I’ve been talking to lots of smart and creative people about their note-taking setup lately.

A few surprises:

- many use plain text files & their default/favorite text editor
- some use paper only
- some use Roam, Notion, etc. but use almost none of the features

Why? https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇" title="Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten" aria-label="Emoji: Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten">

If you’re building a product

and the people who should be power users

use very low-tech solutions instead

...pay a lot of attention!

A simple conclusion would be to get trapped in “less is more” thinking.

But I think there is something deeper going on

What do plain text editors have that the “serious, advanced tools” don’t?

What do a couple sheets of paper have that almost no digital tool has?

Obvious answers: simplicity, speed, free-form expression.

Less obvious, outside the box: looking at multiple windows/sheets at once, arranging things into contexts, being future-proof, universal formats...

In the case of paper, there is one more thing that no one ever talks about:

There isn’t even a *display* that has the size and visual resolution of “a desk full of papers”, let alone software that truly offers a corresponding “desk top” experience.

The real competition and the real insights are not in your superficially most similar products.

It might be in something that you see as an entirely different category.

But for users, it doesn’t matter what category a thing is, if it can get all the things done they care about.

And if supposed power users use entirely different, much lower-tech solutions than “best-in-class tools”, those tools just completely miss the mark.

I’m trying to build something that “doesn’t suck compared to paper or TextEdit”. I’m trying to steal their strengths.

Stay tuned