beeper.md (6309B)
1 +++ 2 title = "Beeper" 3 description = "The best damn chat app on Earth" 4 date = 2024-09-02 5 [extra] 6 type = "work" 7 start = 2023-06-05 8 end = 2023-09-01 9 +++ 10 11 As the summer of 2023 rolled around, I found myself opening up a bunch 12 of tabs in Safari to check if any cool companies I had heard of on [the 13 orange site] were hiring. 14 15 I remember being shocked and excited when I saw that [Beeper] had a 16 listing. Their app was built on top of an open, secure, and 17 decentralized protocol called Matrix. I had used Matrix through the 18 [Element] app with some friends, and was aware of some of the cool 19 projects that took advantage of the network. I was also aware that most 20 of the code that deals with Matrix is open-source and written in Go—two 21 qualities shared by [Mabel], the terminal app I had just finished 22 working on. Beeper sat at the intersection of a lot of things I was and 23 am still crazy about. I sat down with [Eric Migicovsky], the CEO, and 24 came on as a contractor for the summer. 25 26 ## Tenure 27 Everything I encountered at Beeper was brand new to me. I had never even 28 been paid to code before, and the team was fully remote. Showing up to 29 the all-hands every Monday on Zoom felt pretty surreal. I started out 30 reverse engineering and documenting Snapchat to bring Beeper to the 31 platform, but was quickly moved to work on our hardware venture, 32 affectionately named (after Blackberry threatened legal action) Beepy. 33 34 The [Beepy] was intended to showcase Beeper's flexibility. What has 35 changed fundamentally about messaging since [AIM]? Not much. But Beeper, 36 with its foundations on the open Matrix protocol, could take any form 37 imaginable. So to set an example for developers, we brought in the big 38 guns from [SQFMI] to strap a keyboard and a black-and-white LCD screen 39 together to make something like a modern-day, common-noun 40 [beeper][tweet]! 41 42 The software I built for the device came in two parts: a [setup utility] 43 and a [chat client]. The former got new Beepy users "from zero to 44 messaging," taking advantage of users' main computer to gather their 45 chat history and encryption details before copying all the data to the 46 Beepy. The latter was based on the [gomuks] terminal app and redesigned 47 for the device's smaller 1-bit display. Both of these programs were 48 wonderful opportunities to leverage the skills I had just learned 49 building Mabel. 50 51 A huge congratulations to the whole team on your [new][acqhn] 52 [home][acq]! 53 54 ## Reflections 55 I nursed a pet project while I was at the company that I believe has 56 real potential: Beeper Rewind. How many messages did you send this year? 57 What was your daily average? Who was your most frequent contact? What 58 platforms did you use the most? The least? Who is most active in your 59 groupchats? This metadata is super fun to know, as a user, and totally 60 shareable. I would love to clown on the lurkers in my friend group, and 61 be able to quantify how crucial iMessage is to my daily life. Beeper is 62 the only entity in our digital lives that could provide these insights, 63 and generating a little viral image for your Instagram story could be 64 one way to exploit that position. Hesitating on this goes against some 65 of my core principles, and I should have pursued it further. 66 67 Speaking of positioning, I don't think Beeper necessarily optimized its 68 business to be in line with its competitive advantage. We spent a lot of 69 time at the company trying to re-imagine the fundamentals of the 70 messaging experience—it's probably no surprise that a lot of this 71 involved AI. I think this is all well and good, but ignores the fact 72 that we already had the ability to do something nobody else could, which 73 is to *send messages on every platform from one place*. I think we 74 should have been focusing on optimizing the mobile app to provide the 75 smoothest messaging experience possible while doing this. Polish, 76 polish, polish. Even beyond this, however, we should have explored the 77 B2B angle. [Humane] launched their wearable with SMS messaging. How much 78 would their user experience improve if the Pin could talk to your 79 iMessage, WhatsApp, and Signal? How much is that functionality worth? 80 I'll give you a hint: a lot, and we were the only people who could 81 provide it. I don't think we ever considered this. 82 83 Lastly, on a technical note, the concept that underpins Beeper's ability 84 to send messages across platforms—Matrix's [bridges]—is really cool. It 85 is perhaps worth pondering where else it could be applied: bots that 86 *observe* and *replicate* behavior across networks, to maximally 87 leverage your efforts. Adversarial interoperability! [Vincent Cloutier] 88 is doing fun things in this space over on the fediverse. Summarized in a 89 sentence that sounds straight out of [Matt Webb]'s school of thought: 90 What happens when we ignore the borders between spaces and connect them 91 anyway? 92 93 ## Surprise update a year later 94 In the summer of 2024, I sat down to talk with a mentor of mine—a 95 successful startup founder, executive, and angle investor of some 96 renown—who presented me with the bluntly phrased perspective that people 97 simply don't want message aggregation. Rather, he believes, distinct 98 messaging apps are actually a feature: they give you [separation of 99 concerns]. Having sat on this for a little while longer, it occurs to me 100 that the super-app that aggregates your different messaging platforms 101 may already exist, and it's your operating system. 102 103 [the orange site]: https://news.ycombinator.com 104 [Beeper]: https://www.beeper.com 105 [Element]: https://element.io 106 [Mabel]: @/projects/mabel/index.md 107 [Eric Migicovsky]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Migicovsky 108 [Beepy]: https://beepy.sqfmi.com 109 [AIM]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM_%28software%29 110 [SQFMI]: https://sqfmi.com 111 [tweet]: https://x.com/ericmigi/status/1649179643763920896 112 [setup utility]: https://github.com/beeper/beepycli 113 [chat client]: https://github.com/beeper/gomuks/tree/beepberry 114 [gomuks]: https://github.com/tulir/gomuks 115 [acqhn]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39980268 116 [acq]: https://blog.beeper.com/2024/04/09/beeper-is-joining-automattic/ 117 [Humane]: https://humane.com 118 [bridges]: https://spec.matrix.org/v1.11/application-service-api/ 119 [Vincent Cloutier]: https://r.town/@vincent 120 [Matt Webb]: https://interconnected.org/home/ 121 [separation of concerns]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_concerns