I believe in the potential of the Internet and the value of the individual. Agency: @fictivekin Productivity: @teuxdeux Community @kinference @brooklynbeta
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We put together a V1 Handbook for how to design and build large-scale websites.
Grounded in our work on countless websites for large organizations like like Sweetgreen, Palantir, Galaxy, Color, Ogilvy, Glossier, Bose, Samsung, and Microsoft.
Hope you find it useful.
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If you need an arrow to tell me to scroll down your website, I don't think you designed it very well.
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We launched an app! It's called Tap In. It's a live, group meditation app. Kind of like if HQ Trivia was a daily meditation instead of competition. Good for meditation newbies and experts alike. Maybe help us out by downloading it and rating it, please? itunes.apple.com/us/app/tap-…
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Too often people don't realize how talented they are. When someone dismisses something they did as easy or "no big deal," I like to remind them that it's only easy because the've become an expert. Congrats, expert.
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I don't know who needs to hear this but it's okay to do a regular call instead of a video call.
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Pretty pumped about this launch. Our team at @fictivekin loved working with the wonderful / talented folks at @cursor_ai on the new site. It's probably the broadest collaboration we've ever had on a project. So many people contributed from FK, Cursor, and beyond.
Hugely impressed by @justinjaywang who was tasked with leading the design of this project on his second week on the job, @romanugarte_ who kept a million threads together, @ryolu_, and Emily Gavrilenko. Also a shout out to @basementstudio and Michael Clasen of Kimera.
I love how beautiful, human, and calm it turned out.
Meet the new Cursor.com.
Cursor is no longer just an IDE – it’s the new way to build software.
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New site alert!
fictivekin.com/work
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Designers!
The market for your talent is back. Why not start your own company instead of joining someone else's?
You are more fundable than you think. Reach out to the folks Julie mentioned (special shout out to @designerfund ) or apply for @AIResidency.
A "founding designer" might get 1-3% of a company. A co-founder gets half or a third.
The world needs more companies with great design built in from the start, not tacked on later.
The market for start-up design talent has never been more competitive. I’ve had half a dozen companies ask me recently, “how do I get a great founding designer?”
Folks, if you are not already bosom buddies with great designers, you’re gonna need to put out a beacon that attracts top talent:
1. Tell a compelling, true story about your ‘why.’ Make a page dedicated to this. Make your story come alive as only you can. Anyone with ChatGPT can write a generic sounding req about competitive benefits and rocketship grow opps. Write about a problem and vision that is wildly ambitious yet deeply personal to you.
2. Express that you “get” the importance of design. This is your ‘proof of work’ that you will value the person that you hire, for ex (not limited to):
a. Your page / app / website show attention to detail and care for the experience
b. Your description of the job shows a deep understanding of what good design means (do your research here).
c. You talk about design work that you admire or find aspirational.
d. You have design-forward people on your cap table (ie @designerfund, @soleio, @karrisaarinen, @rsg, @tobi, etc)
Ofc easier said than done, but the key is to put some effort into standing out as an incredible environment for designers to do their best work.
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Fictive Kin has a new site and I couldn't be happier. fictivekin.com
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I do not like power dynamics in hiring. Someone told me they received an offer and the person said they "had to know by today." I said there are three good responses:
1. My answer is no.
2. Go Fuck Yourself ™
3. LOL
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I wish we could require anyone dispensing business advice to publish their revenue and profitability numbers.
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Unsubscribed from Masterclass* and thought the experience was funny / wild enough that I made a video about it. Going to make it a series about impolite UX.
piped.video/ZQJUUCDiw8c
*I liked it a lot but had watched most of what I was interested in.
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Before COVID I would have career / life / product conversations with people around NYC a few times a week at least. I don’t think I’ve had even one of those conversations since March and I really miss them.
My solution: I really want to do a live, casual call-in “radio” thing.
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If I was going to write a book on Product Management / Design, the first chapter would be called "You are not Steve Jobs."
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I gave a talk about digital products at #DesignDrivenNYC. They recorded it. It is here: piped.video/watch?v=LlN9XvkD…
Thanks to @OscarHealth & @FirstMarkCap for hosting.
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Today is a decent reminder that launching a new brand means confronting an army of dickwolves.
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Calling designers who want to be founders.
We are doing Cohort 2 of AIR (@AIResidency).
Collaborative Fund has put together a call for startups that I'll include in the reply. But we'd love to hear from you about any product you're working on that includes AI in some capacity.
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I’d love to talk to anyone about
* Product Design
* Your Career
* Something new you’re trying
* Running an agency / Going freelance
* Your good/bad/fun/kooky idea
* An especially good/bad boss
* Problems with a co-worker
* Getting laid off during COVID
* Anything else
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Deadline for @AIResidency in January is November 17. If you are starting an AI company and cares about design, we'd love to hear from you. $500k investment from @collabfund.
Just 1 week left to apply for @AIResidency January cohort. The application is quick. Looking forward to seeing yours!
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Could not be more excited to be teaming @fictivekin up with @collabfund to invest in designers building with AI in NYC. I believe wholeheartedly that AI is a huge opportunity for design as a community to have their voice more fully heard in software.
If you are considering starting a company aimed at consumers, we'd love to hear from you.
AIR is live.
Applications for Cohort One are now open.
$500K for 10%. 10 weeks in NYC.
Design-led. Culture-forward. Consumer AI.
Apply by May 26 → air.collabfund.com
ALT Hand-drawn Venn diagram with two overlapping circles labeled “CULTURE” and “AI.” An arrow points upward from the intersection to the word “*AIR.” Text at the bottom reads “AIR.COLLABFUND.COM.”
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Need to design a site. Should I do a large hero image with type overlay or a video of pretty people doing casual things with type overlay?
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You can read it here:
fictivekin.com/websystems
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The more experienced I get, the more I think it is humility and not "vision" that makes someone great at product.
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It's a small thing, but @TeuxDeux was featured in the app store for the first time ever this week. (1/3)
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Went to bed and we were at 2k sold. Woke up and we were sold out. Feeling about as grateful as a person can feel right now. Also, so much to do.
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Excited that @CoryBooker is running for president. Bringing back memories of him at early Brooklyn Beta. Check @tuesdaybassen's wonderful BK illustration behind him.
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Before you judge a16z for investing in Adam Neumann, remember that he created a $4B company from scratch.
All it took was $22B in investment.
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Here's a fun little ditty we put together to help you find great holiday gifts on Amazon. christmas.am/
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This is more than pretty good.
It's one of the best talks I've seen and a must-watch if you're creating products for people.
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It really seems like there are two kinds of agencies: those that optimize for creating outstanding work and those that optimize for extracting cash from clients (in almost surgical way).
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Dream partner. Such a thoughtful talented team, an amazing product, and a truly category-defining business. Excited to share more in 2025.
We’re thrilled to partner with @seedhealth🌱 Their groundbreaking work in microbiome science is redefining the future of health—for people and the planet. Stay tuned.
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Scenes from an Internet, my latest Pastry Box j.mp/vcsnotvillains
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These are not photos of Christian Bale and it's weirding me out. Josh Brolin's Dad is doing some space-time travel.
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Our most recent six clients:
- Caviar
- JetBlue
- Amazon
- TripAdvisor
- Glossier
- TBA startup I love
Client services is fun when it's for companies you love whose products you regularly use. Especially ones full of smart, nice people.
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We got to design and build a site for our favorite brewery: @ThreesBrewing. Such a fun client to work with and a lovely site by our team. I like that it mostly stays out of the way and lets the beer designs shine. This page makes me thirsty: threesbrewing.com/beers#filt…
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This app is funded by our studio and meant to be free so that it can be accessible to all. We are not secretly creating the next big startup. We just want to bring great meditation to more people. Special thanks to @gauxgauxgaux @larrylegend @BrianaCamp for their great work.
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Just remembered that I bought the domain humansmustwashhands.com 10 years ago.
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Been collaborating with @food2han (artist on the original Double Dragon!) on an NFT game called Peacefall. It's our first Web3 creation and it has been a ton of fun. Check it out here: peacefall.xyz/
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Our app, @TapInMeditation was named one of Mashable's Best iPhone Apps of 2019.
We aren't in the biz for the recognition, but this one feels quite nice bc they really seem to get the more nuanced thing we're trying to do with Tap In. Thanks Mashable.
mashable.com/article/best-ip…
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We worked with the very talented folks at the NY Times on their new T Brand site. The CMS flexibility in this thing may not be obvious, but it's bonkers powerful. tbrandstudio.com/
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I think I've figured out the design process of most of the Internet. 1. Look at the design of a Medium blog post. 2. Design your website.
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What we've learned in the last month:
1. Businesses control our access to the Internet.
2. Wall St controls our access to the stock market.
I guess it's nice to at least have the bogeyman out in the open.
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I get why this seems like a good idea and a meritocratic way of assigning the role, but this is a common mistake of thinking you're doing something "innovative" when you're actually just doing something ignorant.
The challenge implies that being a successful head of growth is about being "creative" without any context and that an outside view of the organization is all that is needed for successful marketing work (ie no need to deeply understand the problem / customer).
It also shows that the hirer is insufficiently experienced to evaluate candidates based on their pre-existing body of work and so will instead rely on stunt work.
Taken together, an experienced candidate will look at this and see an organization that neither understands nor values the work that they do and appears to have no self-awareness or reverence for that fact.
They also likely misunderstand the nature and impact of creativity.
It's well-meaning on the surface, but ineffectual at the core.
So I’m hiring for head of growth right now, and the interview process is just me giving them $2500 💰
They then spend it advertising our startup, and the most creative and effective marketers get to the final interview
The strangest thing…very few candidates actually spent the money 😅
Out of the 8 candidates only 2 of them spent even a dollar
To make things even more interesting, although I felt this was a reasonable take home assignment, I don’t like having people work for me for free
So I even gave them affiliate incentives so they’d be compensated for the paid users they bring in with OUR money 🤯
I thought it’d be a fun challenge, but maybe the task was too hard or they felt it’d take too much time 🤷♂️
Some part of me feels like this is a win because I only want to work with scrappy people who can get results on small budgets
But there were some candidates I thought had a ton of potential, but they ghosted haha
Will think some more and tweak the next marketing interview accordingly
Any theories on why there was such a big drop off? 🧐
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I'm going to try the live Q&A thing again. This time with interviews. I'm talking to the spectacular, marvelous, incredible @iamdeepa on Friday (930am PT) and the wondferful, amazing, sensational @cameronmoll tomorrow (2pm PT). More info tomorrow.
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PSA: There's a scam being run on our new hires (full-time & intern). It almost worked both times so I figured I'd share the details so you can be on the look out. piped.video/watch?v=NrsIJRWc…
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Check out reallygoodemails.com by @whale It's a nice collection of really good product emails.
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Young people love to confidently suggest the latest tools in meetings. "You guys Figma'ing this or what?"
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Nice! It was such a treat for @fictivekin to work with @Ogilvy alongside our friends / partners at @wearecollins. Couldn't be happier with the result.
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Last week she got in trouble for not wearing her uniform. Yesterday, she got in trouble for speaking out of turn. Is @serenawilliams a Catholic School student or the greatest tennis player of all-time?
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Hey hey. I made a video. Check it out: piped.video/YZRm9iNP1tI
Sending good vibes towards @TylerDeeb @GhostlyFerns & @ThreesBrewing
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Increasingly advanced ways to say yes:
Yeah.
No, yeah.
Yeah, no, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, no no yeah, no, help me.
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Brooklyn Beta speaker of three years ago, @tfadell, just sold @nest for $3.2 Billion. Not so much as a thank you.
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This announcement frustrates me because I think of the centralization of Twitter and the cutting off of their API as the defining moment in fall of the Web I love.
twitter was so open early on that many saw its potential to be a decentralized internet standard, like SMTP (email protocol). For a variety of reasons, all reasonable at the time, we took a different path and increasingly centralized Twitter. But a lot’s changed over the years…
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Domain renewal notices are one of the cruelest ways to be reminded of how slowly I get certain things done.
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We are shutting down @gimmebar after 8 years.
The app is very very delicate so please be patient with us as we go through the process. We've taken a lot of steps to make sure you have your data in an actually usable way. Hope you find the format useful.
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This is a killer lineup. Wish I was in SF.
Hi Bay Area friends, I've been working with Google fine-tuning an image model. We're going to debut it on May 15th with a showing, panel discussion, food, and drinks, there's limited seating but if ya'll want to RSVP: rsvp.withgoogle.com/events/i…
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When I carry my son in his baby carrier, the most common comment I get is "He's got it made."
I didn't realize how many adults just want to be carried around like a kangaroo.
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Made another thanks for making video over the weekend.
piped.video/watch?v=46w7K6B6…
Sending good vibes to @hawrafintl @carlyayres @robweychert dreams.tv @julesforrest
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I made a Fictive Kin mailing list because I'd love to have a closer relationship with you, my internet buddies. Sign up and I'll tell you all my secrets.
fictivekin.com/newsletter/
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Super proud of the work the FK team did on the new @Foursquare site. I've always loved this company and working alongside their fantastic team has made me love them even more. This by far the smoothest rebrand / redesign / rebuild FK has ever worked on. foursquare.com/
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When @CoryBooker spoke at Brooklyn Beta, it was for one hour. I guess we could have asked for a lot more.
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Only like 100 product designers on the planet know what they are doing. The rest are faking it and making everyone's lives miserable.
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As a bonus, the incredible, brilliant @carlyayres is our Program Director. We've also got a great shared space in Carroll Gardens where we're going to help navigate this new frontier of product design.
Been working on something new: @AIResidency—an accelerator for early-stage, design-led, culture-forward teams. Based in NYC.
Apply to Cohort One:
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"Software is eating the world." is my least favorite expression of technology progress. It's so adversarial and gross. People resist being eaten but generally are down for a hug. I like software that hugs the world.
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Extremely fucked.
We need people like @jina supporting the community. We need spaces that are about the craft and not about a specific company.
It's bananas that her work isn't seen as an asset. Instead she's competition because companies wants to "own" the community somehow.
I had a job offer and was gonna excitedly announce it once all the paperwork was complete.
But the company just rescinded their offer.
Apparently their legal decided that my conference & other community activities are a conflict of interest. :(
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Has anyone told Jack that it's okay to run just one company?
Square is acquiring a majority ownership stake in TIDAL through a new joint venture, with the original artists becoming the second largest group of shareholders, and JAY-Z joining the Square board. Why would a music streaming company and a financial services company join forces?!
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We are working on a very cool meditation iOS app and would love to start sharing it with a small number of people outside the company. If you are into meditation or interested in getting into it, please DM me.
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So happy I got to interview my old friend @tmincey. He's one of the most badass / under-the-radar people I know. If you like fun Apple stories, you'll probably like listening to him / this episode.
podcast.lagerdata.com/episod…
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1. I love the new Equals site.
2. Double love that they did a public feedback session. Not enough of this kind of performance-based info these days.
3. Just for funsies, I made a video giving a little feedback on the feedback.
Video:
piped.video/watch?v=WSugJ_Wl…
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The depressing state of digital products summed up in the first 7 answers to Hiten's question.
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I won the raffle for these and I'm extremely excited about it.
mschf.com/shop/mschf-reebok-…
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Recorded an episode of Thanks For Making because I simply couldn't take it anymore. You all are doing too much cool stuff.
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