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Looks like a really interesting idea here! Congrats on shipping. I just downloaded it to play around with. The screenshots are well done and make the app feel like something exciting to try out.

I would work on trying to simplifying the landing page copy, though. The "Stress-Free Bookmarking, Read-it-later, and Clipboard..." text is super long and most people aren't going to read the entire thing. I would try to emphasize what the benefit is to the user somehow. Something like "Save everything easily". That's terrible copy, too, but you get the idea. The "Super Memory Activated" and "doublememory.com" made me think at first that this is improving my computer's memory usage.

After skimming the page, I kind of got the idea about what the product does, but I think you can make it even simpler to grok right away what it does with a few tweaks. Best of luck!

Edit: one thing I noticed is I can do shift-cmd-spacebar to bring it up, but the search text field doesn't automatically get focus. That's a little bit of friction. If I do cmd-F to search, it toggles the filter UI, which was unexpected. I wanted to cmd-F to move the focus into the search to start typing.

I agree. For most people, having a zero-friction way of recording a short thought or idea and being able to search for it later is more important than creating a vast network of connections. Tagging is "good enough" for most needs.

I ended up building my own app for my notes and it turned into a chronological feed of short notes, like a social media feed. I just recently added linking between notes, but honestly, I've found that it's not essential. Just having a way to search by text and tag covers most of my needs. The chronological order also makes it easy to find stuff that I wrote recently or to filter by date.

Since there are no files or folders, there's also zero friction when it comes to recording something. I don't need to think "Where should this go?" or "Is there already a folder or a larger note this should be a part of?" I think that has honestly led me to just down more thoughts and ideas than if I was trying to maintain a strict structure to everything. (There are downsides to that, though, as it may mean I have more noise in my system, making it harder to find actual notes of value long term.)

Thanks for the feedback! I'm currently working on a big rewrite of the app, so it's good to know I should work on reducing the friction of creating cards, such as with the share sheet or some other integration.

Like I said in the other comment, I'm going to play around with some ideas regarding an inbox. I think that on its own would help a ton for just recording things to be converted to flashcards later. There's probably a good in-app UI that can be made to go through the inbox and easily convert the notes created into the front and back sides as well.

I appreciate the detailed answer. That's a really good point about the software boundary and how that adds friction to just creating cards in the first place.

I like the idea of an inbox where you just toss things you think are worth remembering and maybe having a browser plugin or OS shortcut to save highlighted bits of info, but not necessarily creating a flashcard immediately from it. There's definitely some concrete things I can prototype here to try to make that workflow easier. And I can see how taking those tidbits of info and passing them to AI to create flashcards is doable too.

You're right about the data model. I built my own flashcard app [1], so I've had to understand the database schema that Anki uses and a lot of it seems very inelegant, but on the other hand, I can see how it was purpose-built and probably grew over time and things were tacked on. (For instance, there's one table that has a single row, where several fields are simply JSON dictionaries.)

On the other hand, how templates work and how cloze deletions work are really nice. With the flashcard app I built, I didn't have templates, but did have a very basic cloze deletion system where you could mark text to be "hidden" on the front. It was very limited in that you'd only ever get one front/back combination. You could hide multiple bits of text, but they'd all be hidden at the same time. With Anki, you can create multiple groups of hidden text, so that you end up with multiple flashcards from the same note (i.e. you hid three separate groups of text, so you now have three different cards to test with).

I've been working on an update to my app to incorporate templates and cloze deletions like how Anki does it, so now I appreciate that aspect to it.

For my own database, at least in the new version I'm working on, I've ended up creating a schema where the individual attributes for each card are thrown into their own tables, but this is mostly because I needed to support updating individual attributes separately since I use a very simple journaling system to sync across devices. With Anki's schema, I can see why sync was complicated (at least in earlier versions) since it wasn't really built for it.

[1] https://www.freshcardsapp.com/

I've written my own flashcards app (Fresh Cards) and once in a while, users ask if there's a way to import flashcards from things like web pages and PDF files, but to be honest, I still don't know how it would work, so maybe you can help me.

From a user standpoint, would it be an interactive process where you highlight things and then click a button to say "turn this into a flashcard", or would it be an automated tool that would scan the content and come up with a list of questions and answers t hat would test the material for you? What criteria would be used to determine what's worth turning into a question and answer? And how granular should the question be? I've seen demos of things that pick out specific facts, like dates or names, from the text to turn into questions, but that might not be that useful to quiz for some material. It seems like a very open-ended process to me, so it would be hard to get right for everyone's needs.

As someone who's worked on lots of personal projects over the years, the constraints you put on yourself are really a major blocker. I used to spend more time planning rather than doing, but at some point something clicked in my head and I realized that I was just avoiding imperfection and doing things "wrong" by constantly researching and planning how best to do things.

Once I was okay with maybe doing things wrong and just hacking things together, it really unlocked my productivity. In my case, my perfectionism ended up being an excuse to procrastinate and avoid the pain of failure, but once I was okay with failure, everything else got easier. Even if I don't know how to do something, I'm more confident that I can plow ahead and figure out how to handle unknowns later.

Momentum is a big thing as well. Once you start having bits and pieces of your idea working, you'll quickly find a way to overcome knowledge gaps because you are hugely incentivized to see more of your vision become a reality. If you don't have anything working yet, it's much harder to motivate yourself to just read up on how some tech works because it doesn't necessarily translate to something immediately working.

Thanks for checking it out! I'm going to update that FAQ right now since Minders does offer a one-time payment now and also does let you export for archiving (JSON, text, and PDF).

Congratulations on the launch! It looks very polished and easy to use.

Coincidentally, I've come up with same idea independently with my own journaling app with a social media interface (Minders). I've seen at least a couple of other apps that go for this kind user experience, which is fun, as there's lots of ways to tackle this type of app. For me, I put in some ideas consistent with social media that may or may not work (still figuring it out), like being able to "retweet" earlier posts, quote them, and reply to them, so it's kind of like having a conversation with yourself across time.

I've found that the social media-like UI really does help with recording quick notes to myself. It seems to promote more browsing than, say, a list of notes, and hashtags make it fun to jump around and see related notes, etc.

Best of luck on your app!

To me, it feels more like a move to even more individualism. Previously, a lot of information was learned through your community, but now you can bypass all of that and get information directly by searching for it on your own online or hearing about it in a podcast or a video that you sought out. You don't need a local community to learn about the world.

The fact that we can each curate our own choice of media or news means we can also create our own echo chambers, so our chosen "realities" aren't as similar to our neighbors as they were when people all watched the same few channels on TV.

I agree though that it can also mean we're experiencing more of the world through other people, strangers, instead of experiencing it for ourselves. I think our exposure to so many different experiences (but not direct experiences) also has an effect on our perception of what's normal or ideal, i.e. sitting being idle feels even worse when you see other people online doing amazing things.

Oh, I have tried that strategy and it's usually met with lack of interest, which to me is a sign maybe I don't have much in common with them anymore.

I can recall one conversation where I was doing a lot of asking in a phone conversation with a friend and he was talking for maybe an hour about what was new in his life and there was a natural break and I realized I didn't really talk too much about myself and so I did, and the conversation just died. He didn't ask more questions or show a lot of interest in what I was saying. I don't think it's always different communication styles.

To me, a good conversation, and not one where you're just exchanging information for some utilitarian purpose, is a back and forth where you share stories, ask for details, show interest, and really connect. It's not just a "I'll talk for a bit and when I'm done, you talk for a bit". I've been in those types of conversations too and often I afterwards feel like I didn't really connect with another person. I just used them to share something I found interesting and they did the same to me. I didn't really gain insight into who they are.

Of course not every conversation has to be a deep connection, but in the context of dating (as in at the start of the article), that's got to be your primary goal.

I just wanted to highlight the vast difference between conversationalists who are terrible askers and those who are really, really good. I definitely don't have the personality to be the greatest asker at all times, but it's good to see what a difference it can make on conversation and relationships to work on asking more questions.

I have a couple of friends who I would call non-askers. It drives me crazy and makes me not enjoy spending time with them. When I do hang out with them, I'll ask them what's new and they'll gladly tell me in great detail all the life issues they're facing and what they've been doing lately, but they never reciprocate. As in the article, if I stop asking questions, the conversation just hits a lull and they don't think to return the favor.

On the other hand, the really great askers make you feel like the most important person in the room. You'll answer their questions and they'll ask really good follow-up questions to show they're listening and that they care.

> The first kind of quality is the only kind that matters in the end.

From a business perspective, this is what's exciting to a lot of people. I think we have to recognize that a lot of products fail not because the software was written poorly, but because the business idea wasn't very good.

If a business is able to spin up its product using some aspect of vibe coding to test out its merits, and is able to explore product-market fit more quickly, does it really matter if the code quality is bad? Likewise, a well-crafted product can still fail because either the market shifted (maybe it took too long to produce) or because there really wasn't a market for it to begin with. Obviously, there's a middle ground here, and if you go too far with vibe coding and produce something that constantly fails or is hard to maintain, then maybe you've gone too far, but it's a balance that needs to be weighed against business risk.

I agree with you. I like that they mentioned people came by to their larger event by way of the paper invitation. There's something about a paper invitation that signals thoughtfulness and care. You have to print out these things and actually go walk door to door to drop them off. It's not a huge amount of work, but way more than just tapping a button.

I actually have gotten paper invitations from a neighbor on my street for a holiday party at their house and ended up going without having met them before just because it felt good to see it on my door step. Somebody actually took the time (actually, it was their kids) to drop it off.

App Store Optimization, sort of the SEO for the App Store.

The lack of sympathy is understandable, though I do think becoming depressed after a huge success is probably very common. You've spent so much of your waking life for years working towards a goal and then you attain it, and maybe that success no longer needs your hard work, so there's a massive vacuum in your life. Obviously there's more to life than business success and it'll take time to find your purpose again, but that come down, I think, is natural.

It reminds me of the article about one of the co-founders of RxBar and how he was finding it hard to search for meaning after they sold their company for hundreds of millions. It was posted here years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21138106

I agree that it's possible AI is unable to generate exceptional code (at least not at the moment), but there are definitely places where average or below-average may just be good enough.

If the goal is deliver business value, an argument can be made that one could leverage AI for bits of code where high skill isn't required, and that that could free up the human developer to focus on places where high skill is more important (high level system architecture, data model designs, simpler user experiences that reduce the amount of work overall).

If a dev just used pure "vibe coding" to generate code and didn't provide enough human oversight to verify the high-level designs, then you can definitely get into an issue where the code gets out of control, but I think there's a middle ground where you have a hybrid of high-level human design and oversight and low-level AI implementation.

I think the line between how much human involvement there is versus pure AI coding may be a sliding one. For something like a startup that is unsure if their product is even providing enough user value, it might make sense to quickly prototype with AI to see if a product is viable, then if it is, rewrite parts with more human intervention to scale up.

I wonder how much of this has been driven by ZIRP, making companies a little bit more lax on what they were spending energy on. Teams are large and devs are decoupled from the end user and end result (PMs, designers, leads, managers have more say on the product being created). That, coupled with devs traditionally, IMO, being enamored by system design and wanting to create even more efficient systems for building things, and given that is the one thing they have direct control over (not the end user experience and product), they would naturally want to focus their efforts on improving their systems for building things, at the sake of missing out on the bigger picture, which is that rebuilding systems has a cost that does not directly translate into net user benefit.

When you're closer to improving the bottom line in terms of sales and user joy, I think there's a greater likelihood that you focus less on spending time rebuilding your platform to whatever is currently hot on the scene. (Not to mention internal promotions may be skewed towards clear engineering efforts vs. more qualitative user-perceived improvements.)

Reading the post, I initially thought you literally went and got donuts and drove around to drop them off to local people in your fediverse. That would be a really cool way to meet people for those working from home, but obviously it would be logistically difficult.

I agree with you that it probably doesn't quite work the same as a 1-on-1 or group interaction since it's all public. In some ways it reminds me too much of the pandemic era where we'd have a "party" over zoom. It never felt quite as authentic as a real party where you could chat directly with a coworker off to the side and really be honest about without worrying about other people listening in.

Neat idea. I always thought it would be interesting to have social media with limitations of some sort, such as limiting number of posts per day per person (to discourage people hanging out on the site too much or overwhelming followers with their posts), but I never considered limiting the time someone can access the feed. Have you experimented with other limitations?

This might be obvious, but to me, it was an important realization that a lot of subreddits that deal with, say, chronic health issues, are going to skew towards people who have extreme conditions. People who get better aren't necessarily going to want to be hanging around in such spaces.

Even subreddits that don't deal with health conditions are going to skew a certain way over time just as a result of who hangs out there all the time and who is accepted, so the "reality" you see in a subreddit is not necessarily the true reality of the greater population. (Again, this should be obvious, but it's easy to forget this when you start reading a reddit post and thinking, "I don't agree with all these people, but there are many people with this opinion. Should I be thinking more like they do?")

If I'm going to MOD Pizza, I'm going because I want to eat something quick and easy. I'm not necessarily going there to maximize my pizza-eating experience. I honestly prefer picking something from the menu and maybe adding some extra toppings.

In general, I don't personally enjoy having to make decisions about particular ingredients when I go somewhere to eat. It's mental energy I don't want to have to expend. Not having any dietary restrictions, I personally prefer somewhere that offers a fixed set of items. I'd also say that when I was younger, I was afraid of making the wrong choices and didn't know what some ingredients were whenever I'd go somewhere that did have choices, so that added a little bit of anxiety.

I agree with the sentiment that algorithms do affect what we see in our feeds and often the things we see are chosen because they are deemed more engaging by said algorithm, but I also think we're overstating the effects of the algorithms and putting too much blame on them. I think we need to recognize that the technology we've built is inherently addictive and also making human connections more impersonal.

If you took away the algorithms, I don't think you'd necessarily have a relaxing social media feed. You'd still have people sharing so-called "engaging" material and you'd still have to deal with "context collapse" and disagreeable discussions. I think the anonymous nature of online connections inherently make them more impersonal compared with actual face to face ones. And being constantly connected to other human beings digitally (even strangers) is incredibly addictive.

Do you know if there's a camera-based app that translates on the fly? These all seem to use uploaded images, but I'd love to be able to flip through an actual physical book and translate via an app.

Come on, it was a team effort. It took at least six designers to come up with that new color.

Oh, that's really cool you have something similar there too. I like that you stay in edit mode as you navigate from note to note with the shortcuts. I think that's one of the things that makes Card Buddy work really well. I tried to make it feel like editing a spreadsheet. In the app, you can navigate to empty cells in the canvas using the arrow keys and then create a card on the spot by typing some text. It makes it super fast to fill in the board if you have a lot of thoughts you want to get down right away.

This is very cool. I had a very similar idea, although I was probably inspired by the same UX you've seen elsewhere.

I had already built an index cards app for Mac and iOS and it works really well for what it does, but the fixed size of the cards always bothered me since you're always limited vertically by the card, so I wanted to try a horizontally scrolling note editor like you have here.

I put together a quick prototype of the idea I came up last year. Here's a recording I did just now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V-kCD2aXcQ

Also inspired by Andy Matuschak's page. I've been meaning to work on it a bit more and get in the app store but have been busy with other projects.

Totally agree here. I visited the page and scrolled through it to see what it was all about and saw a bunch of pull quotes and couldn't work out what I was looking at. It just looks like a light magazine article or brochure until you either click on the hamburger menu to see a full table of contents or scroll to the very bottom to see the table of contents there.

This really needs some design improvements if they want people to read through to the actual lessons. Most people are going to drop off after scrolling through that landing page.

I immediately thought of old school blogs in the 2000s when the page loaded. No annoying clickbait titles, memes, or reaction gifs, just personal reporting with short paragraphs and plenty of photos.