I Don't Want to Curse Myself Anymore
I've cursed myself many times.
"F**k, the wedding is tomorrow, I forgot!"
"I missed my kid's parent-teacher meeting again!"
"I saw that meeting notification, why didn't it make it into my calendar!"
Every time, I tell myself: next time I see it, I'll enter it. For sure.
Then I forget again.
Years of Putting Up With It
I'm not bad at using calendars. I use them religiously.
The problem is — some things never make it into the calendar.
Wedding invitations live in WeChat groups. Class schedules are screenshots. Meeting notices sit in emails.
I saw them. I knew they mattered. But I didn't want to "stop and organize."
So I put up with it. Put up with the chaos, the forgetting, the cursing myself afterward.
For over a decade.
I'm Done Putting Up With It
FileFlow launched yesterday. MARGIN launches today.
Two products, one month, one person.
FileFlow solves "messy files." MARGIN solves "forgot again."
Both come from the same starting point: I've had enough.
I'm not waiting for someone else to build this. I'm not trusting "I'll definitely remember next time." I'm done cursing myself.
I'm just solving the problem.
A Calendar Inbox
MARGIN is not a calendar. Not a Todo app. Not an AI chat assistant.
MARGIN is the step before your calendar — turning unstructured time information into structured events.
The workflow:
- Receive a wedding invitation / class schedule / meeting notice
- Share it with MARGIN
- It recognizes the time information
- You confirm
- It's in your calendar, done
The entire process < 10 seconds.
No stopping to organize. No opening the calendar to create a new event. No filling in date, time, title, location.
Just toss it in. It becomes a calendar event.
Relief, Not Excitement
I have a principle for building products: users want "I don't have to worry about this anymore," not "eyes light up."
MARGIN won't excite you. It'll make you breathe easier.
"I don't have to worry about this anymore."
Products like this have a pattern: slow to grow, strong word-of-mouth, once embedded in life, extremely hard to replace.
This is the kind of thing I want to build.
Three Red Lines
Before writing a single line of code, I set three red lines:
Never auto-write to calendar.
Calendar is a "high-consequence system." One misjudgment = trust destroyed. MARGIN reads for you, but you confirm. Human in the loop.
Don't compete with system calendar.
No week view, month view, drag-and-drop editing. That's competing with Apple/Google. MARGIN only exists "before entry."
No free version.
This is a service working every day, costs scale with activity. "No trials, charge seriously" isn't arrogance — it's the only survival strategy.
Charging Seriously, Not Arrogantly
Many people ask: why no free version?
Because this product's cost structure dictates — the more "seriously" a user uses it, the higher the cost.
What happens if you offer free?
- Heavy users trial aggressively → highest cost
- Casual users browse → no conversion
- The people most willing to pay are the first to drain your compute
That's reverse selection.
So "charging seriously" isn't an attitude problem — it's a survival problem.
MARGIN is a serious working assistant, not a toy.
I Can Pinpoint Exactly Where Users Curse Themselves
This is one of my ironclad rules for building products.
Not cursing the system. Not cursing someone else. Cursing themselves.
"I clearly saw it, how did I forget!"
This moment. Just this one moment.
If I can't pinpoint exactly where users curse themselves, the product shouldn't exist.
For Those Who Keep Forgetting
If you frequently receive class schedules, invitations, meeting notices, then forget to enter them.
If you've cursed yourself "I clearly saw it, how did I forget."
If you've had enough.
MARGIN is for you.
Product Homepage: margin.theunclej.com
App Store: Download MARGIN
Uncle J · 2026.01.27 Someone who doesn't want to curse himself for forgetting anymore
