“A beginning is that which does not itself follow anything by causal necessity, but after which something naturally is or comes to be.”
Aristotle, Poetics
Let me paint the picture of last few weeks.
Sometime mid-March, as I approached the end of “How to Read a Book” by Mortimer Adler, I had this sinking feeling that everything I was learning, all of the insights the book had inspired would begin to slowly erode the moment I put the book back on the shelf. I remember sitting in the car (yep, sometimes I read in the car) and thinking that there had to be a way to keep those insights accessible. At this point, I had tried numerous note-taking systems and apps. None of it quite clicked for the specific problem I had, which wasn’t just about accumulating knowledge but having a way to organise, understand and think about that information and give life to new ideas.
I had even been working, for over a year, on a notes and inspiration resurfacing system for writers and creatives. It was while discussing my frustrations with my wife about how none of these systems worked to unblock me as a writer that a light bulb when on. Something vague began to take shape in the recesses of my skull and I got to work sketching the bones of what would become Surfc. And I’ve been working non-stop (with the help of friends, family and Claude Code) for the last month to bring it to where it is now.
I have been stretched these past few weeks more than I have ever been in a professional capacity. I have learned more about product design and development than I could have imagined and learned a lot about myself in the process. It’s been a trip.
Week one — bones
I spent the first week building the bones (architecture). I was shooting for an MVP, so the goal was to find what already existed that I could leverage (Obsidian plug-in, Notion add-on, or AI integration). Nothing quite fit the bill. Save for building my own LLMs, I was pretty much going to need to start from scratch, so I had to decide on hosting, storage, orchestration. Then I had to chose my tech stack, whether I wanted an integrated ecosystem (Azure/AWS) that required more setup and maintenance but had more features off the shelf or something I could get setup quickly but might need more tooling and development later (I opted for the latter — I might be paying for that soon). This was important but invisible work, but the foundation was set. Once I had my stack and a rough architectural direction, I put a quick prompt in Claude and vibe-coded a prototype. It was hideous. Wife hated it. But that visual aid was crucial to helping me see what I wanted it to be. Next step — AI magic.
Week two — flesh
It was in week two that the product started looking like what I had in my head. I redesigned the mobile UX and clarified what I wanted from the user journey: A stronger capture and review loop, mutable notes, related notes grouped by idea/concept and custom ideas. This was the week the central argument and my vision began to feel real: here is a system that finds (and “surfcs” — surfaces) the hidden threads between your notes.
Weeks three to five — traversing the blood/brain barrier
Weeks three to five have had me bouncing between determination and despair. Tenacity and overwhelm. I plugged in analytics and usage controls, opened up signups and turned my attention to the minefield that is data security. This part is really important for me to get right; end-to-end encryption of all notes and transcriptions means that no one but the user (not even us) can see what you are reading and indexing. Your ideas stay yours.
I spent some time talking with founders and investors and started to really think about who, if anybody, wants this (besides me, I mean. I want it a lot). It’s brought up existential questions. I believe the industry term is product-market-fit.
If you’re curious to hear more, drop me a line — I’m happy to share. And if you’ve ever felt the pit in your stomach that comes from knowing a thought is gone… Well, that’s exactly who I’m building this for.
So I guess I’m here asking: would you use Surfc? Do you want it?
Surfc is free to start — sign up and let me know what you think.
Surfc is a personal index for readers. Capture highlights, transcribe handwritten notes, and file them under the ideas that connect them, across everything you read.