Beautiful and Useful Things
This text was originally written in Korean on October 14, 2024, and has been translated into English and uploaded
This is a mashup of recent worries, thoughts, and experiences.
Running Disquiet for years and checking out tons of makers’ products has seriously leveled up my taste in products. The better my taste gets, the more I want to build something great. There’s still so much out there—problems, inconveniences—waiting to be tackled.
Day-to-day, I sometimes feel fullness, warmth, care, or inspiration—and it’s usually from a really solid product or service. These things aren’t just useful; they’re a boost just by existing. They spark good vibes just by looking at them. That’s not limited to flashy, game-changing stuff—it’s in the everyday too. Morning Opera Bean coffee, Muji notebooks for jotting, Nonfiction room spray filling the air with scent… On the software side, Matter, Cursor, Spotify, Raycast, and Vercel have been the biggest energy hits in my life lately. My pick for products? I lean toward investing in stuff I’ll use long-term—better to splurge on quality and keep it than grab cheap stuff over and over.
Disquiet’s taught me the hard way: making a really good product is tough as hell. And the tougher it gets, the more I can’t help but think about quitting or throwing in the towel. Whenever that hits, I dig up writing that pulls me through—especially Steve Jobs’ Make Something Wonderful and The Objects of Our Life from the Steve Jobs Archive. They’re a lifeline. In both, Jobs talks about crafting beautiful, useful things as a way to show love for humanity—that sticks deep. I want to make beautiful, useful, truly great products to give back to the people who matter to me. That’s for society, and for me too. To pull it off, every moment’s got to be all-in. “Pretty okay” isn’t okay—it’s got to be stellar.
To make something stellar, a bunch of stuff comes into play, but boiled down, it’s three things: tech, brand, and business model.
Tech
Tech breakthroughs turn “impossible” into “possible,” cracking open new fixes. I wrote something similar in Better Tools → Better Tech—PCs sparked software and the internet; those grew, shrinking PCs into mobiles; then apps, location data, photos, and search piled up way more diverse data. To chew through that mountain, machine learning took off, fueling today’s AI boom.[1]
And like I’ll get into under brand below, when the right tech meets the right brand, it births game-changing user experiences that shift how people think and act. That’s next-level creation.
Brand
Brand’s the vibe and image people pick up on. The sharper that vibe, the deeper it resonates, the better the branding. As product dev costs head toward zero, I think brand’s one of the strongest ways to stand out. People are drowning in content, ads, and noise. A brand with mixed messages? Forgettable. You’ve got to hammer one point, relentless and clean. Over time, that builds authenticity, and your edge shines through. Branding seeps into everything—colors, fonts, words, sounds, scents, flavors, stories—whatever hits the senses. That is the brand. Even software’s going to lean harder on branding outside the app itself.[2]
Lately, I’ve been thinking: now that individuals can build and market products, their quirks and personality are the brand. Showing your unique taste or traits—raw and real—sets you apart. Stick with it, and even a solo act turns into a brand.
Business Model
You need a revenue model to keep going. And you’ve got to keep going to deliver the value you want to give the world. Either start with something that pays off, or hold out with your own cash or investor bucks—I vibe more with the first. I’d rather see quick results than slog through years without payoff. Plus, I don’t think fast growth and sky-high valuation are always key to making useful, beautiful stuff. There’s already cool products and companies—like Delight Room in Korea or Basecamp abroad—that rake in cash from day one while staying mission-focused. For platforms or social products like Disquiet, you’ve got to hang on till traffic scales—so you better build something that makes money from the jump.
If those are the three big pieces, how do you nail them?
Storytelling
To make something better than the mediocre status quo, you’ve got to map out the tangled web of interests and get folks moving—could be government officials, industry pros, or teens. That’s messy as hell, so authentic storytelling’s clutch. A story that hits the heart gets people on board, willingly acting toward your goal. That kind of storytelling isn’t just for stakeholders, customers, or investors—it’s huge for rallying your team too. Hyunsol’s the most real person I’ve met, and he’s got a piece on storytelling worth checking out.[3]
Quality vs. Speed
This comes from a Substack post I love by Ami Vora—I liked it so much, I’m lifting her four principles straight up.[4]
Don’t build bad products
Quality mirrors customer priorities
Speed’s about cutting resource waste
Give the team power to pick trade-offs
My spin? Whether you’re chasing quality or speed, nailing the plan matters big time. Half-ass execution—on either—means squat. And if the direction’s off, speed can backfire. Set the right course for 10 years, and you’ll save the 5 you’d lose backtracking from rushing blind.
No real structure here, no tidy arc or conclusion—just spilling thoughts on making useful, beautiful things and tossing them out there. I want to build great products.
Footnotes
[1] Better Tools → Better Tech
[2] What Changes When Product Development Costs Drop to Zero?
[3] How to Use Effective Storytelling for Team Building, Fundraising, and User Growth
[4] Making the tradeoff between speed and quality
Stuff I Turn to When It’s Rough