Notes

Previous 30 Days

  • 🚀 projects

    2026-10-19current Kalo — <https://kaloapp.xyz/ iOS app to log calories and track macros. Status: active Bloom — <https://bloombuddykits.com/ iOS card game with multiplayer via SwiftUI + Game Center. Status: WIP Bloomhaus iOS suite for image and video generation. Status: WIP Lucide Dream Journal — <https://lucidejournal.com/ iOS app to track dreams, with meaning analysis. Status: active Sudoclue — <https://sudoclueapp.com/ Illustrated logic puzzles for iPhone. Read the clues and work out where each character belongs. Status: active previous CONIC — <https://conic.online/ LLMs + gesture controls for smart mirrors and computer control. Status: sunset (lack of PMF) Bilder — <https://bilderme.com/ Innovation agency for Latin America. Status: sunset (focus on university degree) 2econd — <https://youtu.be/vm8N-mFM5-g Battery second-life spin-off from an SAP project. Status: sunset (hackathon-winning project) WeCare — <https://www.canva.com/design/DAE-t2V6MtA/GKaRJjJTuadmNtBruHXFpw/view Chest X-ray CV diagnosis (TUM.ai Makeathon). Status: sunset PickHub — <https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zSO7SmlWH4yym1FPB8CRSdwFkV2b8BZd/view Grocery shopping hub (TechStars hackathon). Status: sunset PackPin 2021 — <https://youtu.be/s6YKxlneCPU 3D-printed recycled logo for a conference. Status: completed

  • 🛒 favorite products

    2026-10-18a curated list of products I use every day and that make my life easier hardware - Air Fryer - 20000 mWh Power Bank - Kindle - AirPods Pro software - Make - Zapier - n8n - Gumloop - Replicate - Fal.ai - Cursor - Replit - ChatGPT - XCode - CopyClip - ScreenStudio - Teleparty - Codex - Claude Code - Linear

Older

  • 📍 about me

    2026-01-06my name is David (from Quito, Ecuador, but currently based in Munich, Germany) currently - product manager at enmacc, building workflows and features for OTC and professional energy trading - I also build side projects (mostly iOS + a bit of web) previously - took pilots to real-world rollout, worked closely with field service teams as AI product manager at KNOWRON - explored applied AI projects and prototypes the TUM Venture Labs (Robotics/AI track), from hand-gesture tracking to AI-powered email campaigns - community, events, and hands-on building with people of TUM.ai - product manager at Digital Product School (by UnternehmerTUM), to enable car battery second-life assessment - studied at Technical University of Munich (TUM) with a lot of “build while you learn” energy - exchange at Sapienza Università di Roma, learning and experiencing in the Caput Mundi a few things I’m into - AI that’s actually useful (not just flashy demos) - hands-on reviews from the latest product launches (hardware and software) - products with crisp UX, clear value, and measurable adoption - writing / documenting what I learn (and occasionally over-nerding on systems, markets, and user behaviors)

  • 📋 principles

    2026-01-05- Seek truth, not comfort - Stay curious - Be present - Keep my word - Act with urgency and without hesitation - Be kind and have values at all time - Focus on what matters most (Family, Partner, Friends) - Take ownership - Protect my focus and prevent distractions - Keep it simple - Start small, start now - Finish the job - Choose progress over perfection - Ship fast, iterate faster - Write things down - Communicate clearly and align on delivery - Assume good intent, verify with facts - Choose gratitude over comparison - Leave people and places better than you found them - Travel light, physically and mentally - Celebrate small wins - Laugh often

  • 🔖 bookmarks

    2026-01-05- “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations - “We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.” — Seneca, Letters from a Stoic - “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” — Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning - “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” — James Clear, Atomic Habits - “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.” — James Clear, Atomic Habits - “Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task.” — Cal Newport, Deep Work - “The measure of usefulness of an early customer conversation is whether it gives us concrete facts about our customers’ lives and world views.” — Rob Fitzpatrick, The Mom Test - “The cowards never started and the weak died along the way—that leaves us.” — Phil Knight, Shoe Dog - “The output of a manager is the output of his organization.” — Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management - “You can do anything but not everything.” — Greg McKeown, Essentialism - “There are no shortcuts to knowledge, especially knowledge gained from personal experience.” — Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things - “We must learn what customers really want, not what they say they want or what we think they should want.” — Eric Ries, The Lean Startup

  • 🔗 quick links

    2026-01-05email — inbox zero, I respond to every email: david@dcepedag.com twitter — occational ramblings and updates, responsive to dms: @dcepedag github — my track record for passion projects: d-cepeda-g linkedin — for more serious communications and my blogs: david-cepeda-guzman instagram — visual diary of my happy moments: d.cepeda.g

  • 📖 knowledge base

    2026-01-04a collection of resources and learnings books - The Hard Thing About Hard Things — Ben Horowitz - The Shadow of the Wind — Carlos Ruiz Zafón - No One Writes to the Colonel — Gabriel García Márquez - The Stand — Stephen King - Zero to One — Peter Thiel - The Almanack of Naval Ravikant — Eric Jorgenson podcasts - Founders Podcast - The Joe Rogan Experience - Acquired - TBPN blogs & articles - Good PM, Bad PM - Paul Graham Essays - Micro SaaS Manual - Sam Altman Blog - Handbook Sales - Cold Email Handbook - Evaluating Startup Teams - Getting started with Cursor - Cursor tips - MCP guide - MCP plugins guide - Claude Code docs - Claude Code best practices - Git tutorial (W3Schools)

  • 📍 favorite spots

    2025-12-30A few of my favorite restaurants, landmarks, and coffee shops A few of my favorite restaurants, landmarks, and coffee shops Munich - Luffy Pancake Café — soufflé Japanese pancakes - Pastalozzi — only authentic Carbonara - Forty Four Burger & Bar — best burgers in Munich - Lost Weekend — café + live-music - Bar Mural — natural wine and seasonal menu - Chi Thu — Vietnamese traditional food - BACIO — pizza pockets and focaccia - Napoli Rush — Neapolitan pizza - Englischer Garten — big park - Kunsthalle München — seasonal art shows Quito - Pennyroyal Burger — best burgers in Quito - Lucía — local and international dishes - Pizza d’Alucca — American-style pizza - Basílica del Voto Nacional — direct view to the old town - Pacari Experience — organic cacao pastries - Empanadas Campo Viejo — empanadas for all tastes - Sweet & Coffee — the chocolate cake is to die for - Parque Guápulo — beautiful sunset spot Rome - Ponte e Parione — best Carbonara and tiramisu - Two Sizes — tiramisu falvors for everyone - Altroquando — bookstore + hidden pub - Oro Bistrot — rooftop drinks with a view - Palazzo Talìa — cocktails with historic Roman murals - PizzaRé — Neapolitan pizza - Da Secondo — pomodoro pasta

  • ✨ inspo

    2025-12-28people I admire and that I aspire to be like - marty cagan (founder, silicon valley product group; product leadership author) - teresa torres (author; continuous product discovery coach) - brian chesky (co-founder & ceo, airbnb; design-led company builder) - patrick collison (co-founder & ceo, stripe; relentless builder mindset) - melanie perkins (co-founder & ceo, canva; product + distribution at scale) - demis hassabis (co-founder & ceo, google deepmind; research-to-real-world ambition) - jony ive (designer; founder, lovefrom; craft + simplicity as strategy) - dieter rams (industrial designer; the “principles” guy for modern product design) - rené redzepi (chef; co-owner, noma; obsessive iteration + seasonal systems) - eliud kipchoge (olympic marathon champion; process, patience, consistency) - rick rubin (producer; taste-first creativity, minimal technical “rules”) - james dyson (inventor; stubborn iteration until it works) - michael dell (founder, dell; execution + distribution discipline) - steve jobs (co-founder, apple; product taste + storytelling) - sebastián “zuko” carrasco (ecuadorian climber; rebuilt life after paralysis) - chung ju-yung (founder, hyundai group; scrappy builder from nothing) - soichiro honda (founder, honda; engineering grit + learning-by-doing) - virgil abloh (designer; “learn the rules, then remix them”)

  • 🌐 cool websites

    2025-12-26some websites that inspire me to do better on design - https://www.boldheart.io/ - https://alstin.capital/ - https://mobydigg.de/ - Map of reddit - https://virgilabloh.com/ - https://press.stripe.com - https://bfcm.stripe.com/

  • ⚙️ how this works

    2025-10-07implementation - the app uses the next.js app router and can be hosted on replit or vercel - the notes and note metadata are stored in replit postgresql using drizzle orm - the notes are statically generated and get revalidated when new notes are created or updated - the note content is stored in markdown and rendered with react markdown - new private notes get stored with a sessionid based on local storage - users can view, edit, & delete their own private notes and share the link with others to view - images are uploaded to replit object storage using presigned urls - the swipe gestures to pin/unpin, edit, & delete notes on mobile are implemented with react swipeable - the keyboard shortcuts are inspired by vim and the command menu uses shadcn/ui command - the og images are generated dynamically with the note's title & emoji what I changed this is a fork of alana goyal's notes app with the following modifications: infrastructure - migrated from supabase postgresql to replit's built-in postgresql database - replaced supabase storage with replit object storage for image uploads - using drizzle orm for type-safe database queries and schema management - created new api routes ([/api/notes], [/api/uploads]) with input validation and session-based ownership verification mobile experience - mobile users land on the sidebar (notes list) first, then tap to view individual notes - private notes shared by link bypass the sidebar redirect for direct access - fixed mobile overflow issues with proper width calculations - optimized touch interactions and swipe gestures ui/ux improvements - enabled iOS 26 notes app look - macos-style header with traffic light buttons (close/minimize/maximize) - collapsible sidebar with a toggle - private notes use simple plain text editing (no rich text formatting) gratitude - alana goyal for creating the original open-source notes app that served as the foundation for this project - the replit team for providing excellent database and storage infrastructure