What I shipped this week (and why I stopped looking for new ideas)

Spent the last couple weeks just iterating on Lockscreen Game instead of starting anything new. I kept noticing small issues to fix or add so it’s been preoccupying me for longer than I thought.

What changed since I first put it out there: leaderboards showing most passwords cracked and most time locked out, a round timer that keeps running correctly even if you reload, a tab switching thing where if you open it in a second tab you get a “Play Here” button instead of just dying (like WhatsApp Web), and persistent data so round history doesn’t vanish every time the server restarts. That last one I kept putting off. Eventually just did it.

Had to write a privacy policy too. Tried to keep it honest and short. No one likes those pages.

On other things: Summa is now in beta. A small group of people are using it and I’m watching what happens. Nothing to report yet but it feels different having real users on something versus just putting it out there and moving on.

NYC Street History is next. It’s been sitting on the list for a while and I want to actually get to it. The idea is a map of Manhattan where you can click any street and get its history. Simple enough that I should just start.

On the no new ideas thing. I’ve been kind of stuck on that feeling lately, like I should be coming up with something completely fresh. But I think that’s the wrong way to look at it. Almost everything interesting that happened with Lockscreen Game came from actually using it and noticing what felt missing, not from sitting down and brainstorming. Going deeper on something that already exists is usually more useful than starting over anyway, especially when people are actually playing it.

New ideas are a little overrated.