2026-03-11

TFT as a web surfboard

As someone who grew up surfing, I'm acutely aware of the impact that the board
you have has on what it feels like to, and how easy it is, to do what you're
wanting. Surfers are enchanted by the different feelings of trying different
boards. They are a lens through which the surfer relates to the world.

Similarly, the tools we use in our basic workflow for capturing and relating
to information can change how it feels to do so — and change the kind of
information we capture. The workflow is built for rapid capture, multiple
parallel projects, divergent thinking, and a step beyond towards organization.

The biggest bottleneck in our ability to augment our intelligence with
note-taking tools is in the interface — getting information out of our heads
and into the machine. So we're building an app entirely around that. Rapid
knowledge capture, as our first product.

Ideaflow vs Obsidian

Obsidian is a bit too heavy/hackery for me. Tons of features, but really I
just need a quicker way to jot stuff down — something closer to Apple Notes
with a few more niceties.

One key feature of Ideaflow is cross-sectional filtering across different
conversations. If I write:

Conversation with Tara Raj
— Some note
— Another interesting idea. #Idea
— Another note
— Name of the Wind #Book

Then searching for #Book filters to only the line matching that tag. My
natural workflow isn't to create titled pages — it's to append notes at the
speed of thought to the top of a giant text file. Ideaflow leans into this
common tendency in notetakers and makes it something to be proud of, versus
ashamed of its messiness. Especially helpful for folks who work on a lot of
projects and/or have ADHD and need to capture notes accretively across many
topics.