2021 Q4 Update

8/29/2021

As we start moving into Q4 of 2021, we wanted to give a bit of a state of the Hyperrational nation.

Hyperrational unofficially began when nearly a year ago today Piete decided to try and build some software to help with the Patreon file distribution situation. He tried out a lot of things in numerous technology stacks (including Python and Ruby!), even built a custom Bittorrent client, but by December 2020 the prototype was a nice tech demo but it didn't feel like a product.

Steve came on board in November, and we really looked at what had been built. We decided that to sell the whole story of file management, we needed more than just the file distribution part, so we started development of Envoy in January. It's first public release (0.8.0) happened in mid-February and 0.9.0 showed up a month later in March with the Files tab. Around April we started talking seriously about what running our own company might look like and the idea of Hyperrational became Hyperrational Limited.

As far as Envoy was concerned, we iterated on the core premise of tags, files and models into 0.10.2 in May.

And then we went quiet.

Having gotten Envoy into a stable state, we wanted to go and revisit that original Patreon file distribution platform, so June and July were about building and seeking interest for it. Alas, we didn't find any.

For details on what happened, we wrote all about it here and left a living memorial of the product we built but that never landed ~here~.

When we did a little Facebook advertising for Envoy back in April, Atlas 3D Support Solutions reached out (whom you may better know as the company who do the pre-support work for your models with creators such as Raging Heroes and Printed Obsession and so many more) and although we didn't have anything immediate to work on, we kept in touch.

In late July, we found a great opportunity to build something together for their Kickstarter fulfilment in August, which is where we've been for the past few weeks now.

So that brings us up to date, but what next?

We've got more plans with Atlas, and some other collabs that are currently warming up, but most importantly: having shelved Missive, we've decided to refocus on Envoy. Don't worry, the cost for the core features we're working on will still be zero, but we will be looking more seriously as ways of offering value that may be unlocked or paid for.

The feedback we have says Envoy is "good, but ... ", and our personal experiences echo that.

In order to make Envoy better we would love to understand everyone's needs in more detail having lived with Envoy for a little while. A 3 minute survey https://forms.gle/oZafjKKCR4WEcXDG7 can help shape the next 3 months of 3D model library management.

Hope everyone is having a good Sunday, whereever you are in the world.

• Piete & Steve.

Originally posted in the Hyperrational/Playable Prints Discord server. The words have been lightly edited for better readability as a news post.