Alexander Martirosov

Creator of Rise - Daily Planner. Download from the App Store.

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

Oh, do fuck off. At a conservative estimate, Dolly Parton was 100,000x the person you are.

[Alexander Martirosov @Alexand54559983]

I just canceled my Figma $20 subscription.

I’m not a designer, just a builder, but before I used Figma a lot.

But with AI taking over and rich preview capabilities in XCode I completely switched to code-first design approach and can’t justify any more the price of Figma subscription that equals the price of my entire stack (Codex + XCode).

[Alexander Martirosov @Alexand54559983]

If your app makes little or no money on the App Store, but you use it every day yourself, would you rather remove it to focus on something else, or keep supporting it in the hope that the right person finds it someday?

[Alexander Martirosov @Alexand54559983]

How many times your Siri popped up so far during WWDC Keynote? I counted 7, keep counting 😁

[Alexander Martirosov @Alexand54559983]

Do you actually use /goal in your Codex workflow?

Most of what I’ve seen describes it as a revolutionary feature, but to me it looks more like a simple — though powerful — wrapper around a fairly straightforward workflow.

I feel like I might be missing something.

#codex #buildinpublic

[Alexander Martirosov @Alexand54559983]

I underestimated how much an icon changes my own relationship with a product. The new Rise icon makes the app feel closer to what I’m trying to build: less task manager, more daily operating system.
#buildinpublic #productivity

[Alexander Martirosov @Alexand54559983]

I spent $238 on Apple App Store adds for Rise. At first nothing, when I adjusted screenshots and title - about 5 installs, no trials.
I get that competition is too high for productivity apps but still it seems that at least for now it's waste of money. #adds #buildinpublic

[Alexander Martirosov @Alexand54559983]

People want a daily plan, but they also don’t want another place to feel behind.

That’s why I’m leaning harder into recurring activities instead of endless one-off tasks. Less “clear your inbox��, more “what deserves a place in your week?” #buildinpublic #productivity

[Alexander Martirosov @Alexand54559983]

My app got 8 ratings, average 4.5. I think it has potential but I’m struggling with distribution.

[Alexander Martirosov @Alexand54559983]

Every industrial revolution gave us more leverage.

Machines, electricity, software, now AI.

But none of them created a substitute for an hour of your life. That is the part I think we keep underestimating.

[Alexander Martirosov @Alexand54559983]

One reason I prefer recurring activities over endless task lists:

Most important things aren’t one-time events.

Exercise, learning, writing, building, maintaining relationships — they all need consistency more than reminders.

A task gets checked off. A good life is built through repetition.

[Alexander Martirosov @Alexand54559983]

I do think projects have one underrated benefit: they make tradeoffs visible.

Health, money, learning, relationships, creative work… they all compete for the same limited pool of time and energy.

Pretending they don’t is where things get messy.

[Alexander Martirosov @Alexand54559983]

I don’t want to run my life like a company.

But I also don’t want important goals sitting in my head for years without a plan.

I’m trying to find the middle ground: enough structure to make progress, but not so much that it feels like work. #productivity

[Alexander Martirosov @Alexand54559983]

When I plan a day around tasks, everything looks urgent.

When I plan around activities, the tradeoff is clearer: work, health, learning, family, maintenance.

Same hours. Different conversation with myself.

[Alexander Martirosov @Alexand54559983]

I’m increasingly convinced personal goals fail less from lack of ambition and more from poor operations.

No budget of time.
No review loop.
No clear tradeoffs.
No system for deciding what gets attention when life gets noisy.

Companies would never run this way, but people often do.

[Alexander Martirosov @Alexand54559983]

Most planners treat every day like a blank page.

That sounds flexible, but it also means you keep renegotiating the same decisions: work, exercise, learning, admin, rest.

Rise is built around the opposite idea: define the rhythm once, then adjust the day from there.

[Alexander Martirosov @Alexand54559983]

As AI gets better at doing the work, I find myself caring less about speed and more about taste.

What should exist?
What should be ignored?
What is worth repeating every week?

Execution is getting cheaper. Direction is not.

[Alexander Martirosov @Alexand54559983]

A lot of productivity apps still assumes life is one big task list. Mine doesn’t fit that shape at all. Work, health, learning, relationships... those are ongoing commitments with rhythms, not items to clear out once and forget.

[Alexander Martirosov @Alexand54559983]

Just plugged XCode MCP to Codex. Long due. Let us see.

[Alexander Martirosov @Alexand54559983]

Buildinpublic has always made sense to me because real products are rarely built in a straight line. You learn, adjust, cut, repeat, and keep going. That’s the part people usually skip.