UX, $$$ | July Update
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PART I: PRODUCT Compass got a little better last month, especially the UX. Views. Things are more minimal and consistent across the Day and Week views. No one used the Now view, so I cut it. RIP. Styles. All these got better: colors, shortcut hints, layouts, toasts. You can also adjust the task list’s width so the titles don’t truncate. URL. The app and website used to live on separate servers. Now everything is at https://www.compasscalendar.com. Not even URLs are safe from Operation Simplify. PART II: $$$ “Fail fast” is a tech mantra that pressures builders to move on if something doesn’t get immediate traction. It’s good advice for venture-backed companies who traded time for money upfront. But everyone else can embrace a saner approach to failure: Don’t. A builder only fails when they give up or they die. I haven’t raised VC, and I’m not giving up. Compass is either going to become great or I’m going to die. I’m healthy and young(ish), so I’m betting on the former. If you also want to bet on Compass Calendar’s future, I have something for you: The Believer Plan. Believer support will allow me to pour my full focus into Compass. In return, Believers will get some cool perks. I want to hear what kind of benefits you'd like before finalizing the plan. If you’d consider becoming an early supporter, LMK by replying to this email. I’ll follow-up with a few questions. If you’re on the fence, just reply. Even if you don't become a Believer, your feedback will make it better for those who do. For an example of this approach, check out the Capacities Believer Plan. I’m thinking of something along those lines. Till next time, Tyler |
Changelog
Short product summaries
Compass got a little better last month, especially the UX. It feels smoother. I could get into the weeds about the layouts, grids, pointers, and geometry that come together to make that work. Instead, I’ll just link the PR for the curious. It looks better. We made things subtler so that you can focus on what really matters: your schedule. The sidebar got narrower, icons smaller, and the colors cooler. Here’s how it looks: Week view Day view This might seem like an underwhelming update,...
Compass got a little better last month, especially for developers. Things are faster and lighter. First-time builds for devs are 74% faster. Artifacts are 66% smaller. We ship 36% fewer dependencies. This makes working with Compass a lot more enjoyable. Self-hosting is easier. It’s been possible to self-host Compass ever since we went open-source in 2023. However, actually pulling that off took a lot of time (like, hours). We wanted to make it easier to get up and running. So, we added an...
Compass got a little better last month. Email/password signup. You can use Compass without connecting your Google account. Great news for self-hosters and anyone resisting the singularity. Sync repair. If you later connect your GCal and that connection becomes stale, Compass will display a button that magically fixes it and issues 1 BTC. Reliability & DX. Websockets → SSE, tanstack-hotkeys, and technical docs. Head over to app.compasscalendar.com and try it out for yourself. ’Till next time,...