Why did you decide to build Gestalt?

I've been on social media from the beginning. I was on BBS's in high school and college. Was too old to be on FB when it launched at college campuses, but joined when it opened. I remember when Twitter started and it was web and SMS only (hence the original character limit). At one point I had 5 different Instagram accounts, each one tuned to a different interest community. Along the way, I realized that the thing I loved the most about the experience wasn't so much the social part (it's hit or miss, and I was never an influencer), but the curation of a story, over time, that I could point people to so they can see a little bit about who I am. And, also, so I could go back and relive parts of my story too.

I also got tired of getting sucked into the feed every time I opened the app, giving someone else attention instead of curating and telling my own story. Social just got too loud, too frantic. I wanted something calmer. I had a blog, but I rarely posted to it because a blog post is a whole thing, and there was no app for it (not for the platform I was on, anyway). I wanted something where I could easily post from an app, using familiar social-style UX patterns (pick a few photos, add some text, post), but where the post landed on my blog site, not in a closed, auth-required social ecosystem.

At first, I just tried to build an app to post to my blog site, but there was no API to work with, and I didn't want to be hacky about it. So, I decided to build the whole thing: the posting app and the hosted photo blog. You sign up from the app, choose a username (handle), and post. Your posts page (stillgestalt.com/username) is always public. If you add your own custom domain, it becomes your own personal photo site.

I built it for me, and I use it regularly. It's actually gotten me thinking about taking the curation of the photos I share more seriously. I'm certainly not a great photographer, but I do enjoy a well-composed outdoor adventure image. Since I'm not distracted by the feed, I'm freer find my creativity.

I am thinking about adding some features that would allow you find other Gestalt accounts you might like to check in on once in a while, but there are no plans for a combined feed. Not interested in the tyranny of the influencer algorithm. 😂

I'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas!

-Aaron