Dear Heptabase User,

We hope you are doing well!

Last month, we released 5 major updates with new features and improvements. As the Lunar New Year is approaching, we will be taking a short break from February 8-13. During this time, we may not be able to respond to messages immediately. However, if you come across any urgent bugs, please let us know through our support channels so that we can promptly address and resolve them.

We wish you a happy Lunar New Year!

Use case: Plan your trip within Heptabase

A few months ago, we shared a use case called "Plan a trip and write travel journals by Heptabase" with you. This time, we would like to share a similar use case with some different tips that you will enjoy.

This use case comes from a Discord user named Kat. She mentioned that she visited Chiang Mai and Bangkok two weeks ago and found Heptabase to be very useful for organizing her trip.

We found her approach very easy to understand, helpful, and also appealing for other travel partners! You can grasp the plan in just a minute!

You can find more information about this use case through the following link.

Dear Heptabase User,

We want to share with you that Heptabase has won the Product Hunt's 2023 Golden Kitty Award in the Personal Productivity category! We sincerely thank you for your support and votes!

In the previous newsletter, we shared the first episode of our new video tutorial series: "Heptabase Fundamentals 101: Sense-making with whiteboards," and many users have found it very helpful. If you haven't watched it yet, we highly recommend you check it out!

This week, we want to share the second episode with you.

Use case: Organizing topics with nested whiteboards and tab groups

In this tutorial video, Alan went through his own whiteboards to share real-world examples of how to organize different topics with nested whiteboards and tab groups. If you have a lot of cards and want to learn how to organize them, we highly recommend checking this out!

Dear Heptabase User,

We hope you are doing well!

Since we released Heptabase 1.0 in September of last year, many new users have joined Heptabase and asked us if we have any video tutorials for the latest version of Heptabase. Therefore, we have decided to create a new series of tutorials, and we just released the first one: "Heptabase Fundamentals 101: Sense-making with whiteboards.”

Use case: Sense-making with whiteboards

In this tutorial video, Alan explains the most important thing that Heptabase can do: using the whiteboard to make sense of a topic that you care about by breaking down large reading notes into atomic knowledge cards and synthesizing them with sections, arrows, and mindmaps. We hope you find it helpful!

Dear Heptabase User,

We hope you are enjoying the holiday season!

Since we sent our last newsletter, we conducted a survey within our app and received thousands of ratings and feedback. We appreciate all the compliments, encouragement, and feedback.

We greatly appreciate your feedback, and as a result, we have reprioritized certain tasks based on the input we received from you. If you have any additional feedback or suggestions to share, please do not hesitate to provide them through our in-app support system.

Use case - Review your past year in Heptabase​

This use case is from one of our Discord community members, Chase.

Chase has made a whiteboard for each month of 2023. Inside the whiteboard, she puts daily journal cards and writes about daily life and thoughts.

Every week, Chase will look at what was written during the week and plan for the next week. She will also change the color of the cards based on how she feels each day. This helps Chase see how she has been doing over the past few weeks all at once.

By consistently recording and reviewing every week, Chase will have a complete annual record by the end of the year.

Chase shared in the Discord channel, “In the past, I would write my plans as lists, but now I can lay out the entire year’s plans at once, visually reviewing the year and each month. I’ve discovered that I can quickly make connections and recall memories in my mind!”

We think that using a whiteboard to organize monthly, weekly, and daily records is an effective method for reviewing everything. We highly recommend giving it a try as we approach the end of the year and prepare for a fresh start.

If you’re interested in this method, we recommend you read Chase’s complete tutorial article. It offers both Mandarin（中文） & English versions.

Dear Heptabase User,

We hope you are doing well.

In our previous letter, we asked for your feedback on your experiences with Heptabase. We have received many responses and found them to be extremely valuable for our product design, so we have decided to expand upon it. If you have used Heptabase for more than 2 weeks, you will see a pop-up at the bottom of your Heptabase screen asking, "How likely are you to recommend Heptabase to friends and colleagues?” as shown below.

When you see the pop-up in the Heptabase app, you can simply click on the score that reflects your true feelings. If you'd like, you can also provide reasons for your rating in a follow-up question. We value your feedback, as they will help us improve and provide better experiences for you in the future.

Use case - Use Mindmap nodes as an substitute for text elements​

This use case comes from one of our Discord community members, andrewap.

As we can see in the image, andrewap imported a PDF of revisions of a writing and then began to revise it again in Heptabase.

In the Discord channel, andrewap said: “I find the way Word handles comments to be quite limiting. The linear, unidirectional nature (comments can only be anchored to chunks of text) of comments in Word just doesn’t work for me. I want to be able to alternate between the micro and macro scales, connect ideas, and attach properties to revisions.”

If you are also conducting research in Heptabase, feel free to share your whiteboard with us!

Dear Heptabase User,

We hope you are doing fine!

Recently, a user told us that before using Heptabase, he had tried many different tools, but none of them could keep him focused. Then he found Heptabase, which allowed him to easily spend several hours fully engaged. We believe this is not an isolated case, as we share the same experiences.

Have you had similar experiences with this user? Do you recall the frustrations or challenges you faced before using Heptabase? And how did Heptabase solve these problems? We are interested in hearing about your experience and would appreciate it if you could reply to this email and share it with us!

Use case - Use Mindmap nodes as an substitute for text elements​

This use case comes from one of our users, Rita Chan. She created this whiteboard in Heptabase to report on the progress of her master’s degree homework.

When we first saw this image, our initial thought was: this doesn’t seem much like Heptabase, was it really created using Heptabase? How did she achieve this?

Upon closer inspection, we discovered the creativity and ingenuity within this use case. We were also surprised to see how our users could always come up with new ways to utilize Heptabase.

You can find more information about this use case through the following link.

Dear Heptabase User,

We hope you are doing well!

Recently, we’ve noticed that more and more new users are sharing how much they like Heptabase on Twitter or other social media platforms. We’re thrilled to see such feedback and it motivates us to keep going. Therefore, we encourage you to share more about why you love Heptabase! Of course, if there’s anything you’re not happy about, feel free to tell us through in-app support!

Use case - Use Heptabase to brainstorm how to organize Heptabase​

We always enjoy seeing how users use Heptabase to learn new knowledge, and the case we want to share this time is one of them, but it’s a bit special because this time the learning topic is how to organize your Heptabase.

This use case comes from one of our Discord community members, Saltmaker. Through highlights, mind maps, and some arrows, he has outlined his understanding of the features and use cases of Heptabase.

We think this case is really great! If you are new to Heptabase, we highly recommend creating a whiteboard to think about how to better use Heptabase features. By following this approach, you can quickly grasp the capabilities of Heptabase and enhance your understanding of other concepts more efficiently.

You can find more information about this use case through the following link.

Dear Heptabase User,

We hope you are doing well!

Two weeks ago, we held an AMA event on Reddit. During the event, there were some questions that stood out to us, such as "Can you define complex?" If you want to learn more about Heptabase and its vision, we encourage you to check out the complete discussion of this AMA event. If you find any answers that you like, feel free to share them with us or others. We would be delighted to hear from you!

Use case - Learn about childcare through Heptabase​

In our last newsletter, we introduced a use case of planning a trip and writing travel journals with Heptabase. We believe it would be very helpful if you’re planning your end-of-the-year vacation!

In this newsletter, we’re back to the “learning” use case scenario. We’d like to share with you how one of our Discord community members, 蔡阿蔡 (rtsai1202), uses Heptabase to learn about childcare.

After reading this use case, we were very impressed. We believe that this use case is not only suitable for learning about childcare, but it is also great for studying any complex knowledge with the help of associated images.

You can find more information about this use case through the following link.

Dear Heptabase User,

We hope everything is going well!

Recently, our user base has been growing very fast, and we introduced an in-app support system in September to keep up with all the support tickets. After a month of operation, many users have expressed satisfaction with the experience of providing feedback, making feature requests, and reporting bugs directly within Heptabase.

If you haven't tried using in-app support yet, please refer to this wiki document for instructions.

Use case - Plan a trip and write travel journals by Heptabase​

In the previous newsletter, we introduced a use case on how to Use Heptabase to Plan Your Dream Adventures. This week, we want to move from dreams to reality by sharing a real-world trip planning use case from our power user, Waki. He planned a trip to Malaysia from scratch using Heptabase and wrote a travelogue using Heptabase during the journey.

We were amazed by what we saw. We never thought Heptabase could be used this way. Now, we are all eager to plan our next trip using Heptabase.

You can find more information about this use case through the following link.

Dear Heptabase User,

Starting from last week, we have been posting a copy of each newsletter on our public wiki. If you missed the email or want to check out our updates at any time, you know where to find us!

Some users have told us that they felt last week's content was a bit too long, so this week we have made the updates a little shorter (really). We hope you will still enjoy them!

Use case - Use Heptabase to plan your dream adventures​

In early September, one of our Discord community members, 小腸 (f800913), shared her creative use of Heptabase. She introduced her "Dream Whiteboard," which featured a world map in the center, with colored cards representing different continents and their associated events. You can explore this unique use case in more detail through the following link.