vrklovespaper-substack-com-wzbnct.txt (23402B)
1 [1][https] 2 3 [2]vrk loves paper 4 5 SubscribeSign in 6 7 Share this post 8 9 [8] 10 [https] 11 vrk loves paper 12 vrk loves paper 13 Software for stationery lovers 14 Copy link 15 Facebook 16 Email 17 Notes 18 More 19 20 Software for stationery lovers 21 22 How software might learn from paper clips, & other thoughts 🐷📎 23 24 [9][https] 25 [10]vrk 26 Dec 26, 2024 27 22 28 29 Share this post 30 31 [12] 32 [https] 33 vrk loves paper 34 vrk loves paper 35 Software for stationery lovers 36 Copy link 37 Facebook 38 Email 39 Notes 40 More 41 [13] 42 20 43 2 44 [14] 45 Share 46 [15] 47 [https] 48 pov: hanging out on your favorite website [16]journalhelper.com 😎 49 50 Merry Christmas, everyone!! 🎄 51 52 It’s December 26th, I’m at home and cozy, and over the last few days I’ve had a 53 blast finishing up my 2024 journal and finalizing my [17]Techo Kaigi for 2025. 54 Those would have been perfect topics for this last newsletter of the year, 55 BUT!!! I decided I had another story to tell! 56 57 If you follow Pouch Studio on Instagram, you [18]might have seen that I 58 launched a software tool a few weeks ago! It’s called Hobonichi Journal Helper, 59 and it’s a free tool that I made that lets you preview, crop, and resize photos 60 for your Hobonichi journal. 61 62 Check it out here: 63 64 ✨[19] https://www.journalhelper.com/hobonichi ✨ 65 66 It’s a very small tool, and intentionally so 🌱 67 68 Today I want to share with you what I think it means to build software for 69 paper lovers, or more specifically — software for stationery lovers. It’s the 70 thinking that led to the creation of this tool, and the inspiration fueling me 71 as I build software in 2025. 72 73 I hope you enjoy! Have a wonderful rest of your holidays, and see you in 74 January!! 🎊 75 76 ♡ vrk 77 78 PS: If you’re sad I’m not talking about my 2024 journal + Techo Kaigi today, 79 don’t worry!! I’ll be posting those updates on the Instagram, and this 80 miiiiight even become the topic of January’s newsletter…. I don’t plan my 81 newsletters that far in advance though 😆 We’ll see what January brings! ☃️ 82 83 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 84 85 ⚡️ Oddly specific software 86 87 It was Saturday, November 30th, I was riding the subway on the way to meet some 88 friends for brunch, when suddenly — out of nowhere — I knew what I needed 89 build! And more importantly, I knew why. 90 91 Hobonichi Journal Helper is not a new idea I’ve had, and it’s not even that ~ 92 interesting~ of an idea. 93 94 It’s a tool that helps you make, SPECIFICALLY AND EXCLUSIVELY, journal layouts 95 that look like this: 96 97 [21] 98 A6 Original monthly calendar 99 This masterpiece is from [22]Hobonichi Stationery Club Issue #23 100 101 I love journal layouts like this, and — prior to Hobonichi Journal Helper — 102 there wasn’t a special tool to help you make layouts of this style. You’d have 103 to find a way to resize and crop each photo you want to use, then print them 104 out and hope for the best when you sat down to arrange the tiny photos in your 105 journal. 106 107 What if there was a software tool that let you select photos you wanted to use, 108 crop them to size, preview it in your Hobonichi, and print all when done? It 109 would make this experience 100 times nicer!! 110 111 It’s an obvious idea, but I had been reluctant to build software for such a 112 niche use case. 113 114 This problem was SO small, SO oddly specific. It’s not just limited to journals 115 or even Hobonichi journals, but the monthly pages of Hobonichi journals. By 116 design, its most passionate users would probably use it AT MOST, once a month. 117 118 Why would I bother to build software for this? Almost reflexively I would 119 dismiss it: Yeah it’s too niche, I’ll come back to this later. 120 121 But in that fateful moment on the subway, I had sudden 3-way realization: 122 123 1. 🚙 For stationery lovers, there’s no problem too small! 124 125 2. 🐷 There’s life from 1000 paper clips 126 127 3. 🎮 A good demo is a polished glimpse 128 129 … and from that moment, I knew how I wanted to build software for stationery 130 lovers. 131 132 Allow me to elaborate! 133 134 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 135 136 🚙 No problem too small 137 138 Working in tech, I was taught to avoid working on problems that were too small. 139 There are plenty of neat ideas, but at the end of the day, you gotta think 140 about, “How many users will this affect?” If it’s not a big enough problem, 141 there aren’t enough potential users, and if there aren’t a lot of potential 142 users, then it’s not a problem worth solving. 143 144 Very logical, yes? So logical that it’s easy to be fooled into thinking this is 145 the “correct” approach. 146 147 But then for some reason, sitting on the subway, it finally dawned on me: 148 149 “Too small of a problem”?? This concept does not exist in the land of 150 stationery!! 151 152 To show you what I mean, here’s a roundup from JetPens on “oddly specific 153 stationery:” 154 155 The first example is the Sakura Mixline Underline Highlighter, which lets you 156 highlight and underline at the same time: 157 158 [24] 159 [https] 160 BUT OF COURSE 161 162 If you’re unfamiliar with products like this, you might think they’re silly 163 novelties you buy for the idea rather than the function. 164 165 Like… do you really need to highlight and underline? Even if this was your 166 preference, couldn’t you just buy a separate highlighter and a separate pen?! 167 Is it that much effort to switch between pens? It’s so much more useful, more 168 practical, more logical to have them separate. Right?? 169 170 But I gotta say, as a stationery lover, my gut reaction to this pen is…. 171 Cool!!! I never thought about underlining my highlights… should I try it? 172 173 [25] 174 [https] 175 The color combos they’ve chosen are truly inspired too 176 177 And I find that interesting — this is a very opinionated tool, and an 178 opinionated tool provides built-in inspiration for how to use it. 179 180 What are you gonna do with a pencil? I dunno. 181 182 What are you gonna do with a Mixline Underline Highlighter? Oh my mind is 183 racing with ideas!! I could highlight some sentences, create headers, I could 184 make cute forms with this… 185 186 There’s a second aspect to these ultra-specific tools, too. 187 188 Later in the video is a tool I do own, the Midori Eraser Dust Mini Cleaner II: 189 190 [https][https] 191 a practical purchase! 192 193 It’s a small plastic car that you can use to sweep up eraser dust or other 194 small debris on your desk. 195 196 I can attest first hand: I use my Mini Cleaner regularly! I draw a lot, and 197 erase a lot, and when I just swept up the eraser dust with my hands, pieces 198 would fall to the floor, get smushed into my floor by the wheels of my desk 199 chair, which was annoying to clean up… Therefore the Mini Cleaner, a device 200 that helps me keep my floors cleaner by keeping my desk cleaner? Felt like a 201 practical purchase to me! 202 203 I think it’s the allure of products like this — it’s not a gimmick; it’s a 204 thoughtfully made tool for a particular person, a particular problem in mind. 205 206 Whether I’m its target customer or not, I can appreciate who it’s for and why 207 it was made, even if it’s not for me. I’m probably not buying a Mixline 208 highlighter, but I respect the product, and its mere existence has inspired me. 209 210 But when I AM the target customer — like in the case of the Mini Cleaner — it 211 truly feels like a miracle! That someone saw my problem, and invented a way to 212 solve it just so. I feel a small, invisible, but warm connection to both its 213 creator and all its users. It’s a tool so specific that simply by using it, 214 we’ve got something in common. 215 216 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 217 218 🐷📎 A stationery collection 219 220 The question was posed to me: Would a stationery lover buy one 3-color 221 multi-pen, or 3 individual pens, one of each color? 222 223 And the answer, of course, is C) All of the above!! I’ll take the multi-pen and 224 one of each color, please 😆 225 226 Which is to say, I think stationery is a “yes, and” culture — for better and 227 worse! 228 229 Stationery lovers tend to curate a large collection of analog tools and 230 stationery. Similarly, stationery brands tend to produce a large catalog of 231 products, too. 232 233 The Midori Mini Cleaner is not Midori Japan’s only product — far from it! The 234 brand has hundreds of products: 235 236 [27] 237 [https] 238 And Midori itself it just one of several brands under company Designphil 239 240 Software companies take the opposite approach. They often build one massive 241 product, to the point that the product and company name is one and the same — 242 for instance, Netflix, Uber, Airbnb. Even when if there is a suite of products, 243 like from Microsoft or Google or Adobe, each product is still huge enough to be 244 is own standalone business. 245 246 But why? It’s certainly one approach to building software, but it can’t be the 247 only way. 248 249 What would it look like for a software company to instead to try a model like 250 stationery? To produce potentially hundreds of tiny software apps, each 251 carefully and thoughtfully made — as special-purpose and opinionated as, for 252 instance, these paper clips by Midori: 253 254 [28] 255 [https] 256 257 There is a lot of aggression baked into tech culture, which especially comes to 258 light when discussing products of the same category. In my career as a software 259 engineer, I worked on both Google Chrome and Arc Browser. When I worked on 260 Chrome in 2010, the question was, “Will Chrome be the IE-killer?” When I worked 261 on Arc over ten years later, the question was still, “Will Arc be the Chrome- 262 killer?” Even when we aren’t talking about software murdering each other, still 263 the word — and goal — is “domination.” Who is the dominant browser? This 264 competition for dominance is recapped on the Wikipedia page entitled, [29] 265 Browser wars. 266 267 In the stationery world, there’s a rich ecosystem of products — hundreds, maybe 268 thousands of variations of something like a paper clip: a product with the same 269 narrow focus, same goal, trying to solve the exact same problem — and yet these 270 products seem to coexist peacefully. 271 272 Somehow I don’t think this pig is trying to declare war on the paper clip: 273 274 [30] 275 [https] 276 Our pig comes in peace 277 278 Is our little 🐷 even a “competitor” to the 📎? I’m not sure if I’d describe it 279 that way! Competitor or not, I feel like they’d be friends, hanging out, 280 appreciating each other’s unique qualities. 281 282 I’m interested in creating non-warring software, where variety is celebrated, 283 and “a different approach to the same idea” is seen as a like-minded friend 284 rather than an enemy to destroy. This goes hand in hand with a yes, and culture 285 — when there’s room for you, there’s little need to fight for survival. 286 287 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 288 289 🎮 A polished glimpse 290 291 I love playing video games and I watch a lot of cozy gamers on YouTube. My 292 favorite channel is [32]@JoshsGamingGarden. 293 294 Josh plays lots of indie farming games, and he notes that many first-time game 295 developers make this same mistake: They want this game to be their DREAM game, 296 and so they try to include in it EVERYTHING they ever wanted. Then they release 297 their game as a demo or in Early Access as a wide-but-shallow experience where 298 most of the game is there, but it’s all like 25-50% complete. 299 300 Whenever this happens, [33]Josh says, “I feel like a demo should be a very 301 polished, but small portion of your game.” When you have a game that is 302 incomplete in all areas, it’s not a good experience, and it’s hard to get a 303 feel for what the full game is going to be like. In comparison, a 304 narrow-but-deep sliver of a game is a much more compelling introduction! 305 306 A game that gets this right is [34]Super Farming Boy. The demo is only a few 307 hours long, but EVERYTHING presented — the the visuals, the dialogue, the 308 gameplay — is highly polished, and you leave with a strong feel for what this 309 game will grow up to be. 310 311 [35] 312 [https] 313 You can watch the gameplay from Josh’s stream earlier this year! 314 315 Truthfully, I empathize so much with those indie game developers. Hobonichi 316 Journal Helper is not the complete version of the software I want to create, 317 not at all!! Ughghgh I want to launch so much more than this! It’s frustrating 318 to launch something that feels like 0.01% of what I set out to do. 319 320 But I agree with Josh! It’s worth limiting myself in scope, both to make its 321 completion more feasible and to most effectively communicate the type of thing 322 I’m trying to build. 323 324 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 325 326 🚃 Following my zoomies 327 328 So — back to November 30th, back to the subway! 329 330 I sat on the train and I had these 3 simultaneous thoughts. I realized that 331 this simple unclever idea for a tool, i.e. Hobonichi Journal Helper, embodied 332 the spirit of these 3 insights: 333 334 • 🚙 It’s a super specific tool designed to solve a super specific problem 335 336 • 🖋️ It’s a tool that’s intended to be one of many, rather than THE ONE tool 337 that does everything 338 339 • 🎮 It’s a narrow and focused demo for what I am trying to do as a whole 340 341 It felt like a 4-D epiphany!! And consequently, I got this powerful urge to 342 DROP EVERYTHING AND BUILD JOURNAL HELPER… 343 344 …WHICH GAVE ME A MINI CRISIS! Journal Helper was NOT my plan for December!! I 345 was planning to focus on Pouch Issue 2 in December, and Pouch aside, I had been 346 developing a totally different piece of software-for-journalers lolll, whose 347 development I was going to pick back up in January. 348 349 Do I stick to my original plan, or do I follow this surge of inspiration? 350 351 At my past tech companies, I know exactly what I would have done: The original 352 plan, of course!! This was a fun idea that should be backlogged. It’s not 353 urgent enough to change my priorities. I should let the emotion pass and govern 354 myself by logic. 355 356 But earlier in November, I had a memorable conversation with an artist friend I 357 admire. In it, she mentioned how she gets the “productivity zoomies,” where she 358 feels a burst of sudden inspiration, and that energy would propel her to be 359 absurdly productive in a short period of time, like “designing an entire 360 sticker line at 2am” sorta thing. It was a style that really worked for her. As 361 she talked, it occurred to me how deeply I recognized the feeling she 362 described, yet how rarely I let myself work off that feeling. 363 364 I decided: This time, I’m gonna follow my zoomies! I dropped everything, and I 365 created Hobonichi Journal Helper in 10 days[37]1, from the spark of the idea on 366 November 30th to posting the Instagram announcement on December 10th. Only then 367 did my soul find peace. Zooming was the right move! 368 369 I won’t always be building-by-zoomies — my artist friend doesn’t do that, 370 either — but it’s something I want to incorporate more in my practice. Impulse 371 shouldn’t always win, but neither should restraint. 372 373 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 374 375 📝 Software for paper lovers 376 377 As some of you know, I embarked on this sabbatical in July 2023, originally 378 with the sole intention of building software for paper lovers. As most of you 379 know, that’s not how I ended up spending my time! Instead, I’ve been leveling 380 up my design skills, taking drawing classes, I started a zine store, and I 381 launched my pride and joy, Pouch Magazine. None of this was planned! These 382 projects emerged after having uninterrupted time to follow my passions 💖 383 384 But — y’know what’s weird, maybe? — I’ve never thought of this as not on the 385 path to building software. 386 387 Back in August 2023, I mentioned [39]needing to level up my non-software skills 388 in order to level up my software-building skills. This was true, and I felt the 389 difference as I built Hobonichi Journal Helper: I’m a lot faster and tbh a lot 390 better at creating the tools I want to create! 391 392 But also: As a person who respects analog mediums equally to digital ones, why 393 would I limit myself to creating software? Why not make some stickers? Why not 394 draw a thing, if I want to? Why not make a magazine? 395 396 In the same way that I will reach for my Kokuyo Pasta Markers one day, and my 397 Pentel MatteHop Pens another… I want to reach for “coding” as I would any other 398 tool in my toolbox. As any other pen in my pouch! 399 400 With Pouch Studio, I hope to publish magazines *and* software. I’ve focused on 401 Pouch magazine in 2024, but I’m excited to expand the software side in 2025 and 402 beyond. I want to build independent, community-minded software that emerges 403 from a reverence for pen and paper ❤️🔥 Software worthy of the stationery 404 community that I love so dearly! 405 406 Thanks so much for reading today’s newsletter! And thank you to everyone who 407 has supported me and Pouch Studio this year. I’m so moved and grateful to each 408 and every one of you 🙏 Writing and creating for this wonderful community has 409 been the greatest privilege of my career. 410 411 Rest well this holidays, and I’ll see you next year! 🎄☕️ 412 413 [40]1 414 415 In case unclear: I didn’t use AI tools for this. No Pouch Studio products have 416 been nor will be created with AI, software or otherwise. There’s more to say on 417 this, but it’s a big topic (and a rather draining one), so I’m containing this 418 to a footnote today! Will write more on this in the future when I have the time 419 and energy. 420 421 22 422 423 Share this post 424 425 [42] 426 [https] 427 vrk loves paper 428 vrk loves paper 429 Software for stationery lovers 430 Copy link 431 Facebook 432 Email 433 Notes 434 More 435 [43] 436 20 437 2 438 [44] 439 Share 440 441 Discussion about this post 442 443 Comments 444 Restacks 445 [ht] 446 [ ] 447 [ ] 448 [ ] 449 [ ] 450 [48] 451 [ht] 452 [49]Cheryl Lindo Jones 453 [50]6d 454 Liked by vrk 455 456 I admire your journey to build products for people intentionally and in 457 opposition to the logical, but not necessarily correct approaches of Big (and 458 not so big) Tech focusing on problems for the masses and dominating in their 459 product spaces. I think solving problems for niche areas and markets can build 460 really loyal customers who are loyal because they feel seen and heard. 461 462 Expand full comment 463 Reply 464 Share 465 [53]1 reply by vrk 466 [54] 467 [ht] 468 [55]Emily 469 [56]3d 470 Liked by vrk 471 472 This is adorable and I can absolutely see this being a beloved tool by the HUGE 473 stationery community! Your thoughts about the “productivity zoomies” also 474 really spoke to me as well, and perhaps I’ll lean into my own in the future ✨ 475 476 Expand full comment 477 Reply 478 Share 479 [59]1 reply by vrk 480 [60]18 more comments... 481 Top 482 Latest 483 Discussions 484 485 No posts 486 487 Ready for more? 488 489 [75][ ] 490 Subscribe 491 © 2025 vrk loves paper 492 [77]Privacy ∙ [78]Terms ∙ [79]Collection notice 493 [80] Start Writing[81]Get the app 494 [82]Substack is the home for great culture 495 496 Share 497 498 Copy link 499 Facebook 500 Email 501 Notes 502 More 503 This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please [84]turn on JavaScript 504 or unblock scripts 505 506 References: 507 508 [1] https://vrklovespaper.substack.com/ 509 [2] https://vrklovespaper.substack.com/ 510 [8] https://substack.com/home/post/p-153265026?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web 511 [9] https://substack.com/profile/976344-vrk 512 [10] https://substack.com/@vrkmakes 513 [12] https://substack.com/home/post/p-153265026?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web 514 [13] https://vrklovespaper.substack.com/p/software-for-stationery-lovers/comments 515 [14] javascript:void(0) 516 [15] https://www.journalhelper.com/ 517 [16] https://www.journalhelper.com/ 518 [17] https://www.google.com/search?q=techo+kaigi 519 [18] https://www.instagram.com/p/DDaEnmSRx_Q 520 [19] https://www.journalhelper.com/hobonichi 521 [21] https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7a664556-71a2-4271-be7e-4e00767fbb20_1600x1600.jpeg 522 [22] https://www.1101.com/store/techo/en/magazine/contents/stationeryclub/m1w9rgq7k.html 523 [24] https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff0f9009f-aa89-4542-89ab-a7875045f0d0_1276x872.png 524 [25] https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff8aa810a-7d86-4966-a8aa-fa1a87dcccf9_1396x904.png 525 [27] https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F82e6816d-a937-40e8-b76d-82e36ec3d885_2498x1352.png 526 [28] https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fab5625ca-bf42-48c9-bbe3-6175edea2d5a_1462x1624.png 527 [29] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars 528 [30] https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8e355d26-4a21-499c-b77a-bdcd608c1c57_280x312.png 529 [32] https://www.youtube.com/@JoshGamingGarden 530 [33] https://youtu.be/QK0Lg7QLnr8?t=1393 531 [34] https://www.superfarmingboy.com/ 532 [35] https://youtu.be/wbo3Su6Y3mo?t=7116 533 [37] https://vrklovespaper.substack.com/p/software-for-stationery-lovers#footnote-1-153265026 534 [39] https://vrklovespaper.substack.com/i/136113453/what-could-be-improved 535 [40] https://vrklovespaper.substack.com/p/software-for-stationery-lovers#footnote-anchor-1-153265026 536 [42] https://substack.com/home/post/p-153265026?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web 537 [43] https://vrklovespaper.substack.com/p/software-for-stationery-lovers/comments 538 [44] javascript:void(0) 539 [48] https://substack.com/profile/25419300-cheryl-lindo-jones?utm_source=comment 540 [49] https://substack.com/profile/25419300-cheryl-lindo-jones?utm_source=substack-feed-item 541 [50] https://vrklovespaper.substack.com/p/software-for-stationery-lovers/comment/83172494 542 [53] https://vrklovespaper.substack.com/p/software-for-stationery-lovers/comment/83172494 543 [54] https://substack.com/profile/7452338-emily?utm_source=comment 544 [55] https://substack.com/profile/7452338-emily?utm_source=substack-feed-item 545 [56] https://vrklovespaper.substack.com/p/software-for-stationery-lovers/comment/83634788 546 [59] https://vrklovespaper.substack.com/p/software-for-stationery-lovers/comment/83634788 547 [60] https://vrklovespaper.substack.com/p/software-for-stationery-lovers/comments 548 [77] https://substack.com/privacy 549 [78] https://substack.com/tos 550 [79] https://substack.com/ccpa#personal-data-collected 551 [80] https://substack.com/signup?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=web&utm_content=footer 552 [81] https://substack.com/app/app-store-redirect?utm_campaign=app-marketing&utm_content=web-footer-button 553 [82] https://substack.com/ 554 [84] https://enable-javascript.com/