About Outlinx
Hi there, welcome. I’m Derek the creator of Outlinx. I love making cool products. There’s something about creating things that people use and interact with that I find really rewarding. I especially like things that have a unique take, don’t quite exist yet, and are thoughtfully crafted & designed. Outlinx was born out of a problem I encountered over a cup of coffee.
A few years ago I decided to try and learn how to brew the perfect cup of coffee. I had a bunch of coffee gear: a nice hand grinder, a french press, a pour over, an electric kettle, thermometer, scale… you get the idea. I watched lots of YouTube videos and made a ton of coffee. If you’ve ever tried to brew good coffee then you know the details matter. You need to use the right amount of beans. You need to grind the beans to the right level of coarseness. You need to use the right water temp. Brew time matters a lot. The list of knobs goes on...
While having fun experimenting I kept some notes in a notebook, and searched for other things on Google. It wasn’t that easy for me to find my own notes! One day I thought to myself “I wish I could just scan my coffee grinder and keep all my notes there.” I thought there was something novel about the idea of attaching notes directly to the object I was using, rather than in a notebook somewhere. I was always fascinated by QR codes, because so much information can be encoded into a visual pattern which can be read by a computer. So the idea of making QR codes that people could interact with using a mobile app popped into my head.
In the beginning I thought the concept was a little silly. But I couldn’t get this idea out of my head. The more I thought about it the more I realized there could be a lot of uses for something like this! After a couple years of thinking about it, I eventually decided I had to pursue it. I used money I saved up to fund my efforts. I started to build a product that would simply allow me to make digital note pages and link them to QR code stickers. I called it Outlinx, because they’re like links out in the real world. At its core Outlinx is meant to be a simple yet useful tool for anybody to digitally organize and share information on physical objects.
Outlinx is a small independent business based in San Carlos, CA. It’s owned and operated by myself. I have a network of freelancers that I hire on a contract basis to help build parts of the product or business that I’m not skilled at, but for the most part it’s a one man show. My goal is to make Outlinx better and better. I believe there’s a lot of convenience in the simple act of scanning that people just aren’t accustomed to yet. I encourage you to try it ;)
If you have any questions about Outlinx feel free send me an email at support@outlinx.app . I’d love to hear from you.
