Posts

We now recognize the downsides of social media platforms. But, when we start work for the day, we plug into a firehose of messages not dissimilar from Facebook's News Feed. While sitting on a Zoom call, we conduct a side conversation in chat and also watch alerts in another channel. We try to write code or draft a blog post, but end up opening chat every six minutes. We're constantly interrupted, and these "work tools" stop us from doing our work.

We've conflated urgency with importance. While chat excels at delivering urgent information, it falls short in facilitating meaningful discussions. We need a different platform built for important conversations - one that's asynchronous, thoughtful, and structured. So, I built Booklet to solve the problem of too many chat messages at work and in communities.

Booklet is a modern discussion forum and member directory for professional groups. Inspired by Google Groups and old internet forums, Booklet organizes discussions into threads so you can choose which topics to follow. And, it sends a daily newsletter neatly summarizing new posts and activities to all members - so everybody can stay engaged without having to stay logged in.

Workplace communication isn't yet solved

As communication gets easier, people communicate more often. Without structure, we end up over-collaborating, and chat messages become the default workflow for everything from quick questions to managerial decision-making. Chat is inherently synchronous, and synchronous communication is inherently interruptive. If you don't monitor and react in real time, you miss out.

The result is that remote work today resembles a stock trading floor from the 1980s - with constant noise, interruptions, and distractions from chat.

Some jobs require real time collaboration, such as stock trading. But, most knowledge work requires long periods of uninterrupted focus and flow to make progress.

Writers have long understood that writing is a process of deep work and that it requires a quiet, distraction-free environment. Michael Pollan built a cabin in the woods behind his house to be a quiet place optimized for productive writing.

Booklet seeks to be the digital equivalent of Pollan's cabin. It's a communication platform that treats your attention as a scarce resource, so you can treat work and communication as distinct activities.

The future of work is asynchronous

Internet community patterns typically follow the 1% rule, where:

• 1% of members create
• 9% of members contribute by commenting, voting, or liking
• 90% of members read and never interact

In today's chat-centric environment, there's a skewed emphasis on the ease of posting. We rarely pause to consider the broader implication: for every message posted, it's likely to be read 100 times by other people. Yet, we continue to post more and more low-value messages, because it's easy to do so.

For the vast 99% majority who are on the receiving end, chat becomes a source of stress. Constant notifications require frequent context shifts. Unstructured discussions make it difficult to follow along. And, the lack of summaries means onlookers are left out of the loop.

Knowledge work becomes more productive when non-urgent communication gets shifted to an asynchronous format. Thoughtful, long-form communications promote deeper thinking and better decision-making. This insight led Amazon to ban PowerPoint in meetings, and instead require 6-page memos to be read silently at the start of meetings. Programmers have long recognized the efficiency of this approach in their work, utilizing batch processing to have computers efficiently handle repetitive tasks. We need to apply a batching approach to our communication.

Second communities as early adopters

While workplace communication needs to be changed, it has a captive audience. People are incentivized to participate in their company's chat platform, or else.

Booklet aims to change workplace communication. But, its first adopters have been what I call "second communities" - groups formed around an interest, passion, or connection, but whose communication comes second to their jobs. These second communities often adopt Slack or Discord, but see engagement decrease over time as members cannot dedicate enough attention to more chat-based communities. Second communities desperately need a better tool for communication. Booklet solves this problem by using structured discussions that get summarized into a daily email, enabling communities like FRCTNL to thrive.

Newsletter as a killer feature

The first community on Booklet was Dimes Square Ventures, a community I organize of independent software makers in New York City. As busy founders, we wanted a way to stay in touch without too much noise or distraction. We've found that Booklet's daily email is the perfect way to stay informed and contribute when we have time. When I see members in real life, even if they haven't posted recently on Booklet - they are still informed because the newsletter takes only a few seconds to scan. The best part is that people can participate as much as they want, without feeling like they're bothering others by triggering too many notifications.

Compounding knowledge

Something I didn't expect was the popularity of long-running discussions in Booklet communities - such as Dimes Square Ventures' ongoing "Best remote work spots in NYC" thread. These ongoing discussions would get buried in chat, but thrive and continue to be useful on Booklet. The newsletter highlights these "active discussions", and members can follow along at their own pace.

The success of long-running threads shows how communications can compound into knowledge over time, continuing to be useful and discoverable in the future. As Booklet grows, it seeks to be a repository of knowledge for communities.

Try it free

Today Booklet launches on Product Hunt. Try it out at www.booklet.group, where you can create a community, invite members, and start discussions. Booklet has a free tier intended for hobby and social communities, with no limits on members or discussions. As your community grows, paid add-ons such as custom domains help you scale. You can also see Booklet in action at hq.booklet.group - the community for Booklet itself.

Try Booklet out, and let me know what you think,

- Philip

We’re simply not wired to monitor an ongoing stream of unpredictable communication at the same time that we’re trying to also finish actual work. [...] We both love and hate Slack because this company built the right tool for the wrong way to work.

- Cal Newport, in The New Yorker

With the recent tech downturn, there's been a clear shift. Instead of the previous "growth-at-all-costs" model, companies are now emphasizing efficiency. This is evident in hiring, as firms now seek experienced contributors who can hit the ground running with minimal management or development. This shift has laid the groundwork for something I've been championing: fractional work.

Back in 2017, we started Moonlight with a simple idea: help engineers find part-time, remote jobs. Combining part-time with remote work was a big leap then, so we quickly narrowed our focus to just remote work. However, since the pandemic, remote work has accelerated to mainstream. Now, I firmly believe part-time tech roles will soon follow suit.

From our experience with Moonlight, we found that most engineering managers prefer hiring for steady, ongoing work relationships rather than transient, fixed-scope projects. These enduring relationships proved to be mutually beneficial, providing stability for companies and workers in a working style legible to both.

Lately, I've seen many talented friends and colleagues moving into fractional roles. They're carving out more personal time while maintaining the same income. Personally, fractional work has empowered me to pursue my entrepreneurial goals without worrying about runway or funding. It's no surprise that hiring managers are gravitating towards this, appreciating the time saved from exhaustive hiring processes.

Today I'm introducing FRCTNL - a community of fractional developers, designers, and marketers. Distinct from traditional marketplaces focused on top-down projects, FRCTNL focuses on often-overlooked bottoms-up, relationship-centric "staff augmentation" roles. Hiring managers seek quality candidates referred by their existing team, and direct relationships with talent — this is the niche FRCTNL aims to serve.

FRCTNL operates on a referral model, where members help swap and share opportunities with each other. The underlying hypothesis is that there is latent demand for fractional talent, and that connecting with existing fractional workers is the best way to find those open roles. I'm convinced that our fractional worker network will streamline hiring for companies and further mainstream part-time roles.

Support FRCTNL's launch today on Product Hunt, and join the community at frctnl.xyz.

- Philip

Having seen that happen so many times is one of the things that convinces me that working for oneself, or at least for a small group, is the natural way for programmers to live.

- Paul Graham, You weren't meant to have a boss

P.S.: FRCTNL uses Booklet, a forthcoming forum + directory software from Contraption Co.

Today I'm launching Postcard, the easiest way to make a personal website. In 5 minutes, you can create a page that looks great on any device - with no coding or design skills required. Host it on your domain, and build a long-term mailing list.

Want to try it out? Sign up at postcard.page, and support the launch on Product Hunt.

Owning your identity on the internet

It's simple to make a profile on a social media site. Add a name, photo, and cover photo - you’re done. Why can't making a website be that easy?

Personal homepages have a long history on the internet. They're a place to share your personal story - work, hobbies, interests, and more. You can link to them from your social media profiles, and they appear in Google when somebody searches your name. You can even set up a professional email address linked to your custom domain name.

But creating a personal website is hard and time-consuming to maintain. You need to learn HTML and CSS or use a website builder like Squarespace or Wix. These tools are great, but they're expensive and complicated - because they're built for businesses, not individuals.

Postcard is a new kind of website builder. It’s easy to use, and free to get started. You can create a page in minutes, and the site looks great on any device. And if you want to make a change, you can do it in seconds. But, under the hood - a lot of sophisticated technology keeps your site fast, responsive, and secure.

Write once, share everywhere

Over the last two years, I've mostly quit Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. I largely replaced social media with newsletters and blogs to stay in touch. But I still wanted a long-term place to share my thoughts and ideas and connect with people.

Postcard includes a simple newsletter system with light blog functionality. You can write a post that shows up on your homepage and sends emails to your subscribers.

I've been writing on my Postcard for months, and it's been a great way to stay in touch with friends, family, and my internet community. It’s even prompted me to connect with people I've never met before and share my ideas with a broader audience.

Postcard adds sophisticated meta tags to each post that look professional when shared on social media. So, you can write once on Postcard - then share across networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

A dependable tool

Postcard marks the first launch from Contraption Co., fulfilling the goal of building dependable tools for the internet age. Postcard is built to be stable and serve its customers long-term. There are no ads, and the business model is simple and fair.

Check out some of my favorite Postcard pages that are already online:

• emmalawler.com
• ivana.page
• ericoneil.me
• harrymoy.com

Try it out, and let me know what you think.

- Philip