It's been a while...

but we are so back...

First, some backstory.

Many moons ago i was sat in my university library flipping through a book about computer graphics. I had an exam coming up and was scurrying from page to page to absorb the information i needed to achieve a good grade. but also i was really interested in the topic and wanted to understand what i read deeply enough whereby if i was asked on the spot about it, i would be able to give a simple enough explanation, rich enough whereby the learner will takeaway a good conception of what it is.

I came across a problem though. and this problem is not in isolation to this particular scenario but rather in many situations where you read something either from a book, textbook, wikipedia, article and think to yourself: "what the hell is X?". And then then you go and read about X you find something else that leads to the explanation of X in which you ALSO dont know and so then you ask yourself "what the hell is Y?" and so on so forth.. you can go in a pretty deep rabbit hole with this. i mean, try out how many nested wiki links you can go through starting from some arbitrary topic.

You: I need to learn Z, then Y in order to finally understand X.

When you juggle too many things at once it can cause cognitive overload

Most of you signed up to the first iteration of solving this problem: Atomic

But my solution for atomic was not ideal. This notion of using a command bar as the only way to capture and search within the mindmap was limiting and quite unorthodox. Your collective feedback was extremely valuable as it showed us that we didn't have the right execution in mind but we were quite close with the vision.

Today i send this email with excitement as although we have been building silently we are pleased to announce the launch of Brainstorms!

Brainstorms is the evolution of Atomic, built from the ground up with your feedback in mind. It’s a more intuitive, flexible, and powerful way to capture knowledge, connect ideas, and most importantly to break through the cognitive overload that comes with deep learning.

It is extremely great at being able to store huge mindmaps but navigate and iterate on top of them with pure ease.

So, what’s new? A more flexible approach – No more rigid command bar interactions. Brainstorms lets you fluidly map out ideas, concepts, and connections in a way that feels natural within the graph view itself.

Seamless exploration – Dive deep into a topic without losing context. No more endless tab-switching or scattered notes.

One thing at a time – You wont see the behemoth of a mindmap all at once as thats information overload. Just see the nearest neighbours of the current node you are looking at (think of the local graph) but most importantly be able to retrace your steps as you navigate between different nodes.

Brainstorms isn’t just a tool—it’s a new way to think, learn, and explore complex ideas without getting lost in the weeds.

Let’s get thinking.