I created my ideal notetaking app. I finally understand what Jesse’s been telling me about the future of software companies.

Background:

For the past 3 years, I've looked for the ideal notetaking app, but couldn’t find it.

I take notes at least 10 times a day. That means 10 important parts of my day suck.

To me, the ideal note-taking app:

• opens instantly to a blank page, ready for me to type

• saves the note to Notion, so I can share, search, etc

• that’s it. no distractions. no nothing.

After reading that, are you tempted to hit reply and tell me about some app that does it? Don’t bother.

I’ve bought loads of them (including specialty apps like Drafts, Notion Entry, Notion Widget, Instant Notion). None did what I want. I’m kinda quirky with what I’m looking for, I guess.

Then I tried something new.

This past Saturday I got up at 6am. Made coffee. And, with the world still asleep, I decided to play with Lovable, see if I could build my ideal note experience.

15 minutes later, I had it.

15 minutes!

This is what it looks like when it’s blank:

This is what it looks like with something written.

Every 10 seconds it saves my data to Notion.

This is what it looks like in Notion.

The future of software companies

For months, Jesse’s been telling me that the AI revolution will lead to businesses making more of their software instead of buying it. 2 months ago, he and Gateway X’s CTO, Adam Brakhane, spent 40 minutes explaining it to me, as you can see here.

I was skeptical.

The software founders I interviewed over the past 10+ years have armies of people ready to build and improve their software. How can a non-software company come up with better results than them?

Turns out they don’t have to come up with something better. They just have to come up with the right software for themselves, for their needs, for their people, for their quirks.

It’s kind of like how the note app I made is probably ridiculous for you to use, but perfect for me.

I’m no longer skeptical. I get it.

But I think that’s part of it

I can make my own dinner, but I still go out to restaurants.

I’m happy to pay for someone else’s vision.

I think the same will be true for software.

And now that it’s easy to create apps, we’ll get more options for off-the-shelf solutions.

I want the interviews I do about AI to help those creators build companies.

~andrew