Reading
In the entire month of July, I only read one book: The Brothers Karamazov.
I read it from June into July, spending forty to fifty days on it. Over 600,000 Chinese characters, yet it only depicts events that happen over two or three days.
The whole book grinds greed, desire, faith, reason, and nihilism together like a meat grinder—it's heavy. No wonder Dostoevsky is considered the origin of existentialism. But in the chapter "Boys and Girls," I did catch a glimmer of humanity.
In August, I started reading Maugham. After finishing that weighty tome, picking up The Moon and Sixpence—only a hundred-some thousand characters—felt instantly liberating. The protagonist may seem like a terrible person, but there's something pure and freeing about casting off all moral constraints and living solely for one's Calling.
I also watched documentaries about Alcaraz and Messi, plus two episodes of All or Nothing: the Manchester City edition. Last summer I watched the Arsenal one and quite enjoyed it.
The All or Nothing documentary series isn't a flat highlight reel—it's genuine, systematic storytelling.
The manager's tactical talks in the dressing room, the players' families and lives, the fans' fervor and heartbreak, the workings of management and medical logistics—all the details hidden behind match-day footage are laid bare in these documentaries.
So yeah, it's quite interesting.
Product
Booko
I revamped both Booko and my personal website. The addresses are booko.cc and jiayifun.me. booko.cc is still a bit rough—I'll polish it when I get the chance.
I'm currently working on the Mac version. The UI is already in a place I'm very happy with, and I'm aiming to launch it in late August.
Barring any surprises, Booko's price will go up further. Pricing has always been a complex game, but I still want to keep Booko's pricing as simple and transparent as possible—letting the price match its current value.
Recently I also fixed some iOS bugs, and just finished an onboarding flow I'm really pleased with, along with a confetti animation for when users upgrade to paid.
More and more competitors may appear, but as long as I keep innovating, stay in the game, and iterate with care, I believe this can be sustainable.
FlowUs
Beyond Booko, I've also been working with my colleagues to push FlowUs in a better direction.
Over the past few years, I've hardly shared anything about FlowUs publicly, because in my view, there were still many design and experience improvements to be made.
FlowUs has undergone some changes now. No product can ever be perfect, but it should care about real feedback, pursue a good experience, and keep improving.
Some recent iterations include:
- The FlowUs extension is now live on the Chrome and Edge stores;
- "Knowledge Base" has been renamed to "My Subscriptions"—finally no longer feeling so disjointed;
- Agent and Agent UI optimizations;
- A joint membership campaign with Cubox—purchase either party's annual membership and receive 3 months of the other's membership for free.
I've actually always admired Cubox. Although as a Cubox user myself, I've complained about certain UX details, you can tell from Cubox's public documentation that this is a product made by a relatively restrained group of people.
They recently also made a focus-tracking app for Mac called iPromise.
I hope both Cubox and FlowUs keep getting better.
Oh, and if you're a FlowUs user, feel free to send me feedback on anything that doesn't work well.
The joy of making a good product & driving product optimization far exceeds that of marketing and growth.
Maybe making products is my Calling. (Treating content as a product is the same idea.)