There are some significant changes in the company that develops Muse. Most of the team is leaving the company as they were not quite able to achieve business sustainability, but one of the developers will be taking over and continuing work on the application. I rather enjoy the app (most notably the concept of nested boards) as well as their podcast, and hope that Muse is able to survive and move forward.

https://museapp.com/end-and-beginning/

-----------------
August 2023
a letter from the departing leader

Dear thoughtful people,

I’ve been working on Muse for four years. In that time our team has built a one-of-a-kind thinking tool and the world’s first large-scale local-first sync system. We’ve published over 100 hours of podcast discussions about technology, design, and philosophy. And we’ve grown a brand and a community that are very special. I’m proud to have helped create all this.

Today we’re sharing some difficult news: despite all of the above, we did not manage to make Muse into a sustainable business. Therefore I and most of the team are departing. My longtime colleague Adam Wulf will continue to develop Muse as a solo entrepreneur.

A silver lining for current customers is that Wulf will be getting back to basics and refocusing development work on the needs of individuals. Read his letter about what’s ahead for Muse below.

But let me also try to explain the hard truth here about why the current arrangement wasn’t working...
-----------------

So the investment-backed startup element (for teams) didn't hit profit or sustainability. But the bootstrapped element for for individuals might - with only one developer.

Heptabase is also local first with nested boards.

Muse was released almost exactly four years ago.

Interestingly enough, co-founder and partner Adam Wiggins is one of the listed investors in Anytype in its latest funding round earlier this month.

Newly promoted CEO Wulf wrote on Mastodon, "Soon we’ll be announcing Muse 3, a major update with collaboration, multiple workspaces, and so much more. Today's a big change that brings new life to Muse. Come join our community and be a part of the conversation." He posted a link to their Discord invite:

museapp.com/community

Dormouse wrote:

Heptabase is also local first with nested boards.

Thanks, I've played around a bit with that but use Obsidian for all my text-based work. I am considering Defter Notes for my iPad (I wish there was a demo available), but will stick with Muse for now. I am pretty used to Muse and really like the interface.

Muse is an attractive application. I couldn't really use it because I need an app that is available to me on my Windows PC at work. I suspect that being Mac/Apple only hurt Muse in a market where so many competing apps run on browsers and are available ubiquitously. That is too bad.

Steve

I thought that one of the things that might have hurt them was "We’ve published over 100 hours of podcast discussions about technology, design, and philosophy."

Establishing a new business means keeping your eye on the ball, AND being very clear what the ball is.

Excellent point!

Dormouse wrote:

I thought that one of the things that might have hurt them was
"We’ve published over 100 hours of podcast discussions about
technology, design, and philosophy."

Establishing a new business means keeping your eye on the ball, AND
being very clear what the ball is.

I think that's a good point, although I think there was another side to it as well. Some of the episodes were specifically about the Muse app or its design principles, almost all were at least related to the general category of software and type of work the app is designed for. So I do think there was relevance to their work and operations.

I did very much like it, and I believe it is going to continue in some form.

Dormouse wrote:

I thought that one of the things that might have hurt them was
"We’ve published over 100 hours of podcast discussions about
technology, design, and philosophy."

Establishing a new business means keeping your eye on the ball, AND
being very clear what the ball is.

What I hate about it is the total lack of search function. I mean, really?!?

Dormouse wrote:

I thought that one of the things that might have hurt them was
"We've published over 100 hours of podcast discussions about
technology, design, and philosophy."

Presumably this was intended for promotion. Most small software companies do too little promotion. How targetted or effective that promotion was is another matter. It is very hard to measure these things.

Also productivity software is a very crowded field, so it is tough to get noticed.

--

Andy Brice
https://www.hyperplan.com

I'm sure they persuaded themselves that it was publicity and marketing - and it may have been publicity and CV development for some individual careers - but I very much doubt that they would have done it if they were bootstrapping.

I guess you can afford to be more self-indulgent when you have a VC suggar daddy. For a while, anyway.

--
Andy Brice
http://www.hyperplan.com

I think it was just added for Muse 3.0?

MadaboutDana wrote:

What I hate about it is the total lack of search function. I mean,
really?!?

They actually weren't a VC-funded startup, nor were they a bare bootstrapped company (there was some investor money.) They've always talked about trying to find some sort of middle path that would allow them to focus on the product instead of chasing user base (hence the relatively steep pricing plans). They weren't able to generate enough revenue to sustain the company (somewhere around 5-7 people IIRC?), so it will be continuing on as a 1-man band.

Andy Brice wrote:

I guess you can afford to be more self-indulgent when you have a VC
suggar daddy. For a while, anyway.

--
Andy Brice
http://www.hyperplan.com

Oh, okay. Well, I'll take another look...

Thanks Steve

steveylang wrote:

I think it was just added for Muse 3.0?