Greetings from the World

This post is about someone I met through the Nocturnal Tribe, and the postcard project he was building.

Mofei is the kind of person who talks about work, travel, and side projects in the same breath. He jokes that even though he studied psychology, what he really wants to do one day — being a Scorpio — is open a café and just tell stories from the places he has been.

When we sat down for this conversation, he had already finished three and a half years at a major tech company in Beijing and moved back to Shanghai. He was working at a foreign unicorn company. The local team was small, but the technical bar was high. That alone made me curious.

At an earlier Nocturnal Tribe meetup, he mentioned that he loved postcards and had actually built an online postcard exchange tool on his own. We didn't have time to go deep then, so we met again at the Weihai Road WeWork where he was based. That building already carried some memories for me.

Following the tribe’s usual habit, I asked everyone to draw their current state before we started talking.

(My drawing: bright, scattered circles with blue outlines. It was my way of showing my mood was gradually settling down.)

(Mofei's drawing)

Q: "What is that supposed to be?"

A: "My current state. It feels like I'm constantly pulling scattered resources together and slowly building them into something solid. Busy, but a good kind of busy."

Q: "What are you actually working on lately?"

A: "On weekends, I've been getting together with some old friends to build a remote collaboration community. People in tech tend to think too much and hate the usual office routine, so we wanted to try a different working style. One friend has an idea for a travel app, so he handed that to the community. This postcard project might also become one of the things we pull in."

Q: "How does the postcard thing work?"

A: "It’s an online postcard exchange. You register, grab a stranger’s random address, write down whatever you are feeling or a story you want to tell, and send it. In return, a postcard from somewhere else in the world shows up for you. The cards themselves can feature work by illustrators, designers, anyone really. We imagine the stations sitting in bookstores, tourist spots, or homestays. The user only has to write. The host venue handles the mailing and the payment stuff, and they get some exposure and a nice physical touchpoint out of it."

Q: "Is this meant to be a business?"

A: "It started purely out of interest. I never thought about monetizing it on day one. I just want people who genuinely like the idea to help make it happen. If it works, there's a business model hiding in there between the venues and the platform. I'm actually pretty confident about it."

Lots of people send postcards. Usually, you go on a trip, write something quickly for a friend, and mail it. It's nice to receive them. But that habit is dying out. Everything moved online, the pacing got faster, and finding stamps and mailboxes just became a hassle.

What struck me about Mofei's project is that while it uses postcards, the core idea is completely different.

You aren't getting a card from a friend. You are getting a story from somewhere else in the world. It’s not about maintaining a relationship, it’s about touching an unknown one. Because you are sending it to a stranger, you might actually write down the most honest, relaxed thoughts you have that day. And then you wait for another stranger to send theirs to you.

Q: "So where are you stuck right now?"

A: "I already printed a test batch of postcards, and we got user feedback very quickly. I just don't want the idea to fizzle out. We have the patents and the tech is ready, but the funding and the right people aren't there yet. That’s why I’m being quiet about promoting it. Once I find angel investors, venue partners, and graphic designers who care about this, then I can really push it."

After that talk, we agreed to put together an offline meetup just for people interested in the postcard idea. Because if you want something to exist, you need people willing to build it, not just talk about it.

Gathering Invitation

If you are an illustrator, a designer, a product manager, or an investor — or if you run a bookstore, a homestay, or an exhibition space — and this sounds interesting, reach out to me on WeChat (Wechat:15285060531).

What: Meet Mofei and figure out the next steps for the postcard project
When: To be decided based on who wants to come
Where: Shanghai
Cost: None

(To keep the conversation useful, we are keeping the group small.)