Jopro
Write to a better life
Just a quick update on what we've gone done since the 13th, summarizing from the dev journal https://live.jopro.app/jopro-dev
The focus is now on developing the gratitude protocol, EMDR, and making EWI more complete.
Updates
- Web hosting for notebooks is enabled and also allows for custom domains (if you ask nicely). Example is https://www.a8b.io which is personal blog that is just sitting behind a notebook.
- Meta descriptions auto generated from truncated versions of content
- Author info editable and displayed in notebook
- Open graph images get generated for every post. Example: https://mkwdysl5z3223w5oregtuolfoy0jzdsz.lambda-url.us-east-1.on.aws/?uid=1&jid=2d6843d0-137d-439e-9442-1f1a048cebd8&cid=2024-02-20T15%3A06%3A27.512 00%3A00
- Schedule reminders are now a thing. You'll get an email to remind you to update a notebook as a set frequency since the last time you updated it or the last time we reminded you.
- Email notifications on making a journal public on the web, and deleting are now enabled
- Notifications are also available in app now, either from the "User Bubble" in the bottom right or the dashboard page
- Highlights were added to the editor
- Timer fixed to work on absolute time, no longer has issue when tab not in focus
- Bug fix with creating duplicate new chunks
- Rendering improvements to mobile editor UI
- Template based prompts now show
- Templates no longer pull from database and are quicker to modify
Fixes coming soon
- Fix the bubble menu on mobile being obscured by copy/paste system menu
- Fix search open AI integration erroring
- Formatting of the create notebook page on mobile needs to be fixed
- Image uploads need a trailing space on mobile
- Truncate journal titles for the user bubble
- Fix image security in notebook uploads
- Reset times other than midnight e.g. 4am would be ideal for me
Notes
- Look into adding happiness measures or other surveys as notebook options
- Chunk renaming needs to be a thing (allow custom chunk titles)
I'm continuing to make development progress. Interestingly I am now logging changes to Jopro in a Jopro journal which uses the web publishing feature I added. https://live.jopro.app/jopro-dev
While I'm not entirely sure about the direction or the receptiveness, I'm choosing to take a slightly different approach to this product. I know it needs to exist and I am choosing to allow it to come into existence creatively through me more like a piece of art than a conversation with a market at the moment. I am finding this approach more enjoyable. Interestingly I find I care much more about the product.
I don't entirely know if this is the correct approach given that it's quite difficult to figure out if people will use it until I have something a bit more substantial. But I am quite happy with the founder/product fit, and the idea that I can continue development on this indefinitely because it needs to exist, both because I need it to but also because it could really help others.
I'm planning on publicizing to users after I have a few more protocols, in particular after gratitude is up at least and the scheduling and notifications systems is in place. I am of course not necessarily blocking users, but I am not approaching them either.
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I continue writing in the dev journal and I feel really good about it. It's so easy to do, there is very little barrier to publication. It all happens live, and the image uploads are so easy and get optimized right away and then load super fast. Writing in the journal seems really seamless which is the experience I want.
Something I think that hurts the demo, and makes it hard to share broadly is that people lack the context of what the demo is for. Those who are familiar with the protocol already may find it helpful. Those who aren't will end up not understanding why they should be using the editor in the first place. So a landing page with details about the specific protocol that has a link to the editor is probably more helpful for sharing broadly. Similarly the landing page could be updated to include details about specific protocols or tools and how they are helpful.
The value of the product is likely not just making it easy to adhere to these protocols but to discover new ones and buy in to why they are helpful.
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Though it needs a second pass for coherence and flow, I have a very rich site here on the topic now
https://www.jopro.app/therapeutic-writing/expressive-writing
I have a demo page as a mentioned for the pennebaker writing protocol (at jopro.io/demo) as well as a landing page at the https://www.jopro.io/
The writing editor turned out better than I expected and I really enjoy using it. I will continue the protocol each week myself to continue testing it. I am going to attempt to promote it to others using this writing protocol.
I also want to create a landing page for this writing protocol actually because the Huberman Lab episode I link to is quite sparse in terms of notes and all the articles linked are not openly accessible. Then I will update the links in the editor. But for now I'll leave it as is.
I have a rough idea of how I might test this idea out. Because I need to do this before the end of the year I'm keeping it simple. I'm going to build a single page app that guides a user through a specific protocol. This is free. I promote this free page.
When the user is finished with the protocol it prompts them to pay to get access to advanced features like saving, reminders, text analysis, and dozens of other templates and workbooks. It occurred to me as well while writing this that a workbook marketplace might be interesting aspect, especially if I can fill the buy side of the platform up with people who journal a lot. Though I'm a bit wary of marketplaces.
I also have a landing page if they want to learn more about the other templates and features.
If they click any of the "I want to pay for this" buttons anywhere it takes them to an email sign-up to get them on a waitlist. If I get enough interest then I build the platform and launch to the email list.
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Don't build a 2-sided marketplace unless you have at least one side of the marketplace fully figured out (as your USP).
Do you really need an MVP to test this out? What about only building a teaser landing page, with a waitlist? Wouldn't that be sufficient?
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That's a good point about the marketplace. I don't think I would try to do anything there unless I have a lot of users but it's good to be reminded. It would fit naturally as an evolution of the product though.
The landing page would be sufficient. I don't need an MVP of the platform. The single page app is not really an MVP, it's more of a marketing lead for people to share. The code can be hacked together in a day or two based on the scope I have.
Thanks for looking at this and giving feedback, I really appreciate it!
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As a note to myself, the more I think about this more value I feel there is to add. I've been remembering more of my dreams lately and the idea of automated theme analysis would be really valuable.
The first of many puns. I'm making Jern because I do a lot of journaling in many different forms.
- "Trauma" or "anxiety" based journaling as described in Huberman Lab Nov 20th
- Narrative journaling about big life events, also described in Huberman Lab
- Free form journaling that mostly centers around answering questions to myself or putting down thoughts
- Free form journaling that centers around defining what I want my life to look like
- Idea journaling, to dump down business or other ideas
- Gratitude journaling every day
- Travel journaling which is detailed narrative in nature mostly only when I travel or do something particularly interesting to me
- Weekly win journaling (which is disposable to some degree, it's mostly to get them down)
- Structured journaling/recollection before EMDR
- Project portfolio and notes
I don't remember my dreams, but if I want to invest time into trying to (which is something you can do if I recall) then I would also have a journal for that.
Some of these have protocols associated with them, that could be facilitated by the platform. Some of them it would just be nice to be able to search or summarize them.
I'm doing this because I've also committed to trialing 3 other ideas (to the bare minimum of a landing page to gauge interest) before the end of the year. I've picked this project because it resonates with me a lot. I want to alleviate a fear that I'm missing out on product/founder fit, or if building feels all the same.
My entry point for this project is likely tackling the more structured but helpful journaling protocols like the Anxiety based one as described in Huberman lab, which has a specific protocol that would be helpful to replicate. The other potential is the EMDR journaling.
Most products in the space are either blank canvases, tools designed to make it easier to log things (like 5 minute journal or daily bean), or lately cooperative AI journaling that guides you. I want something that sits in between. It feels more like google docs, but with specific journal protocol templates and some helpers built on.
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