Paper

Indie journalists were stuck between Substack's newsletter bias and Medium's content farm. Paper wanted a quiet, editorial-first platform. No founder had built a product before.

• Three-person team, one designer (me).
• Ten weeks to first 100 paying readers.
• Editor had to feel like Ulysses, not Google Docs.

Built a typography-first editor with citations as first-class objects. Reader side optimized for reading time, not scroll depth.

1. 01

   Prototype in prose

   Wrote three sample articles in Figma with real type and spacing. Showed investors the product before any code.

2. 02

   Editor in code

   Shipped the editor in Lexical + Next.js. Typography tokens informed by Matthew Butterick's Practical Typography.

“Editorial products need a taste owner, not a taste committee. The founder made every final call; I gave her three good options each time.”