June 4, 2025

Subtle Software v0.2: Reflections, posting cadence, time to build, and services

I took a couple weeks while traveling to reflect on Subtle so far. Here are the reflections and changes going forward.

1. Cadence will be 2-3 posts per week

Since early March I've been posting daily. That was a helpful forcing function to make progress daily in the beginning. But some days it resulted in a rushed post or simple aggregation. I probably won't have something significant to post more than two or three times per week.

Moreover, looking at the analytics (shout out plausible.io), there's been a power law in the readership of posts. Of the 47 posts I've published so far, only three have gotten more than 100 views. Those top three posts are:

There are diminishing returns to posting more. By posting a couple of times per week, I'll take bigger swings and give myself more time to make progress on original products. Which leads me to...

2. Posts will focus more on original products

Most posts so far have offered commentary on LLM products. These were fun to write, especially as I immersed myself more in these tools which are truly changing knowledge work.

But as the company Every observed, the best way to build credibility is to build original products. I'll be spending more of my time using the tools I'm now familiar with (esp. Cursor) to ship more products, explain the rationale behind them, and share learnings from the build process.

So expect more of an editorial focus on what I'm building rather than what's happening in the industry.

3. Subtle Software & Subtle Services

To make it clear that this website is about software, I've updated the website title to be Subtle Software.

There's also now a services offering (more here). I didn't set out to offer consulting or agency services. They spontaneously appeared to me in a compelling manner: introductions via my network to great people working on interesting missions and cool products.

I'll be spending part of my time advising/coaching startups mainly on product management. I'll also be testing my hypothesis that the work of software agencies / dev shops can be achieved 10x cheaper and faster by a motivated, resourceful individual (namely, me).

I'll also occasionally post here about certain concepts that recur in my services engagements (while respecting confidentiality).

As always, send feedback to hi@subtle.so. Thanks for reading!