Quality writing wins. But most writers work in isolation, without an editor or collaborative writing environment of any kind. We've built a magic button inside Google Docs that summons a world-class team of writers, editors, and experts to transform a draft.
Hey, PH! I’m Stew, one of the co-founders of Foster.
Foster is a button that lives inside Google Docs. Writers can tap it to get collaborative support on their writing within 24 hours. Behind the scenes, we’ve built a collective of friendly, vetted writers, editors, and experts who love jumping into first drafts and helping improve them.
We built this because writing on the Internet follows a power law. The best piece of writing on a topic tends to have an exponentially larger impact than the average piece.
But writing great stuff is super hard.
It’s hard to attract readers if your writing isn’t already great. And if you do find readers, you’re met with a deeper challenge: the majority of people who read things on the Internet do not comment or respond to them, and silence is a poor teacher. This leaves most writers publishing into the void, learning at a painfully slow pace.
I wasted a couple of years publishing into the void before my co-founder Dan and I designed a better process for our own writing. It looks like this:
1. Write.
2. Rewrite alongside talented, constructive editors.
3. Improve by incorporating direct, tangible suggestions.
4. Publish and deliver more value to readers.
We’ve spent months turning this process into a single button that lives in Google Docs that writers can tap to summon editors and experts to appear directly inside of their work. All drafts on Foster are privately routed to vetted contributors who we believe will be able to push them forward.
A few of our early users are Hacker News regulars who have used Foster to improve their work before submitting it. These were both sent through Foster prior to being submitted to HN: We need a middle class for startups , What's the Future of IDEs?.
And while it’s exciting to see individual pieces improve, many writers tell us that using Foster has elevated their writing skills generally (Tweet) and motivated them to write more (Tweet).
Today, we’re opening up Foster to anybody who writes. You can go to our landing page, install our Chrome extension, and pick a plan based on how much you write.
Your first draft is on us – you can use “FIRSTDRAFT” for a free month of our Hobbyist plan.
We are deep believers in the power of feedback, so we hope you’ll let us know what you think in the comments!
@stewartfortier heck yeah! Been using Foster for a few months now and having great affordable editing on demand is a superpower. Really excited to see where this goes.
This community has changed my trajectory of writing and the people I've met in my life. Thankful to be in early on this, but more thankful for those working so hard on this. @stewartfortier@dannyhuntco
I joined Foster - formerly known as Compound Writing - back in March 2021.
I saw one of their founders @stewartfortier offering a free 15-min call to riff on blog post ideas and that call was super helpful. We connected on a personal level and I wanted to give it a shot, so I signed up.
By that time I had been writing on and off on my personal blog for ~ 5 years... I liked the direction it was going but somehow never got into a consistent writing/publishing habbit. My main focus were techie-type blog posts like "How I Learned Production" or "Why Traditional Businesses Struggle to Go Remote" and to be honest, most of the stuff I read in my spare time was along those lines too.
During our onboarding call I got paired with a poet. At first, it blew me away. Who wrote poetry these days? How do I read and edit poetry... but soon after I realized it was this literary diversity that I was missing.
Reading and editing writing across all ranges of topics and styles gave me a new appreciation for the craft. I learned through editing other people's writing.
Some of my best writing went through the Foster workflow:
1) Like Father, Like Son: DJing as a Performing Art Form → https://www.artlapinsch.com/djing/
2) The Stromberg Mindset: On Germany's Geopolitical Delusion → https://www.artlapinsch.com/stro...
A year and a half later, I can confidently say that I wouldn't be the writer that I am today without this amazing community. Yes, Foster is a workflow but more importantly it's a group of well-intentioned writers who help each other out.
If you write online, join Foster and thank me later 🙌
cheers,
Art
@artlapinsch I continue to admire the range and scope of your intellect, alongside your openness and kindness. Looking forward to many more years of writing together!
Foster works like magic. I press the button inside Google Docs and within 24 hours I have high quality edits that dramatically improve my writing every time.
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