#10 - Spreading Joy

Hey Friends,

It’s been a crazy week. When we sent out last week’s newsletter, COVID-19 was not yet declared a global pandemic, NBA games were still being held, and the stock market hadn’t entered Bear territory.

Just a few days later, all of that changed.

This week, the only topics that seem to matter are “social distancing”, “flattening the curve”, vaccines, and how we’re going to get through the next few months.

In times like these, it’s tough to stay positive (especially since the word “positive” typically means something bad these days). But that’s exactly when we need optimism the most! While COVID-19 might be one of the most contagious things out there, we believe the only thing worth spreading right now is joy.

In our little corner of the world, we shipped “animal therapy” into Ram (now called Raminders). A little joy after every completed task:

Metrics

(All based on previous day’s numbers)

Ram - Daily Active Users: 6

Ram - Engagements

Tasks Created/Day: 22

Tasked Completed/Day: 29

Tasks Viewed/Day: 21

Highlights

Animal celebrations are live in Raminders! This is exciting for us because we’re finally delivering the first version of our vision to become “the Goat Yoga of ToDo apps”.

We’re excited to see how people respond.

Lowlights

It feels like the news has been one long “lowlight reel”. No need to add to that right now!

Miscellaneous

🤔 This week, I’ve been thinking about a post called “Optimism vs Complacency vs Pessimism”. In particular, this quote

Progress happens when people learn something new. And they learn the most, as a group, when stuff breaks. It’s essential.

The coronavirus is breaking a lot of things right now, but for the optimist, it means as a society, we’re about to learn… a lot.

🎥 While we practice “social distancing” (of the physical variety), Zoom has experienced a massive repurposing as a digital gathering tool (a phenomenon we’ve been mentioning for weeks in this newsletter). One interesting repurposing:

Sim Kern @sim_kern

My 14yo niece stayed up till midnight working on something, when I asked what, she said all her friends were planning to do a PowerPoint party on Zoom, where they’ll just lecture each other on topics that interest them. Hers is on astronomy. The kids are so, so alright.

Let’s unpack what we have here: an enterprise communication tool, adapted by kids into a social hangout… where they share PowerPoint presentations. Oh how blurry the lines of consumer and enterprise have become 😂

It’s part of a greater trend where digital spaces are becoming increasingly important. Last week, on ProductHunt, there were two 1:1 video communication apps that launched on the same day

Phil Liao @pliao39

Today's @ProductHunt submissions seem to have social video calls top of mind... Consequence of the coronavirus? 🦠 Or is this just the zeitgeist? �H9

🏡 As more and more companies have told employees to stay home, an assortment of companies have begun offering their tools at a huge discount. One company, Threads, even launched earlier than planned (and are offering their product for free):

Threads @threads

Today, our platform is now available to everyone. In an effort to help others transition to remote work, we've lifted our waitlist and also made our plans free until July 1st. More details, here: bit.ly/3a4dLXu

To what extent will the coronavirus be a catalyst for progress? To what extent will we emerge from this with better technology, tools, and social structures? There’s so much work to do, but the future doesn’t seem all that bleak. Quite the contrary.

📚 We’re still fielding interest for a Zoom based book club! It’s currently called the “20% Book Club” because the idea is to sample 20% of a book, and only continue if the group enjoys it. If you’re interested, fill out this form!

Stay vigilant out there, wash your hands, reduce in-person encounters, but don’t forget to spread joy any way you know how!