Symphosis: The Story
A platform to make sharing Easy, Fun, and Collaborative
The Inception
Learning something new, by yourself, is challenging. It requires one to create a self-directed roadmap and find best resources to learn it online.
I truly became a testament to this problem when I dropped out of college last May. At this point, I wanted to expand my arsenal of knowledge about design, startups, programming, ai, etc., but didn’t have a sufficient network to reach out to.
I started Googling a lot of buzz words like, “Machine Learning 101”, “Crypto for dummies”, “JavaScript free books”, etc, but I was overwhelmed by millions of results and choices.
At that point, I wish I could just ask someone experienced in JavaScript or AI or Design and learn through their resources (when they started off). I kinda gave up on it.
Fast forwarding to 3 months, this problem amplified when five of my friends asked me for sites and links to help them get started with UI/UX.
I was happy they reached out, but I had to send them a bunch of links individually on Messenger, and to a point where I created an email template with all the resources, just in case another person asks.
I also had one for JavaScript/React, and I said to myself, “there has to be a better way than sending this large emails to people. Something easy, fun, and useful.”
That’s when Symphosis was born: a place to share my resources to anyone who may be interested in learning about design, programming, and startups.
I launched this version last October and I saw a couple of my using this site to learn about UI/UX, programming, startups, etc.
Limitations of #v1
Soon, I realized that a couple of my friends wanted to add their own resources to make a hub for best and trustable resources, but at that point, there were no profiles (I was managing and approving the resources people submitted).
And these were my resources as I was starting off, so I’m sure advanced people found this version to be total useless and uncredible.
At this point, I used to use Twitter to source the best resources from influencers such as my friend, JonathanZWhite for Dev/Design and @zaoyang for Crypto.
They were spreading ideas about these concepts on Twitter and had build a solid follower base so I resorted to Twitter for demonstrating credibility (hence Twitter OAuth).
Symphosis: #v2
The challenge for this newer version to keep its simplicity from the first version, but make it more useful, collaborative, and stable.
Deck of Cards
How can I make it simple? By using references that we use in our every day lives. What has a list of information like cards? Oh, decks have cards, thus deck of cards (sorry, no crazy story about this).
As a creator, you could create decks about anything from these collections: #ai, #cryptocurrency, #design, #growth, #programming, and #startups.
Decks simply organize the content within them. Some examples: Best Practices for Designing UI/UX to JavaScript 101: Fundamentals of JavaScript.
You can add a link to the appropriate deck to populate it with links of cards, which you can Save or Re-deal.
Re-deal: The Art of Collaboration
Maybe you saw a deck about Fundamentals of UI Design with really cool links that you want to add to your Best UI/UX Practices for your App.
You can re-deal a card (sticking with card game terms), or re-share it to your deck — the retweet for cards, which does two things:
- Allows you to add that card to your own deck (collections)
- Shows the link of the deck you re-deal’d from, so other people can visit that deck (giving credit)
Everything has a worth on Symphosis.
A card’s worth is determined by the number of clicks, the number of saves, and the number of re-deals.
We use that to dynamically re-order the card in a deck, so useful cards appear first in a descending order.
Similarly with decks, its worth is based on number of visits, stars, and upvotes, along with the overall worth of the cards within it.
That way, we can curate and display the most useful content, making it easier to get started or learning about something.
The Process of Growing Together
Symphosis [exact term: Symphysis] is the process of growing together.
Symphosis is a community-based platform built on the foundation of sharing to help organize and streamline knowledge, so we can, together, build a better future for ourselves.
Social bookmarking has been a concept for decades, but I don’t think the current implementation is the right solution to this problem. If anything, they provide more problems as it’s hard to find the right content when the repos get large.
Is Symphosis the correct implementation? I can’t say for sure, but my goal is to make it the right one.
For me, it’s this problem I want to solve; Symphosis is just a by-product of the problem. I have iterated a lot based on feedback and if you do join, you’ll see the platform develop and evolve over time.
Try Symphosis and Share Something
Symphosis is built to share, so if you have resources that you think may help others, feel free to add them to Symphosis.
I truly believe in the power of sharing, because had my friend not shared his bookmarks/resources, I wouldn’t have been able to build this site!
You can go to https://symphosis.com and login with Twitter.
Feedback
If you have any feedback, or suggestions, DM me on Twitter or you can personally email me at narulakeshav13@gmail.com.
