matt1

This also seems like it was generated by an LLM, hah.

Coming soon! Thanks for the nudge.

It might interest you to know that I'm working on something along these lines for Emergent Mind: giving readers the ability to adjust the writing style with the click of a button. Explain it normally, like you're 5, like you're a valley girl, like you have Tourette Syndrome, etc.

Shared a proof of concept on Twitter this morning: https://twitter.com/mhmazur/status/1641068505784107009

To be clear, Emergent Mind isn't writing actual news articles. At least not yet :).

When a link is shared on the site either by Emma (a bot) or a human, Emergent Mind uses GPT to automatically write a short summary of the article's content and explain key terms used in the article. I don't proofread those summaries or key terms before they're posted, but do occasionally edit them if something is glaringly wrong - which thankfully isn't common.

Yes, you got it. Unlike HackerNews, the links on Emergent Mind's homepage take you to a post on Emergent Mind, which has a summary and key terms. The idea is that gives you a quick summary and context on what the page is about, then you can decide whether to click through and read the full article or not. Also, you'll notice a "Next" button on all posts, letting you quickly jump to the next news item without navigating back to the homepage (something I wish HackerNews had).

Hey all, Matt here, Emergent Mind's creator.

I shared Emergent Mind on HN yesterday [1], but it didn't wind up making it onto the homepage. Someone shared it here again today, so here we are again.

Copy/pasting my comment from the post yesterday for context on the site:

--

Like many of you, I've found it difficult to stay on top of all the latest AI news and research. I wanted a simpler way to surface and learn about about what's happening in the AI world, so built Emergent Mind.

Here's the idea:

- A bot named Emma automatically finds trending AI news and posts it to Emergent Mind, though human users can sign up and share links as well.

- Emma automatically summarizes links that are shared and also explains key terms from the page, which is especially helpful for academic research.

- Posts also display popular tweets about that news item, giving you a sense of what others in the AI world are saying about it.

- Posts are grouped by day, making it easy to tell what's going on today. And within each day, posts are ordered by how popular that news item is which is based on a combination of votes, page views, and Twitter shares.

- We're also working on a newsletter which you're welcome to sign up for if you'd prefer to get the news daily or weekly via email.

We have lots more planned for the site in the coming weeks, but are excited to share this initial version with you all.

Feedback/suggestions welcome on any of it!

--

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35340703

Hey all - Matt here, the creator of Emergent Mind.

Like many of you, I've found it difficult to stay on top of all the latest AI news and research. I wanted a simpler way to surface and learn about about what's happening in the AI world, so built Emergent Mind.

Here's the idea:

- A bot named Emma automatically finds trending AI news and posts it to Emergent Mind, though human users can sign up and share links as well.

- Emma automatically summarizes links that are shared and also explains key terms from the page, which is especially helpful for academic research.

- Posts also display popular tweets about that news item, giving you a sense of what others in the AI world are saying about it.

- Posts are grouped by day, making it easy to tell what's going on today. And within each day, posts are ordered by how popular that news item is which is based on a combination of votes, page views, and Twitter shares.

- We're also working on a newsletter which you're welcome to sign up for if you'd prefer to get the news daily or weekly via email.

We have lots more planned for the site in the coming weeks, but are excited to share this initial version with you all.

Feedback/suggestions welcome on any of it!

Thanks for the kind words Scott and also for your detailed feedback over email - much appreciated!

With Preceden, people tend to fall into two groups: those that need it for a short term project and won't use it again, and those that need it for a longer term project.

The monthly plans are there to give people who need it for a short project an affordable way to use it for a short period of time without any long term commitment.

And the annual plans are there for the people who need it long term.

Preceden sends receipts for both monthly and annual charges, and reminder emails for the annual ones. Don't get too many refund requests or chargebacks because of this.

Thanks!

Preceden's annual plans are discounted 60% (!) vs the monthly plans, so it's an attractive option for users who need Preceden for longer projects.

Will check it out - thank you.

Hard to know. Probably not much.

Many other tools have built-in timeline functionality including most project management tools. But they're not able to go deep on the features and tend to look pretty ugly. Because Preceden focuses on timelines, we're able to go deep and provide a better experience. For many people, that's what they want out of a timeline maker tool.

One thing that helped me was when I was full time at Automattic, I intentionally started using my engineering skills to help the marketing team, and eventually was able to switch completely over to the marketing team to help with landing pages, analytics, attribution, data, etc. I was able to learn a lot about marketing through that experience and it helped me get a lot more savvy about it for Preceden (though it still doesn't come naturally to me). You don't have to go that route though - the Microconf videos are excellent sources of marketing advice - but if you can immerse yourself in that world in your full time job, it will go a long way.

> At first blush, its too much a one off need, too cheap to have margin on marketing/sales, and there are free competitors.

You are not wrong on any of these points which is partly why it took so long.

If I could take a time machine back in time and give my younger self advice, I would tell myself not to try to start a timeline maker business :).

In Preceden's early days, I didn't have any kids, so could work on some nights and weekends and it was no issue. When we started having kids and I was still full time, I greatly reduced much time I had to work on side projects. That eventually led me to switching to a contractor role with reduced hours because it was too hard to juggle a full time job, a SaaS, multiple kids, and my sanity.

I never worked on Preceden when I should have been working on my full time job, and tried not to work on it much when I should have been spending time with my family. Definitely figure out your priorities and work with your spouse to come up with some ground rules that help you make it work long term.

Thank you! Best of luck!

It's coming along!

Can do!

Thanks! I will say though, people should give up sometimes. I gave up on a bunch of the other projects I started that time, and there's an argument that I should have given up on Preceden too and found an easier business to start.

On that happy note, I wish you all the best with Sqwok. May growth come easier to your business than it has to Preceden.

Content marketing and SEO have proved the most successful. For example, this list of timeline makers ranks well for various search terms and brings in a lot of new users: https://www.preceden.com/timeline-makers.

I've tried a lot of other things like paid spend, but could never get the economics to work. Maybe one day!

The free plans include Preceden branding on some export formats (like PDFs) which serves as a marketing channel because anyone they share the PDF with will see the timeline is created with Preceden and some will go on to check it out and become customers. Both paid plans remove the Preceden branding, which is one reason users might choose to upgrade.

Regarding adding a custom logo, that's mostly a need of professionals in larger businesses (think project managers at Fortune 500 companies), so having that on the top paid plan encourages those type of users to upgrade to that plan vs the cheaper one.

One of these days y'all will switch over to lowercase SQL keywords, you'll see ;)

Thanks for sharing and best of luck with your business's growth in 2023!

Also, regarding FullCalendar, if you need an actual calendar then Preceden won't be a good fit for you. But if you're OK with a horizontal timeline, it might work well. Worth checking out IMHO.

This was my life the last few years :D.

Eventually just had to go for it and give up the extra income.

It's not clear it was the best decision financially (though it may wind up being so), but it felt like the best decision for my soul, if that makes sense.

Congrats to you to as well then!

Hopefully more than a weekend ;)

Thanks, I'm looking forward to the extra time with the family as well!

And since you didn't share your startup, I'll do it for ya: https://closet.tools/

I should have said this in the post, but even if your startup doesn't take off, the skills you learn along the way are very valuable and will make you better at all of your future jobs.

I hope things work out for you and that they don't take as long as they did for me :).

Wow, you got on one of those $19 for life plans that I initially offered, that's wild!

It's great to hear you got some use out of the tool and hopefully continue to do so. I look forward to your next life update in 13 years when Preceden makes the HackerNews homepage again :).

PS for any aspiring entrepreneurs: don't offer lifetime plans, and definitely not for $19, lol.