Jason Leow

This [tweet](https://twitter.com/Chelsea_Fagan/status/1208944952576790528) reminded me that oftentimes what I mistake as a firm commitment or a bold move is actually just money or privilege speaking:

> A lot of things that we think take a lot of courage actually just take a lot of money.
>
> Quitting your job with no backup? Money! Calling off a wedding? Money! Starting over in a new city? Money! It’s very easy to have the courage of your convictions when you have a safety net, and very difficult to do anything on principle when you don’t.

Cue the typical leaps of faith that indie makers are often told to make:

- Quit your job and go all in on your startup
- Focus on just one idea
- The biggest risk is not taking any risk
- Growth at all costs

Everything listed is way easier if you already got a safety net of a job to go back to, or have enough cash runway or savings to depend on, no family to feed, no mortgage to pay, no cars on installments, no second or third jobs you have to take on to survive.

This is especially poignant for me as the past three years had been tough business-wise. I'm just trying to survive and not have the indie lifestyle get taken away from me. It's easy to talk about failing and trying from going all in on one startup when you have safety nets to try and try again. It's presumptious to think everyone's risk appetite is the same when talking about the biggest risk is not taking any risk. And when you're struggling to just survive, growth is hard to even imagine, lest say growth at all costs.

Even though business getting better right now, I'm still not in the clear yet. I could still lose the privilege of indie solopreneurship tomorrow.

And that's only made me all the more grateful for the chance to stay in the game.

It truly is a privilege.

I [tweeted this out](https://twitter.com/jasonleowsg/status/1614261118104670212) yesterday:

> In my 30s: "I'm gonna build a unicorn startup!" 🦄
>
> Now in my 40s: "I'm happy to be a stubborn cockroach." 🪳
>
> Is it an age thing, or life stage of being a parent, or have I just lost my ambitions?

It's a new mindset that I'm just starting to get used to. I feel I'm clearer about my priorities, and it's not about being ambitious in that unicorn startup way but surviving, feeding my family, and not having this indie lifestyle taken away from me come what may – pandemic, economic recession, whatever the world can throw at me.

In any case, I'm realising that those unicorn dreams were borrowed dreams. Goals that were on loan from others and society at a time in my life when i was younger, more naive, and didn't know myself that well. Not that I know myself deeply now, but still better compared to my 20s/30s. Comes down to it, it's about evolving taste, life priorities, maturity, what I value now, what truly matters.

Some suggested calling myself a camel, horse, turtle instead. Love those. Noble creatures. But there's some thing I love about the metaphor of a cockroach. It's tiny, but tough. It's humbling to be reminded that I'm but a tiny actor in the bigger scheme of things. That I can't change *the* world, I only can try to improve my tiny bubble of the world—*my* world—by a tiny bit. But at least I get to keep going doing that, and remain resilient or even antifragile in face of external forces beyond my control.

[@LBacaj said it best](https://twitter.com/LBacaj/status/1614320005851619332):

> I tell you what, roaches eat well.
>
> It doesn’t take very much to be full and you’ve got your options of crumbs laying around no one seems to want.

That's the best thing I've heard about being a roach so far! Sooo true.

Unicorns can only be happy eating rainbows and gold.

I feel full doing what I'm doing right now.

And I'm grateful, thankful.

🎉 Demo: https://confettibutton2.carrd.co/

Opportunity always seems to come before you're 100% ready.

That seems to be a universal pattern, isn't it? It's like some benign version of Murphy's Law, where whatever bad that can happen will happen, except that in the case of opportunity it is whatever good that can happen will happen, but at the least convenient moment.

In fact, I'd argue, if you feel 100% emotionally and mentally ready when an opportunity appears, if there's not even the slightest drop of fear or anxiety, then it's a sign you've waited too long, thought too hard. It's the universe literally being kind and generous to you, saying "TAKE IT ALREADY." Because most of the time, the opportunity never returns again for you to even have that experience of taking an opportunity when 100% ready.

Why do you think they said fortune favours the bold? You won't need boldness if you're 100% prepared. The yin-yang flip side of that saying is opportunity seeks the unprepared.

The problem is, you think you have time.

Don't feel ready to ask that girl out on a date? Do it anyway.
Don't feel ready to launch your product? Do it anyway.
Don't feel ready to switch jobs? Do it anyway.
Don't feel ready to leap? Do it anyway.

Act today, because there will come a day when you no longer can.

I started 2023 with intentions to [act fast on opportunity](https://golifelog.com/posts/2023-in-8-forms-of-capital-1672630377703).

Here's to feeling unprepared but saying "F**k it I'm doing it" anyway.

Channel-offer fit is a term I made up to describe the adhoc conversations I've been having with some folks on Twitter about how followers doesn't always translate to revenue.

***Followers ≠ revenue**

I have about 1k followers on LinkedIn compared to 5k on Twitter, but 90% or more of my revenue comes from LinkedIn audience. The gap is mind-boggling, and definitely runs against the grain of what Twitter gurus like to say about building an audience.

That's where channel-offer fit comes in.

There's simply a better fit between the offer I'm offering on LinkedIn to the audience I have there, compared to the not-so-good fit between the offerings on Twitter to my Twitter audience.

A better fit means:
- Tighter audience and content niche match. I follow and interact with mostly designers, UX designers on LinkedIn, and my content is all design-related and targeted at them
- There's also other folks who work in the public sector/non-profit space who are interested in design and are in my LinkedIn network, so the content strategy works for them too
- Buy intent is higher. My Twitter audience are mostly other indie makers. They can make things themselves. Whereas in LinkedIn, people are there for professional growth and networking. There's also more money flowing through in corporate training and outsourcing projects.
- There's less content creators in my LinkedIn network compared to Twitter, so it's easier to stand out on LinkedIn. Building in public had taken off on Twitter, and it's getting saturated, so harder to stand out from the noise.

So the lesson here?

Don't listen to the BS that gurus say about growing a huge audience in order to monetize.

Buy intent is more important than attention and impressions.

Followers ain't revenue.

I'm serious about my intention to [reinvest every dollar](https://golifelog.com/posts/reinvesting-revenue-1671495174677) earned back into my products in 2023, and I want to be more methodical about it.

There's 7 projects in my portfolio that earn consistent revenue, or bring in adhoc revenue.

What can I reinvest the revenue in for each? Brainstorming ideas here:

[**Outsprint**](https://outsprint.io)
- LinkedIn scheduler and analytics tools
- Social media content - research by VA
- Buying services to create Slideshare content, LinkedIn carousels

[**Plugins For Carrd**](https://plugins.carrd.co)
- Ads in maker newsletters, e.g. Jannis, Mark Bowley
- Domaining traffic-generating domains
- Starting affillate programmes in Gumroad, Flurly or Rewardful
- SaaS subscriptions for conversion funnels like Thrivecart, Converkit
- SaaS subscriptions for SEO blog content like feather.so, blogtstatic
- SaaS subscription for documentation site like Helpkit

[**Lifelog**](https://golifelog.com/)
- Writing services for SEO content
- Twitter ads
- Roadmap software like Canny.io

[**Social impact patronage**](https://www.buymeacoffee.com/jasonleowsg)
- Buy Facebook ads for Grant Hunt bot
- Renew the expensive .sg domains

[**Sheet2Bio**](https://sheet2bio.com)
- Ads on nocode newsletters

[**Keto List Singapore**](https://ketolistsingapore.com)
- Social media content - research by VA
- Facebook ads targeting local/regional Facebook groups

[**Career Conversation Cards**](https://getmakerlog.com/products/career-conversation-cards)
- Ads on Google, Facebook or Reddit

*What else can I reinvest in? What reinvestments can I get the best bang for the buck?*

🎟 Got a good deal from their New Year Sale 43% discount!

Experimenting in getting domains which are spelling typos of Carrd:

pluginsforcarrd.co
carrdplugins.com
pluginsforcaard.com
pluginsforcardd.com
pluginsforcarrdd.com
caardplugins.com
carddplugins.com
carrddplugins.com

It works somewhat! Just prompting it to summarize gave very formal prose.
Got stopped when I added "in the voice of ".
Had to add "in the voice that's informal, conversational and punchy" to make it better, after 3 tries.

Maybe good as a first draft for me to work on? 🤔

Recently I've been using the [sleep cycle calculator](https://sleepopolis.com/calculators/sleep/) at bedtime to calculate what time I should be waking up. And it's been a gamer-changer for my sleep scores, and ultimately, how rested I feel.

All along for the past few years since I joined the 5am club, I've set my wake time at 4:40AM, no matter what time I went to bed. Sometimes I slept earlier, sometimes later. That results in varying amounts of sleep, and oftentimes I would wake in the middle of a sleep cycle, which made it harder to wake. Based on the sleep cycle calculater, if I want to wake at 4:40AM, I should ideally be sleeping by 9:10PM. I usually never do. And I wake up grumpy, and later on, feeling sleepy. That all makes sense now.

So now I key in the time of my bedtime, in order to figure out my daylight alarm the next morning. I get this from the app:

> I plan to fall asleep at 9:30PM
>
> Recommendation: You should try to wake up at one of the following times:
>
> 1. Wake at 2:00AM for 3 Cycles - 4.5h of sleep
> 2. Wake at 3:30AM for 4 Cycles - 6h of sleep
> 3. Wake at 5:00AM for 5 Cycles - 7.5h of sleep
> 4. Wake at 6:30AM for 6 Cycles - 9h of sleep
>
> Please keep in mind that you should be waking up at these times. The average human takes fourteen minutes to wake up, so plan accordingly!

I love that they provide a few options to choose from, in case I ever needed to cut sleep short for an early event, or if it's like the weekend and I want to sleep in and pay back on sleep debt. I usually go for the 3rd option of 7.5h of sleep.

And since doing this consistently, my wake times have varied pretty widely, around ±1h. Sometimes I wake during the earlier part of 5:00AM, sometimes close to 6:00AM. Whereas in the past it was my sleep time that varied and my wake time was fixed.

But here's the interesting, counterintuitive bit: despite varying wake times, my sleep scores had been consistent in the 80% range (compared to 70% range in the previous routine). Something I could never achieve in the past.

The trade-off? I sacrifice around 1h of my early morning deep work time. Hopefully, a worthwhile trade.

So, my tiny epiphany from this:

They say sleep and wake at same time every day.
I say, sleep enough complete sleep cycles every day.

At least for me.