Ryan Gilbert works in supply chain management at a 13,000+ person company

He started a newsletter on the side to feature workspaces of creative individuals.

It's now one of the most beautiful newsletters on Substack 👇
.@rjgilbert started "Workspaces" while many of us transitioned to WFH during the pandemic

He needed inspiration to design his workspace.

He realized he wasn't alone.

So he reached out to a few creatives he looks up to.

They responded with pictures:
@mikaelcho, co-founder/CEO @unsplash, works from the couch in his open-concept home.

He uses a pillow or book to prop up his MacBook.

He prefers to put his feet up while working for comfort and ergonomics.
.@joeyabanks, product designer @twitter, works on design systems from his mellow space in Columbus, Ohio.

His little desk plant keeps him company.
.@katydecorah, frontend engineer @Mapbox, injects life into her Upstate New York workspace with organic touches.

She uses a large plant wall to splash her space with green.

And a bamboo tray to house her keyboard.
South African designer @robhope, developer and maker of many things, keeps his workspace colorful.

He uses books, paintings, plants, and a bright red skateboard to do the trick.
.@kate_kassab keeps her space light-hearted with Square Enix merch and Classic video game memorabilia.

And a mini fridge "to support [her] snack addiction."
.@Stammy, designer @Twitter, works from his beautifully lit workspace in New York.

He keeps his Nintendo Switch on hand so he can easily fire up Mario Kart and play online with his nephew.

More on his space here: paulstamatiou.com/stuff-i-use/
.@devinemily, ceo of @animalzco, keeps her workspace cozy with a color-coordinated collection of books.

And one of the cutest puppies of all time.
.@jacksondame, founder of @vestigory, uses splashes of primary colors to "keep in touch with the spirit of playfulness and a beginner’s mind."
.@marcedwards, founder and designer of @bjango, has a "pretty boring and dark work environment"

it helps him to "keep focused, and ensure colour accuracy throughout the day.”
.@ChrisJBakke, founder of Laskie.co, keeps things fun with an impressive whiskey collection

a regal painting of his dog

and a gorgeous shuffleboard setup.
.@ariel_n, designer at @murmur and writer of the I Know a Spot newsletter, uses her workspace as an “everything space.”

She writes her book and newsletter

Exercises

And paints.
.@arielsonline, a student @uwaterloo, brings her sun-soaked space to life with colorful artwork,

Starring Jean-Michel Basquiat's "Bird on Money"
.@shirleyywu, lead designer of @Threads, really makes her tranquil space her own.

It's decorated with physical artwork that *she* made.
Ryan is inspired seeing how different the workspaces of people he admires can look.

He hopes they inspire you too.

Whose workspace do you want him to share next?

minipoll.co/p/nHyYH

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More from @SamDeBrule

9 Apr
Ryan Gilbert works in supply chain management at a 13,000+ person company

He started a newsletter on the side to feature workspaces of creative individuals.

It's now the most beautiful newsletter on Substack.

His newsletter and a few highlights workspaces.xyz

👇
.@rjgilbert started "Workspaces" while many of us transitioned to WFH during the pandemic

He needed inspiration to design his workspace.

He realized he wasn't alone.

So he reached out to a few creatives he looks up to.

They responded with pictures.
Mikael Cho, co-founder/CEO @unsplash, works from the couch in his open-concept home.

He uses a pillow or book to prop up his MacBook.

He prefers to put his feet up while working for comfort and ergonomics.
Read 16 tweets
8 Apr
Figma is a startup valued at more than $2 billion dollars.

Co-founder and CEO Dylan Field is a Forbes 30 under 30 list alum.

This is a story about the messy reality of building a startup and the myth of overnight success.👇
Building Figma was messy

Dylan is really open about it:
• The company idea was originally around drones
• He questioned dropping out of Brown after "the worst week of Figma"
• John Lilly passed on their seed round, saying "I just don’t think you know what you’re doing yet."
Dylan dropped out of Brown University to become a member of the Thiel Fellowship in 2012

He and co-founder Evan Wallace (Dylan's friend and former TA) began work on what started as a Drone company,

But ultimately became Figma.

From @zoink's Thiel Fellowship application:
Read 13 tweets
26 Mar
1/ We grew the @usejournal blog from 0 pageviews per month in 2017 to 4,100,000 per month in 2020.

Here's what we've learned along the way 👇
2/ Embrace limitations.

we have a small team

we spend our time writing code and talking to users

a contributor-driven strategy was the only way for us to reach a huge audience quickly

now 99% of articles on our blog are written by people with no affiliation to Journal
3/ Understand what writers want.

our biggest challenge was convincing people to submit posts to our Medium publication

most writers have valuable perspectives to share, but no audience to share with

we offer them distribution for their posts
Read 8 tweets
24 Mar
1/ I'm super excited to onboard people into the @usejournal beta today!

a couple weeks ago we started rebuilding it from the ground up, this time with people like @samiur1204 in mind.

Now it's time to see a few brave souls use it 👇
2/ Journal is a research tool for creative people who hate organizing.

our goal is to give people the benefit of having their ideas organized - without doing any manual work.
3/ The beta includes 4 big pieces:

1. a chrome extension that AUTOMATICALLY saves webpages and docs you visit.

2. a personalized dashboard that organizes your content by topic, domain, and more.

here's my dashboard today:

(don't judge my links, i'm planning my wedding!)
Read 6 tweets
23 Mar
In the past 24 hours @samiur1204 and I scheduled 19 video onboarding sessions to welcome people into the @usejournal beta.

Exciting!

But now I'm more nervous than happy.

Here's how I work through the nerves of hearing new product feedback:
Remember the only thing worse than harsh feedback is no feedback.

In the past we took too long to get feedback

We polished areas of the product that users didn't care about.

We wound up not building enough empathy

Now before we ship something new, my inbox looks like this: Image
Look forward to confusion

We onboard everyone over Zoom to see this confusion up close.

It's painful to watch.

But we can't make improvements without it.

The more we see, the more we can improve.
Read 9 tweets
18 Mar
I've run 200+ user research interviews for @usejournal.

after a recent call, a well-known product leader stopped me and said,

"i'm going to steal your questions for my team.

can you walk me through the rest of your process?"

here's what I've learned about user research👇
Start with a point of view on the problem you're solving.

the more opinionated the better

it makes the right people easier to find

they'll be more willing to talk to you too.

here's our POV: Image
Create a list of people you think have the problem.

even better if they like you

start with friends

add others who might want to talk

we included current and former users, members of our slack community, and readers of our newsletter.
Read 15 tweets

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