The Undesigner

The only person to ever build an RV search engine: Better known for the PostHog website though. Also at @watilo.

[The Undesigner @ninepixelgrid]

👇 what i've been up to in my "free time"

[Cory Watilo @watilo]

today I'm excited to finally share my passion project I've slowly built over the last 6 years: https://t.co/BM0AX3tc0O

to my tech bubble, it might seem like a silly niche. but for me, it's a space where I'm already having an unexpected impact. today RV Envy crossed 100,000 monthly visitors and Google is reporting 280,000 monthly impressions in their AI search results alone.

in 2020 when the ‘rona hit, I had already been full-time RVing for two years. I was in Florida at the time, and as it turned out, lockdowns had very little effect on my life. it was awesome.

and when I started to observe how miserable most people were at the time, I decided to try to show them a better way to experience life: in an RV.

I wanted to encourage more successful people of my generation to experience the wonders of working remotely, exploring America, and opting out of the typical rat race that most people live.

when non-RV-pilled people think about RVs, they tend to think of how they were represented in old movies or shows like Breaking Bad - yikes! but the reality is that a lot of RVs these days are more luxurious (and bigger!) than many apartments in New York or San Francisco. i want to help change the perception of RV life.

if you've ever checked your car's valuation on Kelley Blue Book or shopped for a car on Carvana, you've already seen some of my work from a decade ago. but the RV industry is at least two decades behind the car industry.

and this is where I saw an opportunity – to combine my automotive experience, startup culture, and my insatiable desire to scratch my own itch of finding a better way to shop for RVs – that RV Envy was born.

you see, the process of finding the right RV is more akin to buying a house than it is to buying a car. finding the right layout, features, and brand is far from a science.

I've personally purchased five RVs, and every time when shopping for them, I'd have dozens of tabs open for months. I'd print out photos and floor plans and compare them side by side. there's just no great resource for this online.

RV dealers expect you to show up on a lot, to show you a handful of units, and for you to make a decision based on that.

but there's so much more to it and how we shop has changed.

no dealer in the same area can sell the same brand. but more often than not, the same RV is badged under a different name down the street, which makes it hard to compare.

the MSRP of RVs is typically 30% higher than what you should actually pay. but if you don't know this, you're unnecessarily giving away your life savings.

often times, RV shoppers know more about the RVs than the sales people who are selling them. many sales reps have never spent a night in a product they're selling.

I'd see enough of it at RV shows: shoppers asking salespeople for advice and them not having the answers. I wanted to find a way to help. and thus RV Envy was born.

this is just the start. there's so much more to come...

#gorving #rvlife #fulltimerv

[The Undesigner @ninepixelgrid]

never been so excited for a monday 😅

[The Undesigner @ninepixelgrid]

@vsync i can't believe grok has such tig ol bitties

[The Undesigner @ninepixelgrid]

hi um. i mean i'm just a lowly designer but. how does Claude "mistype" anything??

[The Undesigner @ninepixelgrid]

@jeffr_yyy @Railway yikes, cringe response

[The Undesigner @ninepixelgrid]

last night i had not one but two dreams i got a Codex reset.

send help.

[The Undesigner @ninepixelgrid]

@hnshah oof this will live rent-free in my head for a while

[The Undesigner @ninepixelgrid]

btw here's a lil page on the type of results it serves up. can't wait to come back and work on v2 at some point!

https://t.co/Z1jy7jZjN6

[The Undesigner @ninepixelgrid]

i made a ChatGPT plugin for RV Envy! first time building an MCP, but learned a ton doing it.

seems like plugins make sense for things that depend on realtime data. for example if you're showing results for pricing or available inventory that change on a daily basis, this is the way to go.

ChatGPT was already citing RV Envy in 70% of results in our areas of expertise, so this takes it a step further. the goal is to capture the shopper at the top of the funnel and then guide them to the best place based on their needs.

[The Undesigner @ninepixelgrid]

@joshpuckett no joke the other day i could not remember the CSS syntax for justify-center 🫠

[The Undesigner @ninepixelgrid]

@edo_lunardi my username is offended

[The Undesigner @ninepixelgrid]

find yourself a team like this 🥹

[The Undesigner @ninepixelgrid]

@thsottiaux and yet somehow mysteriously mostly gone in a couple hours despite 2x limits, on what used to last all week, weird!

[The Undesigner @ninepixelgrid]

@jonomallanyk @Uber Uber would be so much cheaper if they didn't dump millions into engineers just to figure out how to squeeze as much revenue as possible out of some of us – which then just goes to pay their own salaries 🤡

[The Undesigner @ninepixelgrid]

@thsottiaux but not prorated to where i get 50% of my usage back until the next reset? 🫠

[The Undesigner @ninepixelgrid]

so @vercel we need to talk. you know i love you but i will jump ship if you force me to 2fa every time i push to prod i swear.

make it an option, sure, but do not force this please i am begging you.

[The Undesigner @ninepixelgrid]

really hoping Codex doesn't release a new feature today 😅

[The Undesigner @ninepixelgrid]

turns out "quick calls" aren't so bad when it's with people you actually enjoy working with

[The Undesigner @ninepixelgrid]

so just to make sure i have this right...

OpenAI knew Anthropic was going to file, so they pre-empted it by running a month-long campaign where everyone gets resets on avg every other day, all while Anthropic gets stingy on resets because they need to show they're not giving away the product?

[The Undesigner @ninepixelgrid]

@hnshah Windows CE support wen??

[The Undesigner @ninepixelgrid]

it is absolutely criminal how hard @figma makes it to cancel a subscription for a plugin, mg.