#015 ✰ And the winner is
Your last newsletter before September!
Good day to you!
Most of you probably are chilling somewhere with a book, and not reading your emails. You’re so damn right! So, I’ll try to make this newsletter as easy to read as possible 😎
Our 🔺July Challenge is over!
As you probably know, in July we experimented our first challenge within the app (rules 👉 document X items on the Xth day of the month, during 1 month. Those of you documenting the 496 items get a bottle of Porto wine shipped to their door. Wish you had participated, eh? 🍷 Relax, we’ll do some more!)
Our winner is… Elise 💥🍾💯 Congrats for even overpassing the target! Elise heard about us on Reddit. During our recent call, she told me she was looking for the right tool to document her possessions, after having tried and given up Excel sheets a few times. High five to you, dear Elise! And all the best for what’s to come 😉🙌
Congrats to the rest of you who were not that far from getting the reward and provided us with priceless feedback, consistently. Thank you. 🙏
Here are our lessons learnt after a whole month of running (and participating!) to the challenge:
there’s an inner child inside us, waiting to be awaken💥 Homo Sapiens are players and game-lovers ; many of you told me during our calls, that the existence of the challenge acted as a trigger to get started. Let’s create more of these!
completing a challenge and get a reward for it feels good (plus our mouths love a good wine)
collective emulation and peer accountability are friendly energy boosts
running a challenge is a powerful exercice to speed up a product development ; Max, Kev and I felt the need to provide what was missing as fast as possible
we are visual animals: seeing a completed progression bar, browsing images,.. these are boosters that we are craving for. Another reason why we came up with pies on the recently created stat page 👇
My own experience, documenting:
my home isn’t the same. Documenting every single item made me dedicate a minute for each of my stuff. A minute to consciously decide of its fate. (btw, I am close to being done, already 994 stuff documented, from which 19% were discarded 🎊)
when a burden of yours become the joy of someone else. It feels good to donate, to see a smile on a face and receive a deep thank you. Right? Often followed by “why are you donating it?” Funny. I’ve used the Buy Nothing facebook group to donate 17% of my stuff. It was a very interesting and intense sociological experience so far - from niche experts who are down to put their hands on a free art book to hoarders willing to get ‘everything’.
Conclusion ➜ let’s do more of these challenges!
Retro on our month of July
Max spent the whole month of July with us in Lisbon, that was dope. Here’s the retro exercice (cf. Techstars) we did during our latest Brain Sanity in the beautiful Jardim do Torel - so that we know what to reproduce next time.
We liked
our Brain sanity Thursdays (= AFK) at the beach or in a park
our velocity, iterating on the app and talking to our community every day
being intentional with our routine since day 1
one month was perfect (and pretty Covid friendly, too)
feeling lighter (yeay, we don’t eat dinner except on our cheat day)
our cooking sessions (pizzas, yummy salads, lasagnas, bagels,..) and daily lunches
Max living downstairs was so convenient!
We wish
we had a true desk setup, not our shaky tables
we didn’t get sick one after the other / I didn’t have a broken foot
we had cooked way more
What if
we spend a whole month altogether, every quarter, in a different city
💭An intentional summer break
July was intense and felt real good.
I am going to pause writing for the rest of August, a needed time to read, read, read, pause, reflect and get my ideas organized. I’ll be back in your mailbox the first week of September.
We will keep pushing a new version of the app every week and updates over-the-air every day. And we’ll still be around in our Slack. So it’s kind of a break 🙃
📣 Today’s announcement (he loves that 😎)
It’s Max’s birthday! I am stoked to be your co-founder and friend, old branch! 💝🥯
📱Wanna stay away from the crowded beach and are tired of watching Netflix?
Make some space around you, to start September on a healthy, productive note. Know what you have. Join our waitlist, we’ll give you access to the app in a snap!
Have a lovely day and happy holidays! See you early September!
Mathilde 🌵
