Or how I sign, notarize, and cryptographically verify YEN — touching 30 languages, 5 compilers, 65 verification checks, and zero CI servers — from a single command.
i've been working on a small saas product helping folks figure out how to manage their social media accounts when they die. yeah. pretty esoteric, but, i'm a bit stuck at this point on how i should grow it. i don't want to pay money for ads and i don't want to have to pseo stuff or try to "hack" a subreddit. https://deathnote.ai
i know this is kind of morbid, but this is one of those "special interests" that i have... i am fascinated by death. i really think it's one of the more interesting topics of study.
eh, that's besides the point.
i've been talks with my dad for over a decade about death because he's a hospice chaplain and his job is in the "industry" of death. but, he's in service of it, helping individuals and families begin to process the event and start their healing process. the stories that they share with him as the time approaches are, well, spell-binding.
one that kept coming up though was this idea of "final messages" to loved ones or even instructions to friends about things they cared about, like social media accounts, pets, and even instructions for the funeral and more. there are an infinite number of reasons why a "death note" or final note makes more sense than sharing it while you're alive.
functionally, it's a "digital" dead man's switch, which isn't a new concept. to my count there are 20+ services that are doing similar things and i support those, not as competitors but as partners cause honestly, this shit isn't supposed to scale (60m ppl die a year, so, that's the "TAM" if you will. lol).
but the real inspiration was the death note anime series. if you haven't seen that then i'd recommend it. it forces you to wrestle with the boundaries of good and evil and the practical application of ethics in a world very much like our own. except for the shinigami (or maybe not).
the concept of writing someone's name down and them dying is the exact inverse of what this is but conceptually it's the same. a note with final instructions except in this case you're writing your own name down (was that even ever mentioned as a possibility in the anime? i don't think so...).
anyways, i've loved building it with some friends. it's a side project that would be fun to become a full-time project but there's no rush. i just thought i'd share as i wait for something to compile.
love thoughts, suggestions on how to make it better, and whatever.
surprised that no one suggested something obvious and relatively easy: friends and family. these folks know you well and may (surprisingly) know folks within your field that you didn't know about. i got a job from an acquaintance who knew someone at their church... again, surprise.
it was useful for a time in web2.0 land but things have changed.
... also, i realized i wanted more privacy, not less as i got older. the blog was becoming a potential risk by increasing surface area of attack on identity.
i'm 38, about to be 39... and i'm semi-retired. built a great career around software and then got a bit lucky with investing... and now that's kinda on auto-pilot.
i'm actually trying to figure out what i want to do in the next 40 years of my life. i like building stuff and still have an exciting "tech startup" on the side.
i have 3 kids and so my focus is mostly on making sure they don't kill themselves... and get them to 18 and then pray. lol.
life is just as frustrating as it was before i was retired... the frustrations just changed though.
5. one-one-one coaching via private messages! — i get to do one-on-one coaching and engagement with my community members as they enter into the space and engage with the community / product. this "white glove" type of experience helps me learn their specific needs as well as give them true value, as best as i can. i can go in-depth with members and really connect with them in authentic ways. sometimes this results in a "sale" (purchasing a subscription to one of the `paid rooms`) but mostly it's about just "doing things that don't scale" and making sure that i have immediate and direct access with my customer.
6. monetization via paid rooms around specific topics / themes! — since we're bootstrapped and proud we need to also make a bit of money and so one of the base feature primitives is `paid rooms`. just like public and private, you can easily create these, choose a price, and go! users can quickly add their own credit card (we use stripe rn ) and sign-up with one-click. we're currently test-driving that in our own yeniverse (you can see the the [build workflow here](https://john.do/paid-rooms-beta/)) and we're going to open this up for artists and creators and small business owners soon. a lot of folks are using this for not just creating gated, paid / mvp / behind-the-scenes experiences but also selling product... a user buys access to the room and then gets shipped a product or swag. a bit counter-intuitive at first but this is better because you want them to be a paying community member (subscription) more than just a one-time buyer (single transaction). this combination of product > community is very unique to the platform.
7. it's all free and focused— as a boostrapped startup i need to save money and [YEN](http://yen.chat) is free to use, forever...
... all in one single browser tab.
i don't want to have to be on all these insane places all the time when i really just need to focus 100% on my community and customers. consequently, i'm not active on any web 2.0 / social media network and instead spend 100% of my time in this product and community space. this saves me TONS of time and pressure and anxiety of trying to just "tweet to randos" besides the fact that they are algorithmically-controlled feeds... so you don't even know if your work is being seen! i think that's bullshit and YEN doesn't have any algo-feeds and doesn't profit on pixel tracking, retargeting, anyone's data or the traditional BS biz models; yen doesn't track anything and you know with 100% confidence that what you post is seen by every single person in that room. that's a bit why we consider it a part of web 3.
... in a single browser tab.
i hope others can be inspired by this use-cases and use it for themselves for success! lmk if you have any questions!
---
note:
1. i do use github with my team... so, technically, i have two browser tabs that are pinned. L(° O °L)
this is admittedly self-promotional but i've built a free app that helps with this... it's a web app designed to literally "maintain relationships with users" especially new projects.
you can see how i'm doing this in www.yen.chat — the communication platform is also a community platform where i can get feedback about the product itself, from them directly. i engage and build community around topics that we all like and slowly build the project.
1. Customer sends you data…
2. You manipulate the data…
3. You send the data back to the customer…
this is how i start the process... i figure out the fundamentals.
a few examples:
Dating / Matching Service:
- You send me your dating preferences (via form)…
- I’ll manually sort / categorize / match you with the “best fit” (manipulating data)…
- I’ll send you your match (and you’ll pay me)!
Customer gets a potential match and you get paid.
Collecting, Delivering Daily Standup Notes:
- You (team) sends me daily standup notes (via web form)…
- I’ll auto-magically categorize notes into business unit (ops, dev, design, legal, marketing, etc)…
- I’ll send you (the team) all the notes related to your specific business unit!
Individuals and teams are updated, aligned, and they now have the necessary info to do their job well.
Blogging Publishing Template:
- You create a simple form to capture blog post ideas…
- I’ll sort it based on length and other metadata…
- I’ll send you the template to use for your post (with API access?)!
Customer get a “best practice” blogging template and you get a repeat customer (monetization)?
... so, that gets me a baseline of the problem, the customer, and a very basic product... this can oftentimes done with #nocode or with existing services... you can almost fake a lot of this in the beginning.
if you've got the customer and the value right... then you can iterate on the product, part #2 which was once a manual (or semi-manual process) and then you graduate or iterate or evolve or level-up the product to be more automated over time.
this is a land-war of sorts... and will take many attempts to get it right. don't give up.
ping me if you need anything: john [at] yen [dot] io
YEN has built the first embeddable community platform that empowers creators to build great businesses. We're venture-funded and a small team of 2. Looking for someone to come in, grok our mission (and existing product), and help build out features. There's larger description here:
the hardest leadership challenge has also been the hardest professional challenge...
i cofounded a venture-backed startup with my brother. a few years in, i had to fire him.
too many details to unpack here, but, gratefully he's found footing and is happy building something else. i'm still running the venture although we are running out of time / money.
(i'm not sharing that last point for sympathy; i understood the risks and i'm prepared to face the end, just like the beginning.)
overcoming it? honestly, i just pressed on; what else can you really do? i got therapy, counseling, to work through the difficult patches and i invested in myself a bit more so i could find peace with it all. i realized that i had a pretty serious co-dependency issue and now i'm clear-headed in a way i've never been.
