Learning Programming Through Design and Prototyping The speaker learned to program by using a coffee script based development environment called Framer, which allowed for prototyping interactions. Their background in art training, particularly in conceptual and performance aspects, proved to be valuable in making design decisions. This experience became a strength that was brought into every design project, starting around 2017.
Speaker 1
And I was, you know, seeing meetups around this around the world, people talking about it. But no one knew how to use this, this application. No one knew, no one knew how to make this stuff. Framer. Framer, yeah. So it was like a coffee script based little development environment. But it was wonderful. It was like little picture of an iPhone on the right and then code on the left and, you know, it was doing hot reloads, all that stuff that hadn’t been around the last time that I had started Doing any programming stuff. So that’s how I basically, that’s how I learned to program. And I just got really hooked on it, got really into this space of like prototyping interactions and essentially like doing that design work that like necessitated a certain amount Of building in order to really make those design decisions. It also turned out as I worked on this more and as I talked to more people that a lot of the art training that I had, not necessarily the technical like painting and drawing, but more in the Conceptual and performance side of things where you’re really thinking about how someone is experiencing something. All of that actually came in like really, really handy and kind of became a strength that I brought into every design project. So that was around 2017.The Power of Lightweight Prototyping in Product Development The speaker was initially attracted to the idea of lightweight design coding, which turned out to be a strategic move. The approach of prototyping and building something without a clear idea of what it should be, and being open to iterate or discard it, has been effective for product development. This approach allows for real and quicker feedback, a more creative attitude, and a willingness to push further on an idea, even if it is initially considered disposable.
Speaker 1
And that type of lightweight design coding was really attractive to me. Then again, everyone was into it. No one could do it. So it seemed like it clear. Strategic move for me to insert myself there. Yes. And it turned out that I really, really loved it. But these sorts of like, and still today, like this idea of prototyping of building something that was, you know, we don’t really know what this thing should be. So we’re going to build it in order to find out what it should be. And if we, if it turns out that we need to throw this out and do it again, then we will. If it turns out that what we built, we can continue to build on then that’s great. But it’s this constant like churning approach to development that actually works pretty well for products as well. Right.
Speaker 2
Because you can get real feedback, right? Like not conceptual feedback, not hypothetical feedback. You can put things into hands like a lot quicker and a lot easier. Yeah.
Speaker 1
And even the attitude that you have while building something that you think is a toy tends to be more creative and more, I give a little bit more willingness to push a little further on Something that you think, I’m just going to throw this out anyway, you know, and start over once. And even if the thing ends up being the product and we endPersistence in Chasing Technically Challenging Problems Persistently pursuing technically challenging problems, even when they seem small and insignificant, is a maker’s fantasy. The idea of continuously working on a highly technically challenging and opinionated problem until it is resolved is a defining characteristic of a true creator. The speaker reflects on their own experience with dedicating six months to solving a seemingly small yet extremely difficult problem and acknowledges the rarity of such dedication in the current professional landscape.
Speaker 1
So I just have to like ignore that. And you know, like maybe file that away is something to do, explore later. And I think that the kind of the fantasy, the indulgence of something like perfect free hand that what I was doing in my nights and weekends, you know, while working at play was that I had Run into one of those problems, just like, yeah, how do you do that like variable width line in vector space or something? And I’m like, you know what? Six months. I’m just going to keep working on this obsessively until I figure it out and make it a tiny bit better, tiny bit better. There was never any project, you know, even now as an employer, like I wouldn’t give six months to anyone to work on that problem. It was so small. It was just really hard. But I was doing it. And I think that that that idea of like chasing down a highly technically challenging, but also highly like opinionated little, little problem and like seeing it all the way through, Like that’s that’s a kind of like maker fantasy. That’s the kind of like, if I’m a mechanic, I don’t want to watch YouTube videos of people who are doing normal mechanic stuff. I want to see YouTube videos of people like restoring a 1957 Chevy or something like that. Right. If I do yoga, I don’t want to see people who look like me doing yoga in the places where I do yoga.The Maker’s Fantasy The concept of pursuing highly technical and opinionated problems, seeing them through to completion, and sharing the journey has an inherent allure. This approach differs from the typical founder journey of building products or businesses, instead focusing on solving difficult problems for a specific audience almost as an art form. The open-source nature of the work allowed for others to take and use it in various ways.
Speaker 1
And I think that that that idea of like chasing down a highly technically challenging, but also highly like opinionated little, little problem and like seeing it all the way through, Like that’s that’s a kind of like maker fantasy. That’s the kind of like, if I’m a mechanic, I don’t want to watch YouTube videos of people who are doing normal mechanic stuff. I want to see YouTube videos of people like restoring a 1957 Chevy or something like that. Right. If I do yoga, I don’t want to see people who look like me doing yoga in the places where I do yoga. I want to see like someone in Bali or out on top, you know, doing yoga. There’s a sort of like fantasy element to that. I think that that’s what I was at the time like providing to, I think that’s why that content was hitting.
Speaker 2
It’s fascinating. I feel like that’s very different than most founder journeys, right? It feels like often people are building products that they want to see exist in the world or they have an idea for a business. You’re almost like you said, you’re solving these really hard problems for a very specific audience almost to if I’m if I’m hearing you correctly to like kind of see if it can be done almost As an art, which I guess makes sense given your background. It’s really fascinating and really cool. Yeah.
Speaker 1
Thank you. I mean, it is it was incredibly fun to see, you know, because these things were open source, anyone could take them and use them, you know, in whatever direction you wanted.Innovation Journey from Whiteboard to GPT-4 with Vision A new whiteboard gained popularity among users who built production apps on it, preparing for market entry. However, the release of GPT-4 with vision revolutionized capabilities, where previously GPT was limited to teal draw output. With GPT-4, tasks like drawing a Christmas tree became significantly more advanced, leveraging the system’s understanding of basic concepts like triangles.
Speaker 1
Um, the, that’s good to hear. Yeah. Uh, we had, by, by the middle end of this year, I mean, we were, uh, we had a, uh, a new whiteboard that was incredibly good, that was getting popular, uh, that people had already hacked And, and built, not hacked, but just sort of built with and built upon to build a bunch of production apps, even though it was in like alpha, you know, releases. Um, including some, some larger companies and more successful startups. So, uh, that was the path that we were, we’re kind of going down, getting ready to do or kind of go to market and all that. Um, and then suddenly, uh, GPT four with vision came out and previously the only thing that you could do with, with GPT was essentially use teal draw as the output. You could say, uh, hey, chat, and we had, we had played around with this. We never really shared it because it was not super impressive, but you could say, um, hey, this is, this is my API of my, my canvas application, you know, draw a Christmas tree, you know, And it would go like, you could do this before GPT four of a year. Yeah. Yeah. Is that like, how were you doing that? Well, you know, it’s like, it has like kind of a concept of like, what a, what a, uh, triangle looks like, you know, okay. And if you say like, here’s a, here’s a function called create triangle. Um, and here’s my coordinate system or whatever. It can make three triangles that are on top of each other that are slightly bigger. Like, uh, and in that case, what was happening was the, the input wasDefining the Identity of the Company and Product The company is faced with the dilemma of whether it is a developer tool providing a platform for other businesses like Map Box or Google Maps, or if it should focus on being an end-user app. The company has historically leaned towards providing a tool for businesses to build upon, akin to Map Box licensing maps to other companies for use in their products. However, there have been instances where the company considered transitioning into an end-user app due to its popularity, leading to a reevaluation of its identity and the product being developed.
Speaker 1
So I don’t know. Uh, it’s a good question. I think with teal draw, the, uh, there’s always been a tension between are we, uh, company providing like a developer tool? Are we map box, you know, or are we Google maps? This is the open source question from earlier. Yeah. Are we, are we providing a tool to other businesses to build upon? Map box, I use this as an example of the time. If you have like a food delivery app and they have a map in it, like it’s map box. It’s map box. It’s like no one, no one builds maps. Maps are insanely hard to build. I wouldn’t build maps ever. Um, but people like it, uh, and people do it and they, uh, they sell it and they license it essentially to other companies to use inside of their products. Um, and that has been the direction that I, that teal draw has always been down. Um, but along the way, there’s, there’s been a couple of times where we’re like, you know, this is kind of getting pretty popular as like an end user app. Um, maybe we should just do that. And so we’ve had to re-decide multiple times that like, uh, you know, what kind of company are we, are, are we, what kind of product are we building?Innovative Solutions and Communication in Product Development The speaker highlights the importance of innovative ideas in sparking the imagination of developers and demonstrating the potential impact on various applications. They emphasize the significance of clear communication through visual representations and the ability to convey complex ideas in a simple way. The concept of a flexible and extendable web-based canvas is praised as a timely and envy-inducing product that facilitates demos and serves as a UI infrastructure for building innovative solutions.
Speaker 1
Uh, but to that it’s, uh, it’s more of like a juicing the imagination, uh, of other developers and proving that like, wow, this really connects with people. Like imagine if we use this inside of our educational app, right? And if we use this inside of our, um, you know, org chart thing, if you could just like, cross out the guy that you just fired. You know, I mean, and it’s true. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, uh, if you, if you can draw it and communicate it in a way that another person would understand what you want to get out of it. Um, either GPT will already understand what you want to get out of it and create the same result, or it’s like six months. You know, and then it will. So I think just having like a really, really good, flexible, um, extendable web based canvas is like an incredibly well timed product. Um, if I hadn’t made it, I would be super envious of whoever had made it. Um, and yeah, so we are, uh, we are in the business of demos. And we’re in the business of a, of a kind of an infrastructure product, essentially a UI infrastructure product. Uh, and people are already building really great stuff on it that use the same make real pattern. Um, so it’s exciting to see.Future of AI Collaboration and Real-Time Thought Partner in UI Infrastructure Products The future of AI in UI infrastructure products may involve AI collaboration where a model drives a cursor on the screen and enables real-time thought partnership. This could include features like AI-based auto complete for tasks and visual conversations to enhance user experience and productivity.
Speaker 1
And we’re in the business of a, of a kind of an infrastructure product, essentially a UI infrastructure product. Uh, and people are already building really great stuff on it that use the same make real pattern. Um, so it’s exciting to see.
Speaker 2
You, you couldn’t have predicted this, it sounds like. But maybe if you were to look ahead, what other things might be coming down the pike in terms of AI that could impact TL draw and your path moving forward.
Speaker 1
I think the biggest thing will be, uh, kind of AI collaboration. Okay. Essentially that the same experience that you have. Collaborating on a whiteboard with someone else, another human. Um, if you could imagine that the other cursor on the screen was being driven by a model instead. Uh, and that the same way that you can have like a kind of a, basically the, the chat, the PPT moment for, for canvas, uh, is, is this coming? Uh, and a real time. A real time thought partner. Yeah. Yeah. That you’re, you’re not only like, not only doing things like, uh, kind of a AI based like auto complete, you know, like I start drawing a graph. And they’re like, I think I know what the rest of this looks like. Let me, let me suggest it for you. But to have a sort of a visual conversation about like, okay, here, I’m planning a trip, you know, here, I’m here.The Potential of Synchronous Workflows in Communication Tools Synchronous workflows in communication tools can revolutionize the way people exchange information by combining various channels like text, visuals, voice, and drawing in real-time. This approach provides a quick and multi-dimensional communication experience, enhancing presence and proximity beyond traditional chat interactions. Embracing such synchronous features can lead to more efficient and productive information exchange in collaborative environments, positioning platforms as innovators in the field.
Speaker 2
You, you could totally see that happening. Um, I think it’s a great prediction because I mean, today, if you think about chat, you be T, it’s, it’s, it’s more or less what you’re saying, but an asynchronous experience. Um, but if the thing could move fast enough that it could be synchronous, the type of workflow that you’re talking about seem would seem totally possible. And that will be, that’ll be awesome.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And if we jumped on a, on a mero board or a, or a teal draw for that matter, um, you know, right now what we would be doing is we’d be using texts. We would be using visuals and screenshots and drawing things. We’d also be using our voices to communicate. It’s like everything at once. And I think that’s why people like clever whiteboard so much is that it’s, it’s fast and it’s just like, stimulus dump of, of information. Um, that you have like multiple channels going at the same time. And so you’re able to communicate really quickly. You even have this like notion of presence and closeness and proximity and all that stuff. Um, and yeah, much, much more complicated than just a chat back and forth. But I think that’s, that’s going to be a direction that people want to want to go. If, if you really want to maximize the type of, um, information that you’re able to exchange with a model or with an agent. Yeah. Like it’s going to be on the canvas. And my hope is that we continue to kind of stay on top of things so that we are the, the place where that experimentation happens and where those products happen.
