I immediately thought Sandwich made it. Some of their stuff like https://youtu.be/5GeR8XTWR3M?si=RX-NBCMicnUPw1jA is so good I just periodically watch it.

If The Browser Company folks made that video, their superpower is really marketing and you are actually correct. But I feel like it must have been an agency.

In sports like skydiving and technical cave/wreck diving people often assume you get an adrenaline rush doing it and that’s what draws people in.

Not the case (for me at least).

Rather, when you get good enough to be competent at these there’s no adrenaline. Adrenaline is when you are operating beyond your skill level. The satisfaction comes from calm, cool, collected execution, with the knowledge and training that allows you to avoid the dangers and do something exceptional with a much lower risk profile than an outsider would assume.

It’s also fun to play with gear (toys).

If you’re going for PMF and traction… It needs to have all sorts of Nikita Bier onboarding juice, remove all barriers and friction for not only the person setting this up but most importantly their companions. Time to first usefulness is currently minutes. It needs to be seconds. And then layers of social sharing work so that the content this app generates is stuff that will be easily shareable on Instagram. And then layers of contact adding stuff for vitality.

Then your next problem is people don’t go on trips that often, so at best your users can only use it in spurts a few times a year.

And your reward for all of that is then figuring out how to get money out of these users. Ads?

None of that should be bad news. It’s good news. The hard truth is this is not a marketable piece of software. It’s a classic tarpit.

You’ve clearly built something that YOU love and are passionate about. That’s awesome. Keep building it, and get that little burst of dopamine when you add a feature that you love that is perfectly designed for exactly 1 user, the only one who matters.

And then when a profitable idea pops into your head you know what it will take to bring it to life. And if it’s a truly great idea, one that helps your users make money, it wont need any of the soul crushing growth hacks described above, people will beg you to use it and put up with all manner of warts and bugs because it helps them make money.

This is new update is dog ugly and universally reviled. They’ll fix the most egregious stuff in beta, and then in a year or two dial it in.

This is a big, bold move. I’m happy to see them do something that takes some courage and also ship it.

Most of the really bad/unreadable screenshots I see are people customizing things so they look terrible. All the defaults look great.

I think it’s great we have deep customization options coming. That’s good. To people that say you shouldn’t be able to make it look bad… No. My desktop OS is infinitely configurable and I can absolutely break it. I’m happy to see at least the most surface level guard rails coming off of iOS.

This is good.

Maybe it speeds up their dev time but a native app should not feel like a (poorly engineered) web app. Every click loads for a second or two and sometimes it hangs for even longer. I grew to dread adding and managing events.

It’s a shame because even though the app made some questionable design choices, it was in general a breath of fresh air in terms of UI.

I’d like to hope that they’ll fix it, but I know they won’t.

It is absolutely incredible for watching video, even 2D video. The 3D video it can produce is stunning. For me it was the best way to watch video, imo on par with or better than an IMAX screen. Just insane.

However, what got me selling it was: - It doesnt work well on flights. If it did, I could have justified keeping it. - I don’t watch much video alone at home. - Weight. If it was lighter and more comfortable the things it is ok at would be better.

In 10-15yrs, I think this type of device will be as widely used as smartphones are today.

at YC he made a name for himself, built the rolodex, and learned how to build startups to the point that he turned OpenAI into a rocketship and now has unlimited access to capital and talent to build another one.

A brave new world.