Hello and welcome to Bragging Rights!

My name is Adam Bragg — Creator of Cat-GPT 😽

…and one of my favorite things to do is find fun projects on the internet. I’ll be spending time learning about the absolute coolest projects online, and Bragging about a new one here every week.

I wanted to send this to you because you and millions of others around the world enjoyed the internet’s meowst sassy, all-knowing cat, and so I think you’re going to love the inside scoops I’ll pull together for you in Bragging Rights.

Let’s hype some humans up together! 🕺

I’d also love to get to know you if you could take the 2 second poll at the bottom—or just reply and say meow 🙂 

…and if this isn’t interesting to you, feel free to unsubscribe at the bottom. I promise it won’t scratch me!

Bragging Rights — 001

For this first issue of Bragging Rights, I wanted to share a project that I’ve been following for years — Workspaces

Call me a nerd, but I get super motivated seeing other people’s desk setups, and Ryan Gilbert has curated the best workspace showcase on the internet, with hundreds of setups and 14,000+ readers 🤯 

Seriously, check some of these beauties out! 🤩

I spoke with Ryan and he gave me the inside scoop about Workspaces. Let’s dive in!

Inspiration behind the project

In early 2020, Ryan was sitting in his cubicle at his 9-5 job dreaming about someday working in tech. COVID had more and more people beginning to work from home and people in the tech space began posting their new setups on Twitter. Ryan quickly setup a Substack and began asking these same people if they’d be up for doing a mini interview and sharing some of the details behind their setup and how they worked. Since then, he hasn’t missed a single weekend and the project has grown much bigger than he could’ve ever imagined.

Biggest win, achievement, and/or things that he’s overcome with it

In 2022 his Workspaces newsletter was actually acquired by a YC-backed startup. With that, he was offered a Head of Content role and to be the first employee — everything that he had previously wanted in a role in tech. After two years, he was laid off from the company and was able to re-acquire the newsletter to continue it as an indie publication. Another massive win.

Funniest / most entertaining moments along the way

In 2021, Workspaces won Product Hunt’s Golden Kitty award for #1 side project of the year. Ryan has said that this was one of the most entertaining moments of the newsletter’s early life as it was presented in a live stream from Sahil Bloom and Greg Isenberg with a bunch of other tech enthusiasts tuned in. He felt like he had finally done something to make a small name for himself in the tech world.

What can be learned from it

Consistency wins. Since April 2020, he hasn’t missed a single weekend of publishing the newsletter no matter what came up in his personal life. He has always made sure to prioritize the newsletter and getting it out over everything else. To him, his readers signed up expecting a new desk tour every weekend and he felt like it was his responsibility to deliver on that promise. Over time, this consistency allowed the growth to compound as more and more people discovered the newsletter which also led to higher profile guests.

The love he’s getting from readers

Workspaces has been called the MTV Cribs of desk setups. If that isn’t the best testimonial I don’t know what is.

What people loving Workspaces means about where the world is headed

Ryan thinks a lot of the love for Workspaces comes from the fact that it’s a simple and predictable newsletter. There is no bias, politics, etc. It’s simply an inside look at a nice looking desk setup from someone in the tech world that many of the readers might be familiar with. He thinks people have resonated with it in part for its simplicity and also for the general curiosity of seeing how their peers work. While some of the WFH roles are going back to a more regular office setting, overall the world has shifted. Remote work is here to stay and because of that there will always be an audience interested in improving their own space based on inspiration from others.

Thanks for making it this far! What did you think about the first edition of Bragging Rights? Take this one-click poll to let me know 🙌