Building Book DNA: We found our design vibe!

Notes on building a smarter, more personal way to manage your reading life, with recommendations shaped by your Book DNA.

Every 3 weeks, I share notes on building Book DNA.

Join the rebellion and help me create a smarter, more personal way to manage your reading life, with recommendations shaped by your Book DNA. Think Goodreads, but rebuilt for readers who want a private space to track what they read, keep notes, and get truly personalized book recommendations (like Pandora or Spotify for books). It is also designed from the ground up to help authors. We are on track to start testing the beta in February (apply here to be a beta tester).

Three hurrahs for our 800+ members who support us! Readers and authors can become members (both get special perks, and more perks are coming as we grow).

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I am feeling…

What an insane month. I didn’t think the USA could get any crazier, and somehow, it did. Watching the video of Federal agents executing a man on the streets of my birth country just makes me want to scream. So I will. It doesn’t help that I’m reading The Coming of the Third Reich: How the Nazis Destroyed Democracy and Seized Power in Germany by Richard J. Evans. The parallels are sleep-depriving. Sometimes I have to put the book down and find a Looney Tunes cartoon.

Aside from the current global order breaking down, I am doing well. The Book DNA beta will be ready in late February. We pushed it back as hiring slowed us down, and we are getting our new team member up to speed! Elo is doing great, and we are super happy to have him on the team.

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We found a design vibe we liked :)

One of the things I’ve been struggling with is finding the right vibe for the design. We finally got some time to devote to this and found our vibe.

We are going for a very minimal, calm feel, with illustrated 2D drawings for our far-left icons. I like how it feels, and user tests have been positive.

(Keep in mind this isn’t the finished UX, as this is a mess, just a vibe mockup)

Part 1 of the Shepherd → Book DNA migration and rebrand is complete.

On Tuesday, we switched the domain URL from Shepherd.com to BookDNA.com. That was the scariest part of the migration, and I am glad it was fairly easy. We will keep redirects from Shepherd.com active for 6 to 12 months.

I will spend the next 8 weeks moving over small subdomains (like this one), email, letting authors know, and all the little fixes.

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What is going on outside of Shepherd?

Winter is dragging me down as it feels like every day is rainy. To break up the rain, we visited the mountains to play in the snow last weekend. My son couldn’t remember what snow was like, and it was magical to watch him experience it for the first time. I didn’t have the right gear to enjoy it as much as I wanted, but it was a good lesson. 🥶

In a few weeks, I am taking my son on a trip to Italy for his winter break. That should be a lot of fun, and I am looking forward to the food, museums, and history.

What am I reading now?

I just finished…

• I read and loved book 18 of the Dresden Files series. This is one of my favorite book series (urban fantasy), and the characters are so good.

I am reading...

• Coming of the Third Reich: How the Nazis Destroyed Democracy and Seized Power in Germany by Richard J. Evans: This is part of my deep dive into the rise of Fascism I’ve been doing over the last few years. This book is exceptionally good, and I’ve learned so much that my big picture history classes skipped over.

Have a great weekend and stay warm!
Ben

P.S. My son is meeting snow for the first time he can remember!