amoghs

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! :)

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.

[1] https://eesel.app

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!

[1] https://eesel.app

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?

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 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!

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.

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?

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!

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.

Privacy - https://www.eesel.app/privacy Terms - https://www.eesel.app/terms

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.

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.

If you're curious, we're keen to monetise with a 'Team' plan eventually. We intend to keep everything that's there today free.

I think it's roughly: "It's hard to find docs -> A filter on your browser history helps a lot"

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.

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 :)

Disclaimer: I'm working on it and it's really early in the process :) Should I make Obair more broad?