2023 end of year letter

after the ecstasy, the laundry

Happy new year, friends.

This is a rare-ish dispatch where I share the end of year memo I sent to the Sublime team unpacking some of the ideas I’ve been wrestling with lately re: coherence. 

The memo was intended for an internal audience, but I believe the questions asked are universal and relevant to anyone building something new.

I’d love to hear from you — what do you connect with? What feels off? What’s missing?

Here’s to a more sublime 2024.

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There’s a lot of emotional overheard that comes with building a company whose essence is hard to put into words. 

“Pinterest for ideas” is too flat, “a second brain in multiplayer mode” is too nerdy, “a calmer, more human internet” too vague. 

The closest thing we’ve got to a tagline is this: ‘a simpler, more communal way to build your second brain.’ 

Or this: part note-taking, part bookmarking, and part social network. 

Sounds nice, but that’s like saying Disneyworld is part restaurant, part amusement park, and part entertainment theater. It doesn’t really tell you what makes it magical. 

Sublime’s magic comes in how it feels for our community to engage with our software. 

Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield titled one of his books, “After the Ecstasy, the Laundry.” Achieving enlightenment, he argues, does not preclude one from the daily, mundane tasks of life. 

Some companies go all in on the ecstasy - ‘here’s our magical vision for the future’. Others commit to the laundry - look at our rich feature-set isn’t it amazing?”

At Sublime, we must hold both at once. At the end of the day, having an exciting vision (even one where illegibility is an asset) does not exempt us from building a product that people actually want. 

Sublime exists in the dance between words and vibes, logic and intuition, laundry and ecstasy. And we understand that these things aren't irreconcilable. That in fact, the journey of making Sublime is itself an ongoing reconciliation between these worlds. 

I want to explore the interplay between these in this memo by fleshing out:

• Who we’re building for - our community

• How we’re building it - our principles

• What we’re building - our product 
  

Who is Sublime for?

It’s been four months since we first introduced Sublime to the world. And the early signs are very encouraging. We sold out of our zine. New people become Believers for our beta product every week. We’ve already built something 1,000 people love (and tens of thousands are waiting to try). Not love in a “I’ve created an account" way, but love in a “I’m telling all my friends about it”, “I’m bragging about it”, “take my hard earned cash”, “here’s a love note”  sorta way.  

These early adopters get it without us needing to spoon feed it to them. They get it because we don’t spoon feed it to them.

Speaking to many of these people, a sense of who makes up our community is emerging. 

Sublime is for ‘very online’ people that have a general fatigue with our current PKM and social platforms and are looking for better ways to be on the Internet, in a medium is the message sort of way. 

Sublime is for people who don’t want the process of building a second brain to spiral into a tyrannical chore. 

For anyone seeking creativity, beauty, and simplicity, not optimizing for productivity and efficiency. 

For anyone who craves online spaces that quiet the mind and let inspiration flow.

Sublime is for people whose love language is collecting, connecting, and sharing ideas.

Sublime is for people who have tried every tool to collect and remember anything interesting they come across but nothing has stuck.

Sublime is for people who want a PKM tool but hate PKM tools.

Sublime is for people who find it insane that we’ve delegated our attention, mood, and agency to the world’s largest advertising companies and - this part’s key - remain hopeful that there is a better way.

For anyone seeking alternatives to the web as a performance stage. 

Sublime is for people hungry for a place on the Internet that feels less mall, more library, less conference, more neighborhood cafe chance encounter.

How we build

It starts by respecting our community and acknowledging that we’re asking a lot of them. In a world where productivity tools come and go, we are asking them to trust a little company with their most important asset – their knowledge that should last a lifetime. We are asking them to familiarize themselves with a new tool and abandon all kinds of ad hoc workflows. We are asking them to believe that we are here for the right reasons and that we can execute on this vision to perfection.

So how do we get people who are intrigued by Sublime’s essence – putting ideas around PKM in dialogue with social media – to make the jump from being intrigued to making Sublime an important part of their digital life?

Make a product that speaks for itself

There is no shortcut. The product has to be great. This means sweating the details of every aspect of the product in thoughtful, soulful ways. This means a commitment to simplicity, craft, and dignity. This means getting all the table stakes stuff right – performance, reliability, availability across browsers and operating systems, comprehensive and smart search. This means embracing interoperability where possible, so people have the peace of mind that their Sublime library can travel with them wherever they go. 

Our code should be clean. Our designs should be flawless. Our logic should be crisp. And most importantly, our understanding of our customer should be so strong that we are able to design a product that far exceeds anything they could have found words to request.

Build and nurture a universe

Our job at Sublime is not only to meet demand for a product, it is to create a world people want to call home. A space where you can feel part of something bigger. Where people are like, ‘This place is really cool’—the vibe, the product, how it makes you feel, how the team is friendly and helpful. You buy into everything about it. You identify with it and support it and feel enriched just for visiting. 

In a world of abundant narratives and complex choices, we have to create experiences that express a clear point of view. Our zine is a great example – people love it and want more. 

Earn people’s trust, again and again

In a world of factory farmed unicorns that boom, bust, and let their customers down in the process, we have to show that we are committed to sustainability and longevity. 

That’s why we’re building member-supported artisanal software. We earn trust by stating our business model upfront – instead of ads, we monetize by charging directly. Directly charging creates high expectations from our members, and in aspiring to meet those expectations, we are held accountable to creating something you love and use.

We also earn trust by being honest with our community. About our intentions with Sublime, our depth of commitment to this space, and transparency about how things are going – good and bad. 

What does Sublime do?

With the above context, I feel comfortable describing Sublime as a simpler, more communal way to build your second brain.

Every word here is important. 

Simpler: 

We’ve obsessed over every pixel to make Sublime simple, with the guiding principle that good design is as little design as possible.

We believe a simple product with lots of white space doesn’t just work, it also brings people joy. 

Communal: 

The idea of laboring away in your solo note-taking tool feels like a missed opportunity. Why stop at personal knowledge management (PKM) when we can have communal knowledge management (CKM)? 

Sublime is not a social network, at least not in the way we’re used to. There are no likes, follower counts, or vanity metrics. What we’re after is the sensation of being in the quiet companionship of others.

There aren’t a lot of middle spaces on the Internet that manage to gracefully straddle that balance between private and public. Sublime is one such place.

By being natively multiplayer, we overcome the cold start problem and help people unlock instant value within seconds of joining Sublime – put in a thought or idea and immediately discover related ones from other people’s libraries. 

Second brain: 

Admittedly, we don’t like this term. It sounds hollow and robotic and it harshes the vibe. If anyone has a better term please let us know. Seriously. 

For the time being, however, the idea of a ‘second brain’ has become a shorthand for people who understand the power of curating and cultivating a growing body of knowledge that is uniquely your own. 

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We began 2023 with a lingering question for Sublime: is there a there there? As we start 2024, I can honestly, genuinely respond with a resounding yes. The proof is in our customers and what they’re saying about the product.

The illegibility, the personal struggle to put Sublime into words – is reflective of a universal shift. People are starving for something new and struggling to find the words. 

In the same way that human language gives us a territory in which we can dwell—and it’s almost impossible to get outside of that, the web is a space of infinite potential but we can only go as far as our current interfaces let us go. 

At Sublime, we’re excited about trying to make that space bigger—to create more land, more opportunities for self-expression, self-discovery, collective flourishing, and combinatorial creativity. We want to create software that ignites the human spirit.

It feels lofty and abstract because it is. That’s okay, but only when balanced with a healthy dose of laundry. 

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P.S. If you got all the way here, thank you! If you want to introduce other people to Sublime, this would be a good issue to forward. And if you’re not yet on Sublime, come grow this new world with us. 🙏🏽