
<Image
  publicId="newsletters/beyond-the-walled-garden/cover"
  alt="A brick house with a tall fence around it, blocking access to a park"
/>


My front door is a 10 minute walk from a small, serene park in a city-edge neighborhood.

In the first hour of sunlight every day, the park feels like a sanctuary: birds sing, neighbors take their dogs out for a morning walk, the meandering creek bubbling with life.

It's a slice of heaven less than a mile from the busiest parts of Charlotte, a small-but-growing city that's now nearly a million people strong.

<Image
  publicId="newsletters/beyond-the-walled-garden/park"
  alt="A photo of a sunrise over a grassy hill in a park"
/>

On the other side of the park, what was once a quaint bungalow neighborhood on the city's outskirts has had one house after another bulldozed. It's now lined with freshly built mcmansions, built on speculation for suburbanites with deep pockets.

In the past couple months, one build in particular has caught my attention - a huge, swollen brick home built right to the edges of its boundaries. It's located on edge of the park, with its back yard oriented so that the sun rises perfectly through the trees, highlighting the simple wooden footbridge that crosses the creek, built years ago to give homeowners access to the park.

The new home has risen from its foundation quickly, and while I don't typically _love_ the design choices made by home builders in my area, this one really sticks in my craw. Someone made the decision to build an 8 foot fence around the perimeter of the yard - completely obscuring access to the park.

I know _someone else's home_ shouldn't make me this mad - this home will probably sell for close to $2M (if not more), and to me, the builder has _completely_ lost the plot.

Why would someone buy such a beautiful plot of land and spend their money hiding from it?

## Spotify and Substack walled themselves in

This, I feel, is a great metaphor for strategic missteps by companies like Spotify and Substack. Two different products in different spaces, built to take advantage of a huge opportunity – have built very strange walled gardens around their products that sounded like a good idea at first.

Spotify established a huge user base as the de facto music subscription for many people. In the never ending search of growth, they wanted to make their platform the place where everyone goes to listen to podcasts as well.

Rather than build the best podcast player in the world, they bought up podcasts left and right, making them exclusive to Spotify.

For many people, this meant their only choice to listen to their favorite shows was to switch to Spotify.

Does that sound like a great way to build a sticky product? I'll let you decide, but it's safe to say that their [$1B Bet on podcasts isn't going well](https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/the-journal/spotify-1-billion-bet-isnt-going-well/75665f50-cabb-48c9-8f5c-d05e94d8f7f8).

In the creator world, newsletter authoring platform Substack was heralded as the author's best friend - they made it easy to write a newsletter and build an audience. It was among the first newsletter tools to promise network-effect growth by letting authors recommend one another's newsletters as a first-party platform feature. They added features for podcasters, as well as [some twitter-like features](https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/05/substacks-new-short-form-notes-feed-looks-a-lot-like-twitter/) as a response to Twitter's leadership collapse.

Then... they made some gutless decisions around content moderation.

Substack continues to [refuse to shut down alt-right, and hyper-conservative newsletters](https://mashable.com/article/why-are-people-leaving-substack-content-moderation-controversy) with _seriously_ weak reasoning for their [anti-censorship stance](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/jan/03/substack-user-revolt-anti-censorship-stance-neo-nazis):

> "...we don't think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away — in fact, it makes it worse."

Ah, _cool_.

I'm sure you can understand why authors are leaving the platform in droves - after all, one of Substack's value propositions is that they'll recommend _other authors' work_ to help newsletters grow.

Woof.

Meanwhile, competing product teams see opportunity knocking: Ghost announced that they're [adding fediverse features later this year](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/look-out-substack-ghost-will-join-the-fediverse-this-year/ar-AA1nvI4S).

## Sneak in while the walls are being built

There's a lot to be learned from the decisions companies make about their products once they get really large - these sorts of missteps can opens the door for thoughtfully built and well-timed products. As a builder, do your best to keep an ear to the ground for fissures opening up in the giants' walled gardens.

If you can find a way to build a product that solves a problem for users and takes advantage of a misstep by a competitor, you're in a great spot to grow quickly.

I'm not saying you should wait for a competitor to make a mistake - but if you're paying attention, of course - build your thing with conviction because it's a good idea, but also be ready to move quickly when opportunities arise.

You can be the one to build the footbridge over the creek, and let the sun shine through.

---

## Champagne for my real friends

I thought I'd share some work from people in my network this week. You're going to love these:

- Josh Finnie wrote a great article about [Adding JSON-LD to his Astro site](https://www.joshfinnie.com/blog/adding-json-ld-to-my-blog/) - it's a great read if you're looking to improve your site's SEO.

- CJ Avilla published an article about [Caching ViewComponents in Ruby on Rails](https://www.cjav.dev/articles/caching-viewcomponents), which we've been implementing at Craftwork recently.

- Over on Primary Focus, Ms. Natalie produced a great interview recently about [what parents need to know about ADHD and kids](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsqG7m5NQ1E&t=7s). Her guest is super knowledgable and it's a great watch.


---

## Try these out though

Here's a few tools that I think are worth checking out:

### A podcast player for note takers

[Snipd](https://www.snipd.com/) is a podcast app that automatically transcribes podcasts and lets you take notes from them as "snips". It's a great idea - you may recall a few months back [I built a podcast summarizer with AI](https://mikebifulco.com/newsletter/build-something-useful-with-ai). I think the gang at Snipd are on to something really special here.

### Make storyboards that don't suck

[Storytribe](https://storytribeapp.com/) an app for creating storyboards using vector images. They have created an _immense_ library of customizable vectors that you can assemble to make some really compelling storyboards for your next product, feature, or presentation.

### Ghost is the CMS for creators

I mentioned [Ghost](https://ghost.org/?via=mike21) above (that's my referral link, btw) - it's a CMS that makes it easy for creators to build a website, write a blog, and publish a newsletter. They're adding some really interesting features this year, and I think they're a great alternative to Substack for authors who want to own their content and their audience. I actually help run 2 different sites with Ghost: [APIs You Won't Hate](https://apisyouwonthate.com) and [Primary Focus](https://primaryfocus.tv) both use it.

---


Beyond the walled garden: what Spotify and Substack get wrong


<Image
  publicId="newsletters/unreasonable-hospitality-and-design/cover"
  alt="Unreasonable Hospitality and Design"
/>

As the winter has turned into spring this year, I've been doing a whole lot of walking. Most days, I do a steady 4-5 mile lap around my neighborhood. It's a great way to get some fresh air, get some exercise, and get some mental space to balance out the hours I spend sitting at my desk.

It's _also_ a fantastic time to listen to some podcasts and audiobooks, and I gotta tell you: one book in particular has taken hold of me. I can't stop thinking about it.

It's called [_Unreasonable Hospitality_](https://amzn.to/3WaVvXl) by Will Guidara.

## Unreasonable Hospitality

Guidara is a restauranteur and hospitality expert. He's known for his work at Eleven Madison Park, a three-Michelin-starred restaurant in New York City. Guidara also cofounded as Make It Nice, a hospitality group that includes several other restaurants and bars.

In the book, Guidara talks about the principles of hospitality that he's learned over the course of his career in the restaurant industry. He talks about the importance of listening to customers, and anticipating their needs.

<a href="https://amzn.to/3WaVvXl" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">
  <Image
    publicId="newsletters/unreasonable-hospitality-and-design/unreasonable-hospitality"
    alt="Unreasonable Hospitality book cover"
    caption="Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara"
  />
</a>

Guidara's teams are the **best in the world** at providing a memorable experience: they look for small details about their guests that they can use to make them feel special. They go above and beyond to make sure that every guest has a great experience.

They do this while trimming away the unnecessary, the superfluous, and the extraneous. They're not just about making people feel special -- they're about making people feel _unreasonably_ special.

One thing I love about the author is that despite working at some of the top restaurants in the world, he describes himself as _more cheeseburger than caviar_. That hits home with me.

## Fine dining, smashburgers, and... TypeScript?

Although _Unreasonable Hospitality_ is largely about restaurants, it's not just for people who work in food service. It's for anyone who wants to create a welcoming, inclusive, and memorable experience for their customers.

In other words, it's for _everyone_ who works in product design. If you're reading this, that almost certainly includes you.

## Hospitality and design principles

Guidara's book is full of stories and lessons from his time in the restaurant industry. He talks about the importance of creating a welcoming environment, of making people feel special, and of going above and beyond to make sure that every guest has a great experience.

As a designer, I found myself nodding along with a lot of what Guidara had to say. The principles of hospitality that he talks about -- things like making people feel welcome, anticipating their needs, and creating a sense of community -- are common to some of my absolute favorite end user experiences.

The most memorable products I've ever used have gone out of their way to make me feel like I was part of something special. Some examples:

### How We Feel

The gorgeously designed [How We Feel](https://howwefeel.org/) app is a mood tracking & journaling app that is pleasant to use, visually appealing, and just-the-right-amount of instructive.

<Image
  publicId="newsletters/unreasonable-hospitality-and-design/how-we-feel"
  alt="How We Feel app"
  caption="How We Feel distills a complex set of emotions into a satisfying, 2-dimensional space."
/>

The first time I fired it up to log my mood, I was immediately struck by how _nice_ it felt to use. The app lays out a huge number of selections for _current mood_ on a 2-dimensional axis: left to right is _pleasant_ and _unpleasant_, and top to bottom is _high energy_ and _low energy_. It's a simple, intuitive way to distill a complex set of emotions into a satisfying, 2-dimensional space.

The real magic comes after the first few times you log your mood. The app gently and progressively presents short, thoughtful videos to help you understand your mood better. It's like having a therapist in your pocket, and it's _so_ well done. Hooked!

### Tuple

My team uses [Tuple](https://tuple.app/) for remote pair programming. The app is fast, reliable, and beautifully designed. You can _feel_ that is has been made for devs, and helps my team work more closely together even though we're spread out across the country.

So what stood out to me about Tuple? At the end of most calls, you're presented with a UI asking you to rate the call on a scale of 1-5, with an open text field for notes.

In my experience most calls are a perfect 5/5. However, if I ever have a less-than-perfect call experience (which is a vanishingly rare occurrence at this point), I'll leave a short note about what seemed to go wrong.

The Tuple team has _never_ failed to follow up with me about my feedback. Their reps are friendly, helpful, and _so_ knowledgeable. Good customer service is _such_ a difference-maker, and Tuple nails it.

<Image
  publicId="newsletters/unreasonable-hospitality-and-design/tuple"
  alt="Tuple app"
  caption="Tuple offers simple productivity, and their support staff are absolutely wonderful."
/>

## Designing for hospitality

So how can we apply the principles of hospitality to our design work? Here are a few ideas:

**Do an experience audit:** Take a look at your product from the perspective of a new user. What's the onboarding process like? How easy is it to find the features they need? Are there any pain points that could be smoothed out? Are there moments where you could show them a better experience based on what you already know about them?

**Take a look at your competition:** What's the typical experience like for your competition's users? How can you differentiate yourself by offering a more welcoming, inclusive, and memorable experience? Is there a way to identify a niche in the market that you can serve better than anyone else?

**_Talk_ to your users:** You just can't beat conversation. Reach out to a variety of your users to see what they like about your product. Talk to your best users, ones who may be at risk of churning, and if you're able, ones who have already churned. Take note of any commonalities and differences in these conversations. What can you learn from them?

## Take the idea, and go parabolic

Once you've done your research, I think it's helpful to ask a more pie-in-the-sky question: in a _perfect_ world, what would you do to blow your users' minds? What would make them feel like they _specifically_ are being seen?

Write down these ideas in as simple of a format as you're able to - a sentence or two is fine.

Then, ask yourself honestly: how close can you get to these ideals with the resources you have available? Move the needle as much as you can, and keep iterating.

You'll know when you've hit the mark. Your customers will, too.

> Go get yourself a copy of [_Unreasonable Hospitality_](https://amzn.to/3WaVvXl) by Will Guidara. You'll love it.

---

## From around the internet this week

- YouTuber Foureyes Furniture recently shared the story of how [one of their designs was stolen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urn4nPBAgUg) by a large-scale manufacturer of furniture. I love Foureyes' work, and it's a bummer to see this happen to them. The storytelling in this video is top-notch, and it's a great example of how to turn a negative experience into a positive one.

- My Brother, My Brother, and Me is my favorite podcast (shout out to my sister Kris for recommending it to me years ago!) Their recent episode [707: Crispy Cuppy Puppies](https://pca.st/bu1cd830) is one of the funniest I can remember. It's strange, and it's worth a listen.

## My work online

- 🎙️ My interview for APIs You Won't Hate with [Suchintan Singh from Skyvern](https://apisyouwonthate.com/podcast/apis-for-websites-that-dont-have-apis-with-suchintan-singh-from-skyvern/)
- My work on Openapi.tools was featured in the most recent APIs You Won't Hate newsletter: [Revamping Openapi.tools](https://apisyouwonthate.com/newsletter/revamping-open-api-tools/). You may remember my recent dispatch about working on a project with Astro - this is that, and it's getting closer to launch!


Designing for hospitality


<Image
  publicId="newsletters/take-my-money-tools-i-pay-for/cover"
  alt="Shut up and take my money! These are the tools I pay for"
/>

## Everyone loves a generous free tier

There are loads of free tools I use to get my work done, and I love recommending free tools for others to use. A quick search of articles and newsletters I've written shows 99 mentions of the word "free". I'm no stranger to the free tier, and most of all, I'm a huge fan of products that use their a free tier to prove their value, and then convert me to a paying customer.

I thought it might be interesting to share some of the products I pay for. Like most developers, I'm pretty sensitive to price: I'm willing to pay a reasonable fee for services based on the value they provide, but I'm also quick to cancel a subscription if I feel like I'm not getting my money's worth.

So with that in mind, here's a few tools I pay for, and why I think they're worth it:

### Transistor.fm

**Price: $19/mo**, which includes unlimited shows and episodes, and 20k downloads per month.

I've been using Transistor.fm to host my podcasts for a few years now. I've used few other podcast hosting services over the year, but I've found Transistor to be the best fit for me.

**Killer features:**
Transistor does many things amazingly well but these are among my favorites:
It's easy to use: starting a new show takes a few minutes. Upload your episode and you'll be off to the races in no time.

It never breaks: Never _once_ have I needed to worry about my podcast feed being down.

They add thoughtful features that make my life easier. For example: you can add guests to individual podcast episodes for better SEO (and you know I love SEO), they have great HTML embeds to share episodes and shows on your website.

Transistor makes it _dead easy_ to get your show listed on all the major podcast directories. This is a task that is fairly time intensive otherwise, and loads of podcasters don't do it, which is a huge mistake. You don't want your show to _only_ be listed on Apple Podcasts, do you?

<Image
  publicId="newsletters/take-my-money-tools-i-pay-for/transistor-fm"
  alt="A screenshot from my Transistor.fm dashboard"
  caption="A screenshot from my Transistor.fm dashboard. What's that last one on the list? 🤔"
/>

Being the nightmare-dev that I am, I've also sent the Transistor team a few support requests while poking around with the [Transistor API](https://developers.transistor.fm/), and they've always been quick to respond and helpful.

**Try it:** If you're thinking about starting your own podcast, and want to give Transistor a shot, you can use my referral link to get 15% off your first year: [Transistor.fm](https://transistor.fm/?via=mike-bifulco)

## Descript

**Price: $12/month**, which includes 10 hours of transcription per month, and 20 hours of screen recording per month.

Descript lets you edit audio and video files like they were a text document. Read that again. It's _wild_. I was an early adopter of Descript, and have been using it to edit Podcasts and videos for years now.

**Killer features:**

Do you say "um" and "uhhh" a lot when you're speaking? Descript can remove those for you. Do you want to add a section to your podcast where you're talking about a product, but you don't want to re-record the whole episode? Descript can do that for you. Do you want to add a video to your podcast episode? Descript can do that for you.

Descript can export video in portrait or landscape, which makes it trivial to create content for Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

I also love their audiogram feature, which you can use to make closed captioned clips from podcasts for social media.

<YouTube youTubeId={'nPZjfG6SWeY'} />

**Try it:** ready to make audio and video editing feel like magic? Give [Descript](https://get.descript.com/09k9hymsebq1) a shot using my referral link.

## Backblaze - automated cloud backups for your computer

**Price: $18/month**, which includes unlimited backups for two computers.

Having a backup of your computer is one of those things that many people don't think about until it's too late. I've been on the short end of that stick one too many times in my life, so I take a military mindset to backups: two is one, and one is none. I have my computer backed up locally to a NAS (network attached storage) device using Time Machine, and I use Backblaze as a cloud backup for my computer's hard drive. It's a set-it-and-forget-it kind of service, and I've been using it for years.

**Killer features:** Install it once, and it does its magic. If you ever need to restore from a backup, you can download your files from the web, or have them send you a USB hard drive with your data on it ([for free](https://www.backblaze.com/blog/usb-hard-drive-restore/)\* - as long as you ship it back within 30 days!). Super thoughtful, and well worth the price for peace of mind.

**Try it:** If you're not already backing up your computer, you should be. [Try Backblaze](https://secure.backblaze.com/r/00ponv) using my referral link for a free month of service.

---

## Some other bits I've shared online this week

- 🎙️ My podcast interview with [Zeno Rocha from Resend](https://apisyouwonthate.com/podcast/building-a-simple-api-for-email-with-zeno-rocha-from-resend/) went live last week on the APIs You Won't Hate podcast feed. Zeno is a great guy, and I've been a fan of his work for years. We talked about his new product, Resend, and how he's using APIs to make email marketing easier for developers.

- **This weekend** I'll be doing some live coding on YouTube: join me for [Rebuilding openapi.tools with Astro](https://youtube.com/live/wyJYInvZya8?feature=share) Saturday morning at 10am Eastern.

## 🔌 Until then, unplugging

I'm taking some time off from work this week to recharge and spend some time in the sun. It's something that I try to do regularly to take care of myself - work, life, and everything else can be a lot to handle, and it's important to take time to recharge. I hope you're able to do the same!

I'll be back in your inbox next week with more thoughts on building things on the internet. [Stay positive and love your life](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgTDLlDY_yY) ✌🏾


#indiehacker: 3 posts tagged

Beyond the walled garden: what Spotify and Substack get wrong

Designing for hospitality

Take my money! Some of my favorite tools... and why I pay for them