Product update: The first week of ConnectHV

It's been one week since the ConnectHV beta went live!

Huge thanks to all of you who've joined already. Your feedback and bug reports have been extremely valuable and have helped me track down a bunch of showstopper bugs.

If you hit some roadblocks when signing up, please try again and let me know if it's working for you now! All the onboarding issues should be cleared up now.

Here's a list of what changed and what's coming up next:

Changelog

• 🪲 Fix onboarding/profile bugs. Users with lengthy bios were unable to save changes, but now they can.
• 🖼 Fixed image uploading on mobile. Users on iOS in particular weren't able to upload images, but now they can.
• 🗜 Auto-resize image uploads. Instead of capping the size of images, any giant images will now be shrunk and optimized before saving.
• 😶 Accept more aspect ratios for avatars. You can now upload a profile picture that isn't an exact square.
• 🏷 More user tags. If you're a writer, community leader, government official, athlete, or farmer, you now have your own tags! More coming soon, including more granular tags so you can specify that you're a poet and not a screenwriter, for example.
• 📤 Improve page sharing. Previously, when sharing a link to ConnectHV on social media, the preview image would be the face of the last person to join. Yikes. This is fixed now.
• 🏡 Changed the homepage layout. Originally, the most visible part of the homepage was the list of recently joined people, but that meant that most users missed that ConnectHV has pages for places & orgs too. I switched the users list to a facepile so that you can see both people and pages above-the-fold.
• 🤷‍♀️ Added more "what to do now" content to the homepage. When you sign up or log in, the homepage changes to show you some next steps.

Up next

• 📍 Map pins for places. Instead of showing how many places are in a town, the map will show pins for specific addresses, so you can see exactly how close that coffee shop is from that coworking space.
• 📫 Direct messages. You may have noticed that your profile settings already includes privacy toggles for direct messages. Next step is to create the DM mechanism so you can reach out to potential collaborators.
• ⭐️ Destination pages. Creative hotspots like Kingston, Poughkeepsie, Newburgh, Rhinebeck, etc. will have their own pages that showcase the people, places, and orgs that are located there.

Wait, who are you again?

My name is Jordan Koschei, I'm a lifelong Hudson Valley resident, and ConnectHV is my passion project. I've been tinkering on some version of this idea for almost a decade, and it's spurred by my love of our region and my desire to use my professional skills in a way that honors and strengthens our community.

This isn't a big corporate project, there's no venture capital involved, and it isn't meant to be "the next big thing." In a world where everything aspires to be global, I want to build something that aspires to be local. Thanks for joining me on this journey, I truly appreciate your interest and support 🙏

If you have any questions, feedback, thoughts, or concerns, please don't hesitate to reply to this email!