Founders Note #8
From Software to Something You Can Hold: The Story Behind Thinking.Cards
Thinking.Cards came to life on weekend walks with a friend. We’d talk for hours about life, philosophy, technology, and everything in between.
Somewhere along the way, we realized something: Despite what all the articles say about short attention spans, people still want to have real conversations. They just don’t always know where to start.
So we started writing down the questions we were asking each other. What began as casual notes turned into a structured idea, a physical deck of cards designed to spark meaningful conversations.
That’s how Thinking.Cards were born.
We started working on it in the summer and launched the Kickstarter by December, about three to four months of design, writing, and planning. Then another three to four months went into fulfillment after the campaign ended.
Unlike software, where updates can be pushed in minutes, physical products move at their own pace. Every change meant a new print run, a new shipping delay, and a new round of hoping the printer understood what we meant.
We wanted larger, tarot-sized cards and quickly discovered that decision complicated everything. Finding a printer who could make high-quality cards and boxes to match took weeks of back-and-forth. Test prints, shipping delays, and color issues it was a crash course in manufacturing.
Kickstarter was the obvious choice. We didn’t know what the demand would be or how many to print. Running a campaign gave us real data before spending a cent on inventory.
It was also a lot of work; every detail matters. From the project page to the reward tiers, you need to build enough trust for people to believe in something that doesn’t exist yet.
Still, seeing those first backers come in, strangers who believed in the idea felt just as special as early beta users signing up for Hiyve or Muzie. That kind of trust never gets old, no matter what you’re building.
Building a physical product gave me a whole new appreciation for software. When something breaks in code, I can fix it in minutes and ship it instantly. When something’s wrong with a print run, you might not know for weeks, and fixing it could mean starting over entirely.
Iteration is slower. Quality control is harder. And mistakes are expensive.
(Though to be fair, most of them were mine.)
Still, many of the same skills transferred over: design, user experience, marketing, storytelling.
Being able to quickly design the cards digitally, build a website, and launch a Kickstarter campaign that all came from years of working on Hiyve and Muzie.
I probably wouldn’t dive into physical products again unless it was something truly revolutionary. But I might make another card game someday, now that I understand that process.
In a way, all my projects share the same goal: connection.|
Muzie connects teachers and students.
Hiyve connects people and ideas across distance.
Thinking.Cards connects people through conversation.
You could even use them together with a deck of Thinking.Cards on your desk, a Hiyve room open on your screen.
Different mediums, same mission: Helping people connect, communicate, and think a little deeper.
