From the Hopper Labs workshop
Ideas into practice.
Principles, field notes, and useful explanations. Each piece connects to a larger project—and to the work behind it.
Start here / Project Dogfood
Your product must earn your use
Dogfooding begins with an honest preference, not a story about an imagined customer.
Read the principleIf your product is not good enough for you to choose, that is a signal to make it better.
Build it. Use it. Learn.A little structure
Follow a reading path.
The Dogfood Notebook
From a problem you feel to a tool that earns its place.
Begin the series →2 readingsBuilding with AI
A thesis about specificity, followed by a standard for testing it.
Begin the series →3 readingsThe Floor and the Roof
Useful starting points and a path to more demanding work.
Begin the series →Find your next idea
The notebook.
17 posts to explore
Publishing test: from source to the live blog
A labeled test post tracing one piece of writing through the Hopper Labs publishing path.
Project Dogfoodprinciple 3 min readBoutique software at scale
AI may change the economics of specificity. Empathy and feedback still decide whether the result is useful.
Project Dogfood · Project Raise the Roofprinciple 3 min readChoose a contest you can measure
Project Top Gun starts with the discipline to define what winning means.
Project Top Gun · Project Raise the Rooffield note 3 min readConnections should preserve context
A note, a task, and a person should keep their meaning when the work moves between tools.
Project Dogfood · Project Raise the Roofprinciple 3 min readFind the right-sized niche
Specialize around a real problem. Generalize when the need and your capabilities justify it.
Project Dogfood · Project Top Gunprinciple 3 min readRaise the floor. Then raise the roof.
A useful free baseline and advanced capability are two parts of the same ambition.
Project Raise the Floor · Project Raise the Roofprinciple 2 min readYour product must earn your use
Dogfooding begins with an honest preference, not a story about an imagined customer.
Project Dogfoodfield note 1 min readOne person, connected across apps
What we observed when a contact changed while a calendar event was open.
Project Dogfood · Project Raise the Roofguide 4 min readFree GRE® essay practice vs ScoreItNow!
ETS ScoreItNow! and Hopper Labs Essay Practice compared: price, what each includes, how grading works and privacy, so you can pick the right GRE essay practice.
Project Raise the Floor · Project Top Gunguide 4 min readWhat is a good GRE® Analytical Writing score?
What is a good GRE AWA score? ETS percentile ranks for every Analytical Writing level (2022–2025 data), average scores by field, and how programs use the score.
Project Raise the Floor · Project Top Gunguide 4 min readThe GRE® Argument essay was removed: what changed
ETS removed the GRE Argument essay on September 22, 2023. Here is the full list of changes in the shorter GRE and what they mean for Analytical Writing prep.
Project Raise the Floor · Project Top Gunguide 5 min readHow to go from a 4 to a 5 on the GRE® Issue essay
A 4 is competent; a 5 is thoughtful. The GRE essay differences in position, reasoning, examples and structure, plus a revision checklist and timed drills.
Project Raise the Floor · Project Top Gunguide 5 min readHow the GRE® Issue essay is scored (2026)
How the GRE Issue essay is scored: the 0–6 half-point scale, holistic rubric, human raters plus ETS e-rater, and what separates each score band in ETS's guide.
Project Raise the Floor · Project Top Gunguide 4 min readThe GRE® "two views" Issue prompts, and how to answer them
How to answer GRE Issue prompts that ask which view aligns with your own: what the task requires, a planning template, and four original practice prompts.
Project Raise the Floor · Project Top Gunguide 1 min readOpen Source: useful alone
Complete standalone tools, with code you can read, change, and build on.
Project Raise the Floorguide 2 min readPro Source: better together
The connected workspace, its source, and continuing improvements—run by you.
Project Raise the Roofprinciple 1 min readProject Dogfood
Building the tools we use to build the business—and showing the work.
Project Dogfood