Kaomoji generator 1 minute read — 14 Feb 2025

I've been working on a kaomoji generator. It's a simple tool that allows you to generate kaomojis for instant messaging. Another reason why I prefer to use kamojis is a form of counter-positioning to the repeated LLM churn you see online. Especially the way LLMs have picked up the once-sacred em-dash, now you see it everywhere, and has ruined the artistic novelty that came with it's usage. All...

Idea in the shower, testing before breakfast 6 minutes read — 12 Jan 2025

Imagine having an idea in the shower and testing it before breakfast? It's highly plausible now as AI lets you prototype at the speed of thought. Currently, I use Claude Projects and Cursor to build what I call disposable apps: quick prototypes that prove a point (read more in this essay about vibe coding). The magic? No sunk costs. I can write 5,000 lines of code in ten minutes, test it, and...

How I ship "stuff" 2 minutes read — 11 Jan 2025

As a disclaimer, I would like to mention that I have a very shabby process of getting things done. There could be a golden standard out there worth emulating; but nevertheless, this (rather easy) system works for me, and I continue to follow this— 1. Most of the work in completing the to-dos lies in preparing my own mindset. I have a standard 9-to-5 job, and this works the best for me to plan...

Deploying Home Cooked Apps with Rails 8 minutes read — 24 Nov 2024

As a Rails enthusiast, I've always wanted a better deployment solution to house my hobby projects. It was not that there was no good solution available: We have AWS, Heroku, Hatchbox, Fly, Render.io and various other such PaaS alternatives. AWS has been too complex personally to build side projects. That, and the +500% markup. All these PaaS providers were ultimately wrappers sitting on top of...

Brand treatments, Design Systems, Vibes 4 minutes read — 20 Sept 2024

The usual approach to building a design system often involves compiling a list of font families, typography guidelines, color palettes, patterns, and similar visual elements. Take Gumroad, for example, one of the best open-source design systems out there. It seemingly covers everything a company might need—color schemes, icons, font selections, even sticker packs, and more. When examining...

How does AI affect UI? 7 minutes read — 12 Aug 2024

Intended Audience — For conversational UI designers in healthcare industry curious about various UI affordances/design patterns in vogue right now Our online conversations have been increasingly life-like, but yet life-less at the same time. The UI of apps have become more conversational and chat-like in nature. Not just apps, even websites have their own chat-like interfaces on the side. And all...

The Modern Startup Stack 7 minutes read — 23 Jun 2024

Choosing a web framework is like choosing your first pokémon. I didn't want to succumb to the 'new hotness' problem with the myriad of JS frameworks to choose from (Angular, Vue, React, Solid). I wanted something that i can choose and stick to for atleast a decade. So I resorted to a Rails monolith for building apps (but with a slight twist) To start with, I chose Ruby on Rails. It's a...

Design that's so bad it's actually good 3 minutes read — 16 May 2024

Recently, a relative sought my help to tweak a badly designed poster on Microsoft Paint. This was meant to be circulated on Whatsapp as an advertisement for the handyman services his friend was offering in his locale. He wanted to ‘jazz’ it up and asked if I could help. I quickly fired my Figma and started working towards revamping the layout. Before pushing some pixels, I took a brief pause—What...

Obsessing over personal websites 6 minutes read — 07 Apr 2024

Intended Audience—For those of us who have attempted to make a personal website of their own and have guilt-tripped over making multiple updates every year I’ve been obsessed with my personal website. It’s not even about the views and impressions which I’m receiving. I have one subscriber on my mailing list from my website, and compared to internet writer standards, I am virtually non existent....

English is the hot new programming language 4 minutes read — 17 Feb 2024

Intended Audience—Indie no-code developers, digital marketers and other non-tech professionals working in tech I made a resolution for 2024 to learn Ruby on Rails, a controversial web development framework famous for maximising developer productivity. In the business of building and growing products, I wanted to be a self-taught developer The goal behind my trite, cliched new-year resolution was...

The role of taste in building products 6 minutes read — 24 Jan 2024

Take Marc Lou, a familiar figure within the Twitter Indiehacking circle. He's garnered attention for openly sharing his journey as a product builder. This transparency has piqued interest in his projects well before their launch, as followers have grown to appreciate his distinctive approach. A notable instance of this was the excitement around his AI logo generator, which swiftly climbed to the...

World's most ancient public health problem 5 minutes read — 23 Jan 2024

From the place I come from, in Kerala, a baby is not given a name until he/she is 28 days old. And for marginalised castes/communities, the naming ceremony is delayed to 90 days. I never really questioned as to why this was the case. I let it become a ritual system until I overheard a conversation between some of our family members. This was mainly because the chances of a baby surviving was very...

Dear enterprises, we're tired of your subscriptions 10 minutes read — 23 Jan 2024

When you build a SaaS app, how do you price it? The first option which comes to everyone's mind is a monthly/yearly subscription model While building Clarity notes, I was stuck with a usual question when it comes to building a SaaS—How should I price the app? We settled on the usual monthly/yearly pricing structure. It included a free version to allow users to try out the YouTube note-taking...

Products need not be user centered 6 minutes read — 23 Jan 2024

Putting the user first has always been the golden rule in design. It’s so common that nobody really questions it anymore. We’re told, ‘The user knows best. Listen to them.’ I’ve had my skepticism about the framing of the term — user-centered design. I’ve kept myself from voicing this apprehension, afraid of being dismissed as an outright blasphemy in the design circles. However, having shifted...

Pluginisation of Modern Software 2 minutes read — 22 Jan 2024

Transitioning from Adobe to Figma was a big change for me in my design journey. At that time, the whole design ecosystem was revolving around Adobe. For image manipulation, you had Photoshop, Illustrator for vector graphics, Indesign for reports, XD for website or app prototypes and so on. When Figma first started it was competing to disrupt this ecosystem for UI/UX Design. As the adobe ecosystem...

Quality Ideas Trump Execution 3 minutes read — 10 Dec 2023

‘’What might seem to be merely the initial step, deciding what to work on, is in a sense the key to the whole game’’ — Paul Graham A good start when it comes to product building is half the work done. While running the Build program as a Program Director, a four-week program for folks to go from a fleeting idea to a full-fledged product, we ran it in a building cycle that went from (a) ideation,...

Why I prefer indie softwares 5 minutes read — 01 Dec 2023

The greatest consumer software tools that exist out there are built by hobbyists and indie makers. I now prefer to write my notes on Obsidian. For scheduling tweets, I use Zlappo and Typefully. For creating AI interior renders, I use interior.ai. One thing which is common among all these examples is that they are all built by hobbyists. I would like to call them “indie softwares”. These are...