On September 22, 2015, a small team from ArcTouch ran a workshop at the EmployBridge business service center in Irving, Texas. The room was full of people who would become longtime friends. Nycole was there. So was I. The point of the workshop was to design a mobile app for the company. ArcTouch had a method. We had ideas.
At some point in the day, they asked us to write down everything we wanted the app to do. One sticky note per idea. We covered the wall.
I wrote Cat Videos.
I believed then, and I still believe, that Cat Videos may be the last good thing to happen to the internet.
By whatever process ArcTouch was using, Cat Videos fell into a content backlog. So did most of my other ideas. I was a little sad.
The apps shipped. People liked them.
One day, after the launch, Ben pulled me aside. He said they had to show me something wrong with the app. I was a little afraid.
There was no link to it. No menu item. No setting. But on a particular page, if you pressed a particular place at a particular time, the app showed Cat Videos.
They had planted an easter egg.
I was very happy.
We are meeting with the ArcTouch team this afternoon about building Almanak. Among the things we have come to believe about partnership, one is that the people who care enough to plant an easter egg for the sad guy in the room are the people you want to build with.
We would very much like to build another app with these people. They are fun.