Day in the life building Pagebound

How we spend an average day as the 2 person team behind your favorite book app

9am

Morning! Come spend the day with us…

L: When I wake up, I try to not immediately check my phone (it’s hard) and instead get a bit of writing in. Not morning pages, since it’s far less than 1 page of writing, but I try to purge at least some of my swirling thoughts and set a goal for the day. I also take my dog, Rooney, for a walk.

10am

L: When I get to my computer, the first thing I do is clear out our email inbox. I read and respond to bug tickets/customer service requests, review flagged content, and check our notifications across socials. I also scroll through all the new Pagebound Club posts to see what the community has been discussing.

J: Unlike Lucy, I absolutely check my phone first thing in the morning 😅 It’s an hour earlier where she is than where I live, so I usually have Slack messages, emails, and Pagebound notifications waiting for me. I get caught up until I can peel myself from bed (as a certified night owl that likes to work while people sleep, this is a daily struggle).

11am

L: A non-negotiable for me, I go to the gym every day. I like group fitness classes, and since I work from home, this is typically the only in-person social interaction I’ll get 😅

J: First thing I do when I open my laptop is browse Pagebound. It’s so important to me to keep a pulse on what’s going on in the community and use Pagebound like a normal user to keep product instinct sharp and respond quickly to community needs.

12pm

L: I’ll admit that this poke bowl was for the pic, since my meals are not usually this aesthetic, but I’ll eat lunch and always get some audiobook time in.

J: Before I head to my co-working space, I reserve some time to get ready (repping PB merch of course), eat breakfast, and read a bit.

1pm

L: Daylight determines when I can record video for socials, so I’ll grab a couple hours a week when I can batch record content (and so I only need to look presentable on those days).

J: I go over & test yesterday’s work (here’s a sneak peak of our new streak widget). Once re-acquainted with the new code, I start working on the next phase of streaks: editing past reading updates.

2pm

L: I often need to scroll a bit to find trends and think of how to adapt them to pitching Pagebound. When I post, I respond to the comments & questions that come in and also spend time engaging with other content creators!

J: We’ve been brainstorming ways to bring more interesting, human-curated discovery to Pagebound. One of our users, ayzrules, created a post in Pagebound club sharing her themed “Quest Badge Packs,” which sparked a new idea for Quest discovery. I called Lucy to discuss this idea and how we could make it happen 😏

3pm

L: While Pagebound is a tech product, it’s also a community, and we have so many features that would not be possible without our wonderful users who curate books via Lists, Quests, and the community recommendations on every book page. We recently updated some guidelines to creating Quests, and rolling out the changes to our Top Contributors takes some time and coordination.

J: While working on the web version of editing streaks and reading history, I had some UI ideas and improvements and called up Lucy to create updated designs.

4pm

L: I spend time in Figma every day working on product designs, since we’re launching new features so quickly (here’s a sneak peak of our monthly wrapped designs). Everything you use on Pagebound web or app was once a prototype that we debated and iterated on before it was turned into code.

J: I updated the code with the UI & design changes and began testing.

5pm-7pm

We met to review feature requests submitted to our Roadmap, viewable to anyone with a Pagebound account. We do this weekly, and it usually takes a couple hours. We evaluate each request to determine feasibility and if it aligns with our product vision, providing thoughtful reasoning on our decisions in the comments.

7pm

L: I break for dinner, usually my husband cooks, and we catch up on the day.

J: Now I have the whole co-working space to myself, and my night owl working hours begin 🥰

8pm

L: Watching the Olympics while creating the badge for the Cherry Blossom Special Event we just announced.

J: Chugging away at streaks and editing reading history…

9pm

L: Working on this day in the life post!

J: Came home and got a couple more hours of coding in and some snuggles with Binx.

Tell us what you thought of this peek behind the scenes and other content you’d like to see on Page Against the Machine 💕