# Erica Xu Erica Xu is a software developer and entrepreneur, co-founder of [[Obsidian]] and [[Dynalist]] along with [[Shida Li]]. The duo first created Dynalist in 2016, an [[Outliner]] that built on [[Workflowy]]'s concept with additional features like multiple documents and full Markdown support. In 2020, they launched Obsidian, which became one of the most influential [[Personal Knowledge Management (PKM)]] tools, pioneering the [[Local-First Software|local-first]], [[Plain Text|plain text]] Markdown approach. Xu handles much of the frontend development and user experience design for both products. She's known for thoughtful product decisions that prioritize user data ownership (the [[File over app principle]]) and long-term sustainability over growth metrics. Under her and Li's leadership, Obsidian has grown to millions of users while remaining a small, bootstrapped company. The team's philosophy emphasizes building tools that could last decades—hence the choice of local Markdown files over proprietary formats. ## Key Contributions | Contribution | Description | |--------------|-------------| | **[[Dynalist]]** | Co-created outliner (2016) | | **[[Obsidian]]** | Co-created local-first PKM (2020) | | **File over app** | Championed data ownership | | **Plugin ecosystem** | Enabled community extensions | ## Timeline | Year | Event | |------|-------| | 2016 | Co-founded [[Dynalist]] | | 2020 | Co-founded [[Obsidian]] | | 2020s | Grew Obsidian to millions of users | ## Quotes <!-- QueryToSerialize: LIST FROM #type/quote AND [[Erica Xu]] WHERE public_note = true SORT file.name ASC --> ## Books <!-- QueryToSerialize: LIST FROM #type/book AND [[Erica Xu]] WHERE public_note = true SORT file.name ASC --> ## References - https://obsidian.md/ - https://dynalist.io/ ## Related - [[Obsidian]] - [[Dynalist]] - [[Shida Li]] - [[Personal Knowledge Management (PKM)]] - [[File over app principle]] - [[Local-First Software]]