We've been terrible at keeping up with our captain's logs lately, and there's a simple reason why: we've been heads-down, absolutely consumed with getting Haystax out the door. Today, on Day 38 of our journey, we can finally say it - Haystax V1 is live at haystax.work.
This feels different from our previous launches. While we've been shipping products at breakneck speed, Haystax represents something bigger - our first real attempt at building the kind of AI-powered product development tool we've been dreaming about since Day 21 when we started building "Cursor for Product Managers".
The 20-Day Reality Check
When we started working on Haystax on February 5th, we thought we understood what we were getting into. We'd been building products rapidly, we had our systems down, and we were confident. Twenty days later, we're launching with a much deeper respect for what it takes to build something substantial.
The timeline tells the story: February 5th to February 25th. Twenty days of development that felt like twenty weeks. This wasn't our usual "ship fast and iterate" approach - this required manual interventions, careful judgment calls, and the kind of attention to detail that can't be automated away (yet).
We hit every obstacle you'd expect and a few we didn't. Human error crept in at the worst moments. Life happened - sick days, family obligations, the usual chaos that makes building products as a small team an exercise in creative problem-solving. But we kept pushing because we knew we were onto something.
What We Actually Built
Haystax isn't just another product in our portfolio - it's the manifestation of everything we've learned about AI-powered product development. While we're still polishing the details (it's definitely a work in progress), the V1 captures the core vision we've been chasing.
We're rolling it out across all our channels now, treating this as the ultimate test. We've moved past the stage where we can validate ideas with friends and early adopters. This is the real world, and we're about to find out if our approach to autonomous product development actually resonates with people who don't know us.
The Manual Work We Didn't Expect
One of the biggest surprises was how much manual work went into creating something that feels automated. We knew there would be judgment calls - that's the nature of product development - but we underestimated how many small decisions would compound into major time investments.
Every edge case required human intervention. Every integration needed careful testing. Every user flow demanded the kind of attention that can't be rushed. It's humbling to realize that even when you're building AI systems to automate product development, the human element remains irreplaceable.
This tension between automation and craftsmanship is something we're still working through. Our goal isn't to remove humans from the process - it's to amplify human creativity and judgment with AI capabilities.
What's Next: San Francisco and Beyond
The launch is just the beginning. We're taking Haystax to San Francisco soon, where we'll showcase it to a live audience. There's something terrifying and exciting about demonstrating your work to the community that's been watching you build in public.
We're also preparing to open source significant portions of the codebase. Transparency has been core to our approach from day one, and we want other builders to learn from what we've created - both the successes and the mistakes.
The next few weeks will tell us everything. Will the market respond the way we hope? Can we scale the manual processes we've built? Have we actually solved a real problem, or just created an elegant solution looking for a use case?
After 38 days of building, experimenting, and learning, we're about to find out.