Or how I sign, notarize, and cryptographically verify YEN — touching 30 languages, 5 compilers, 65 verification checks, and zero CI servers — from a single command.
i've been working on a small saas product helping folks figure out how to manage their social media accounts when they die. yeah. pretty esoteric, but, i'm a bit stuck at this point on how i should grow it. i don't want to pay money for ads and i don't want to have to pseo stuff or try to "hack" a subreddit. https://deathnote.ai
i know this is kind of morbid, but this is one of those "special interests" that i have... i am fascinated by death. i really think it's one of the more interesting topics of study.
eh, that's besides the point.
i've been talks with my dad for over a decade about death because he's a hospice chaplain and his job is in the "industry" of death. but, he's in service of it, helping individuals and families begin to process the event and start their healing process. the stories that they share with him as the time approaches are, well, spell-binding.
one that kept coming up though was this idea of "final messages" to loved ones or even instructions to friends about things they cared about, like social media accounts, pets, and even instructions for the funeral and more. there are an infinite number of reasons why a "death note" or final note makes more sense than sharing it while you're alive.
functionally, it's a "digital" dead man's switch, which isn't a new concept. to my count there are 20+ services that are doing similar things and i support those, not as competitors but as partners cause honestly, this shit isn't supposed to scale (60m ppl die a year, so, that's the "TAM" if you will. lol).
but the real inspiration was the death note anime series. if you haven't seen that then i'd recommend it. it forces you to wrestle with the boundaries of good and evil and the practical application of ethics in a world very much like our own. except for the shinigami (or maybe not).
the concept of writing someone's name down and them dying is the exact inverse of what this is but conceptually it's the same. a note with final instructions except in this case you're writing your own name down (was that even ever mentioned as a possibility in the anime? i don't think so...).
anyways, i've loved building it with some friends. it's a side project that would be fun to become a full-time project but there's no rush. i just thought i'd share as i wait for something to compile.
love thoughts, suggestions on how to make it better, and whatever.
surprised that no one suggested something obvious and relatively easy: friends and family. these folks know you well and may (surprisingly) know folks within your field that you didn't know about. i got a job from an acquaintance who knew someone at their church... again, surprise.
it was useful for a time in web2.0 land but things have changed.
... also, i realized i wanted more privacy, not less as i got older. the blog was becoming a potential risk by increasing surface area of attack on identity.
YEN has built the first embeddable community platform that empowers creators to build great businesses. We're venture-funded and a small team of 2. Looking for someone to come in, grok our mission (and existing product), and help build out features. There's larger description here: