I've got you, I'm on it. in Site Updates (Josh)

Hello again everyone!

WOW! What a warm welcome! And a big thanks to SM for the kind words. I’m so excited to be a part of your community.

Mood:

I wanted to reply to some of the over 360 (!) comments that I recieved on yesterday’s post as well as some of the entries I’ve seen around the site. Before I go any further though, I’d like to introduce my heretofore mysterious partner in crime.

Dan, meet ProseBox. ProseBox, meet Dan.
Dan is a talented designer, developer and musician who lives very near me here in LA. We’ve known each other since we were 3 years old, though we lost touch when we were 10 and I moved out of state. We had the completely surprising opportunity to reconnect a few years ago when I made my way out west. It turned out that we’d both somehow made our way into the tech industry, and since reconnecting he’s been involved in almost all of my side projects. He’s a blast to work with, and a very dear friend.

For now we’ve agreed that keeping me as the single point of contact for our team is probably easiest, but I’m sure you’ll see him here and there around the site as we start digging in.

Alright! Let’s go!

First and most foremost, is the dog in your profile pic Mochi? Is Mochi real? Is his fur soft?
Yes, yes and extremely

Action shot:

Why is the site still so slow??
Honestly, it’s going to take a little time for Dan and I to get up to speed and for things to start to improve. Development work is tricky, and since ProseBox was custom built from scratch there will be a lot of upfront work to understand what’s behind the curtain.

Think of it like the difference between repairing a mass-produced clock vs repairing a one-of-a-kind clock. The parts are still clock parts, but the mechanisms have their own special way of working. Luckily, the creator of the clock will be sticking around in an advisory capacity to help us understand how it works.

I’m also really happy to share that several talented members of the community have offered their time and expertise to help us out as the need arises. It’s looking good so far, and I’ll be sure to keep you all in the loop on what’s happening.

Take our money! Make the site better right now!!
I hear you, and we’re brainstorming what that could look like. Expect more on that in the coming weeks.

I said yesterday that I’m not taking on this project with ROI in mind and I meant that. I’m here because I care deeply about communities and you have something very special. But from what I’ve been hearing, I think that in the future ProseBox could not only financially support itself, but could also pay Dan and I for our time and work on improving the site. While I do have a full time dayjob, Dan is a freelancer and is willing to dedicate his time to the site as much as makes financial sense.

I’m putting together a detailed roadmap to share with you soon. I want you all to weigh in on this every step of the way to make sure it feels good.

Step one is keeping the lights on. Step two is speeding the site up and putting out any brightly burning fires. Step three is figuring out what features we work on next. Based on your wonderful feedback and my conversations with “Jen” and SM, the big three seem to be: easy photo uploads, search and an entry calendar. I’ll be more formally surveying the community (and I know how you feel about surveys) to nail that down before any work is started.

So you’re a designer. Are you going to totally redesign the site because redesigns are awesome and have you seen the new trends bro?
No way. A redesign just to make my mark isn’t my style. You all seem to be very comfortable with the way things are formatted right now and I don’t want to throw you off your grooves.

Will there be Mochi pictures in every site update?
Count on it.

<3,
-J

Last updated March 31, 2018