Napkin is a note-taking app that isn’t meant to make you more productive

Note-taking apps generally aim to make you more efficient and productive. Many of these apps focus on quickly writing down your thoughts, getting better organized, or a mix of both. Napkin (not to be confused with the Accel-backed startup of the same name) wants to stand out among these apps by focusing on mindfulness. Think of it as a sort of companion to your journal.

Founders David Felsmann and Fabian Wittel, who previously worked in the BMW Group’s innovation department, began developing the app in 2022. They first released a web prototype. But, at that time, the app focused on productivity and helping you formulate ideas on specific topics. They noticed that a large number of users also used Napkin as a mindfulness tool to take time and think about ideas that were helpful to them.

The company then shifted its focus to the mindfulness market when it began building its iOS app – the desktop app was maintained for existing users. The startup positioned itself in the health and fitness category rather than the productivity or utility category because of its mindfulness approach.

“All the notes are very different in nature. We help people grasp ideas that change their mindset. Like something that changed your perspective or motivated you and you want to think about it later. These are the ideas you collect with Napkin as a mindfulness habit,” Felsmann said.

Users can record their ideas, such as quotes from books, via the camera: these quotes are converted to text. They can also just type in these thoughts. Napkin has some ideas for initial sessions that you can add to your library. The app uses AI to caregorize different ideas with automatically generated tags. You can also revisit these themes or tags later from the Home screen.

Users can archive their ideas so that they no longer appear with associated flags. Although the app can understand other languages ​​like Spanish and German, it is currently best suited to English.

He noted that many people were using the app first thing in the morning instead of opening social media to think. The co-founders said they built the app around a so-called Sense of Coherence (SoC) model, which allows you to build a holistic mental model of the world and keeps you grounded.

Napkin is available on the App Store for a fee of $6 per month or $50 per year. You can also get a seven-day trial to test the app.

The company claims that the app does not want to disrupt user flow and therefore does not send any nudges or notifications to users. “We don’t want to add more noise to users’ lives. We would love to be a background app that doesn’t demand attention, but rather a quiet holding place for them,” Felsmann said.

Napkin sees himself as a companion to journalers rather than a replacement. In the future, the app could also be integrated with popular journal apps or Amazon Kindle so users can easily capture their ideas and use them for journaling.

The company did not raise institutional money, but received checks in the form of convertible loan agreements from believers and backers totaling about $150,000. Napkin does not want to collect money and wants to achieve sustainability with over 10,000 subscribers. Currently, it has around 4,000 paying users. Once the goal is achieved, the company will consider creating integration features and applications for other platforms.