I built an actually faster Notion in Rust
This article strongly resonates and has clear angles for your perspective
Quick Take
This is a masterclass in technical execution and product positioning that hits several of Brian's sweet spots - Rust performance optimizations, real-time collaboration architecture, and the bold technical decisions that come with building ambitious side projects. The author's journey from simple wrapper to custom Zanzibar implementation and ProseMirror port offers concrete lessons about when to build vs. buy that Brian could definitely riff on.
Relevant Domains
Blog Angles
"When to Rewrite the World: Lessons from Building Fast Software"
The conventional wisdom about not reinventing the wheel breaks down when performance is your primary differentiator
Brian's experience optimizing webhook processing times or real-time analytics dashboards where every millisecond mattered
"The Rust Tax is Real (And Sometimes Worth It)"
Choosing Rust for a solo project means trading development speed for runtime performance and long-term maintainability
Brian's TypeScript background and AWS serverless experience - comparing cold start times and debugging experiences
"Building Your Own Auth: A Founder's Guide to Technical Debt"
Rolling your own authorization system is usually terrible advice, except when it's the only way to get the product experience you need
His work on webhook integrations and the auth complexity he's dealt with in fintech compliance
"Performance as Product Strategy"
In crowded markets, being genuinely faster can be more valuable than having more features
His experience with credit-card processing systems where latency directly impacts user experience
Key Quotes
Counterintuitively, you start by building a much more complex one
Without much optimisation, it takes nanoseconds to check if a user has access