I'm a musician, not a developer. Working alone got depressing, so I built an online office

I run a small music and video studio in Seoul by myself. Recording, filming, editing, and a piano I've played since I was six. Most days nobody else is there.

At some point working alone stopped being quiet and started being depressing. I didn't want meetings. I just wanted my friends around while we each did our own thing.

So I started building a place for that. It's called nojo.

I'm not a developer

I built it over several months with AI help. Some of it was painful. I'm the kind of person who gets nervous in a terminal, so this was a lot.

What's in there

• an office with desks. you can put a little status over your head, like "Working..."
• voice only reaches whoever is near you. if you want to talk you walk over. if not you just stay at your desk
• a small chat window you can pop out and keep next to your work
• a pantry and a drawing board
• a bar with a piano that's connected to my real one, and a mic. anyone can come and play or share their own music there
• a nature area that opens into a balloon field. I went to Cappadocia last year and couldn't stop thinking about it, so I made a fake one, little by little between mixing and editing

Things I didn't expect

It needed to be fun. A room to work in was not enough reason for anyone to stay. So I kept adding stuff.

Things break in ways you don't plan for. One morning I woke up and the whole place was a mess. I played a sad song on the piano and started cleaning it up.

Empty is the real problem. A place like this is worth nothing if you walk in and nobody is there. "Come whenever" turns into never. So the plan is fixed hours where I'm in the bar playing piano.

Where it is now

These days there are usually 7 or 8 people in there. Honestly a lot of them are my friends. I'm happy about that, but I want to meet people I don't know too.

It's free, no download, no sign up, you walk in as a guest: https://nojo.club

If you work alone, or you play music and want somewhere to play it, come say hi. And if you've built something multiplayer by yourself, I'd really like to know how you got past the empty room.