App fatigue is real

Something we say a lot is that people have app fatigue. How many apps have you downloaded this year that you stopped using after a week? 

We've been (obsessively) thinking about what the best user experiences are and why the best technology probably won't be yet another app.

Let’s get into it. 

Everyone's tired. Tired of downloading another productivity tool, configuring another dashboard, managing another inbox. "There's an app for that" used to be exciting. Now it's exhausting. Every new tool promises to simplify your life but adds one more thing to manage, one more login, one more tab. If you're anything like Julia and have 47 tabs open right now, you know the feeling.

We had a call with a client this week who said she wanted us to build her an app. We asked a few questions and followed up with: "You told us you're already in ChatGPT every day. What if we built this inside of that instead?" She paused and said wow, that would be incredible.

We think tech is going to look very different soon, not because the models are getting better (they are), but because the best products will meet people where they already are instead of forcing them into new habits. Claude and ChatGPT have already been adopted into people's daily routines. These companies have billions of dollars, the best engineering teams in the world, and massive distribution. So the question becomes: what does a supercharged version of the tools you already work in look like?

Last week we wrote about how setup is the product. This week we're taking that a step further and thinking about how we can piggyback off platforms that already exist and build on top of them.

We listened to a great podcast recently that brought this to life. Russell’s favorite internet personality, Greg Isenberg, had Dan Shipper on to talk about how he's turned Claude and Codex into his personal operating system. His email gets swept into cards that summarize each message and draft replies. His Slack and meeting notes get pulled into feeds that learn what he cares about over time. He has background jobs that gather information and route it to the right place throughout the day. And when he wants to teach the system something new, he does the task once while the system watches and it becomes a reusable skill.

He built it all inside the tools he was already using, and turned a simple chat interface into a more dynamic, visual, interactive experience that works for him.

We think the best technology shouldn't ask you to change how you work. It should make how you already work feel supercharged. 

Stay curious,

Julia & Russell