Memos from my midnight work session

Hey honeys and hustlers,

There will always be at least one night each week where I find myself thinking, “I should be asleep.” And inevitably, my mind will immediately go to, “What if I just… did the entire thing right now?” as I’m noodling on the very idea keeping me awake. I was supposed to write about something else for Monday, but that idea is still in the oven, and I need to let it bake a little more. So instead, I did what any reasonable person does when their brain won’t power down: I vibe coded. Which is how I ended up right back in my favorite rabbit hole—this ongoing, slightly obsessive project of turning creator data for newsletter writers and podcasters into something that looks good enough to share on the internet with pride.

I’ve been thinking (read: spiraling, obsessively) about what the article image generator should be when it grows up. Something with an actual name, for starters. Something that solves a pain point for me, first and foremost. And a product that creates images that are genuinely useful and beautiful to share. The first string that got pulled was if I could make this something that could work for my podcast RSS feed.

And in the midst of pulling that thread, the tool finally introduced itself properly.

Postglow.

Because that’s the whole point, right? The post-post. The after. The glow that elevates your work once you hit publish. Postglow is my attempt to bottle that feeling—the momentum, the proof, the “oh wow, I actually made something” energy—and turn it into assets you can use as social proof.

Right now, the updates are the fun kind: tangible, immediately gratifying, and a little bit addictive. I added seven new image options, because I’ve been so inspired by traditional/mainstream media journalism outlets lately. I also gave Postglow the ability to work with podcast RSS feeds, because podcast cover art is basically a boring (but probably still cute!) square that I think carries way too much of the burden for conveying the message of a single episode that easily hit on more than one topic.

But the thing I’m most excited about is what I’m calling review receipts—a way to generate month/quarter/year-to-date snapshots for your newsletter and your podcast. Not just numbers for numbers’ sake, but the kind of clean, compact “here’s what I did” documentation that creators deserve to have on hand. The receipts aren’t just about bragging (okay, they’re a little about bragging). They’re about making your work visible—to sponsors, to collaborators, to your future self when you’re convinced you’ve done nothing all year.

Next on my list is the not-so-glamorous but deeply necessary part: design cleanup. Right now, Postglow has strong “prototype with a good heart” vibes—clunky, rudimentary, but functional. I want to define a design language that feels like a real product and not a late-night science experiment (even though it is, spiritually, a late-night science experiment).

And of course, there are still the big questions. Do we add a logo option? This could be useful for folks who want to show off their podcast or newsletter logo, maybe. But more likely, it would be used to highlight an episode or article sponsor. Do we make it a proper SaaS with logins so creators with more than one RSS feed can save their feeds and autopopulate new articles and episodes? If we go that route, do we also connect directly to platforms like Kit, beehiiv, Substack, and podcast hosts so people can pull in richer data without duct-taping workflows together?

In other words: Postglow is getting real. It’s still a little scrappy, still very much made by a person who has clearly accepted they’re a night owl who needs sunlight. But it’s inching closer to the thing I’ve wanted all along—a friendly tool that helps creators present their work in a meaningful way.

And it does.

And you can grab it for a one-time fee of $59 while I continue to improve the product. (I try to be nice at least once a week.)