weavve

How it started vs. how it's going.

During the last few years I had to create a decent amount of decks which made me believe I know what a great presentation software should have and—more importantly—not have. After years and years of being frustrated by the same issues of most tools, I spent a couple of days during October 2021 to build a quick prototype of what I thought a fresh take on crafting decks could feel like. I reached out to some internet friends to ask for their thoughts. While most feedback has been utterly positive, we are all aware of The Mom Test, right?

It was a simple almost Notion-like tool that allowed to compose slides as texts and only later they would be turned into designed decks. Besides being limited in functionality it followed the philosophy of content first, design second, an approach I always admired when crafting presentations.

After playing around for a while I was becoming more and more unsure... What if someone wants to lay out content in a whole different way? What if someone wants to design a complex grid? What if... And all those what if's made me throw the whole version of weavve into trash and I started from scratch again. This time giving a lot more freedom to users. Well, it turns out that all this freedom only resulted in a worse version. Of course, it offered more control, more options, more customization. In the end though it transformed into the kind of tool I never wanted to build. And into a tool most people do not want to use...

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon Tome, a fresh new take on building presentations and while I haven't personally explored it yet, it is incredible close to what I had prototyped, but what I was too afraid of building as it's so heavily simplified.

Shutting down.

A few weeks went by where I did not touch the codebase at all, but it soon became pretty clear to me I'd rather shut it down... Which I will do by the end of July. I am already co-running a platform (LogoArchive) with a partner of mine, which requires lots of my spare-time attention, in hindsight it feels pretty naive to think I could've managed building two complex projects on the side.

In the end I am glad I started it, it was challenging and by far the most complex digital product I've ever worked on—and it led to some interesting events, from talking to investors to job offers to meeting new internet friends. I tend to think of side gigs in opportunities rather than money or income streams, measured by that weavve was a complete win as it led to an incredible opportunity I am extremely excited about. More soon...

To all of you who provided feedback, jumped on a call with me, let me know their thoughts, I am extremely grateful for your time and input. Thank you so much, talk soon.

If you want to get in touch with me, please reach out via Email or Twitter

Christian