pascal and Drop Coffee.
📫 What I'm up to in September
- Working on Booklet, and enjoying a first month without travel in a long time.
📍 Where I'll be
- NYC all month 🗽
(Let me know if we overlap)
📸 Photo
