Jason Leow

Totally by accident.

A happy accident.

In 2019 I decided to learn to code for the nth time. Vue.js was my poison of choice. And after multiple failed attempts at learning coding from online classes, I decided to learn by doing instead by making micro standalone apps that can be done within a week. The beauty of Vue is - I can make standalone apps and embed them anywhere.

After making I shared these little learning projects I would embed them in Carrd as a way to share my learnings. It’s also a nice digital artefact to keep as a memory and accomplishment of each step along my coding journey.

Then I had a brain fart… These apps could plug features that Carrd doesn’t have! Carrd did some things really well (being easy to set up single page landing site), but the intentional constraints meant it didn’t do some other things so good.

So I released the initial few plugins for free. The accordion dropdown menu plugin got popular.

Released more plugins like pricing tables plugin. The initial few months was wild, I was manually cloning these Carrd sites and transferring it to people. It was painful and time-consuming. Thankfully, soon came the Seller programme, and people could download the site as a template directly.

When it became clear people wanted this, I decided to start with a paid plugin, a feature most asked for in my conversations with them – a nav menu bar that’s mobile responsive.

Then rinse and repeat free + paid.

And like they love to say, the rest is history. 😆

What started as a by-product (of learning coding) ended up as a main product. Truly a “sell your sawdust” business. More and more I’m thinking that successful products often start as happy accidents.

No better way to start in my opinion! 🤸‍♀️

Refunded as customer tried it and it didn't suit his/her needs.

I've been having a period of poor sleep quality lately. Even when I go to bed at 8:30pm to get 8h in bed, my sleep score's lower than usual. I would get 60%-70%, when it's usually 90% for 8h of sleep. That shows the sleep quality was poor. And indeed, I don't feel rested after I wake. Likely culprits might be stress, or a less than ideal diet, or caffeine. But it's been frustrating to not be able to pin it down to factors causing it. And I'm feeling like I'm out of options.

That's why when I saw the the 25% Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale for Leela quantum products, I thought it might be timely to introduce something new and different to my sleep biohacking. If trying the same things aren't bringing different results, it'll be insane to keep doing the same things. So I went and bought some [Leela quantum energy frequency cards](https://leelaq.com/product/leela-quantum-frequency-cards/) – the calm and rest card, and the abundance card, at US$145 each (before discount).

The cards are credit card sized metal cards with the thickness of 2-3 credit cards stacked together. It fits easily inside a pocket or wallet and are charged with powerful, positive frequencies by world-renowned healers. Here's what they said about the calm and rest card:

> The Calm & Rest frequency was designed and intended to support a much more relaxed and deeper calm and rest. Leela Quantum Tech is neither in the medical field, nor intends to be, so we also refrain from making any health claims. We can only pass on what others say about it. All test persons so far have reported that within about 1-5 minutes clearly noticeable relaxation occurred, that some described as if the Sandman came and did his magic. Several people tested it while still being in a conversation. After 5 minutes they had to put the card away so as to not want to go to bed right away. Then they picked up the card again when they were generally ready to go to bed and had very good night of sleep, deeper than normal. No morning issues were reported at all since the frequency disappears fairly quickly when you put the card away.

I think combining the abundance card with sleep card will help. Abundance to help me with stress of survival and money in the daytime, and sleep card to help me relax and rest well.

Truth is, it always feels weird to talk about quantum tech, because it's so left field. Skeptics will think this is hocus pocus, a scam. But I do have some products from them, and I've felt some difference from touching and using it. Checking with more intuitive/sensitive energy workers who are based locally have also checked out. The way I see it – if it helps, even if from a placebo effect, then it helped. Worst case scenario is I wasted a few hundred dollars. No skin off my back.

Can't wait to try it! Will report back on how it fares.

I’ve not had a lazy Sunday in a long time.

Just time to do nothing. Watch Youtube videos all day. Sit around. Lie on the bed. Eating. Drinking. And the most productive thing I did was just writing this post.

Much needed, really.

It’s not about not working and just being lazy, but about feeling permissionless rest.

Truth is, I’ve not felt like I have permission to rest for the past 3 years now. There’s always a crisis to manage, big or small. Survival matters. Money. COVID. Business. Baby. Everything combined feels amplified to a point where it’s life and death.

Once or twice, it’s manageable.

But chronically over years is when problems emerge. Chronic health problems. From stress, anxiety, anger. Chronic comes when it’s hard to let go.

And stubborn that I am, I’m not so good at letting go, even though I’d like to think I am, with all the Buddhist teachings I learned and meditation practices I practiced. Faaar from it.

I wished I could manage this better, but some factors are outside of my control. And the stakes are ever higher as a father and husband now, something I struggled with.

If being an indie solopreneur was playing life in hard mode, I don’t know what mode being that plus being a new dad and husband and son to elderly parents is. Legendary mode? Impossible mode?

I can only try my best.

And find more permissionless rest to sustain my climb.

I've been watching the AI art space with keen interest. As AI platforms like Stable Diffusion, DALLE and OpenAI/GPT-3 get more sophisticated, more and more AI apps and SaaS are popping up for various sub categories within design:

- prompthero.com - AI designed [jewellery](https://twitter.com/javierjrueda/status/1595018419899977728), [fashion](https://twitter.com/javierjrueda/status/1593327496644202496)
- interiorai.com - AI designed house interiors
- thishousedoesnotexist.org - AI designed houses and architecture
- avatarai.com - AI designed profile pics and personal photo shoots
- hairstyleai.com + http://hairgen.ai - AI designed hairstyles to try on
- imaginarypaws.com - pet styles reimagined by AI
- aigraphics.io - AI designed graphic
- [Game sheets/game development assets](https://www.facebook.com/groups/aiartuniverse/permalink/676046660827238/?mibextid=S66gvF)

As AI starts to cover more and more uses cases and niches, I can't help but see this pattern that might be an interesting business opportunity:

### AI design SaaS will replace most low value design work within the decade

So to crystal ball it a bit, what might be some more use cases and niches that AI art can disrupt? What are some mechanical turk style, low value work that AI can easily take over?

When I think tasks that's lower on the value chain, I think of Fiverr. Anything that costs $5 to do is probably low value work. And many low value work are straightforward enough to be done by a robot. *So what might be the most popular Fiverr gigs that can be done by AI?*

Just look at this [list of 40 gigs](https://moneymint.com/30-most-profitable-gigs-on-fiverr/) – I added a 🤖 beside each one I think can be fully/partly done by AI:

- Proofreading and editing 🤖
- Book covers design 🤖
- Logo design 🤖
- Virtual assistant
- Ad campaigns 🤖
- Creating video intros 🤖
- Digital marketing
- Article writing 🤖
- Website testing
- Designing flyers, leaflets, business cards, postcards 🤖
- Wordpress troubleshooter
- Diet plan
- Tips to new parents
- Photoshop editing 🤖
- Social media marketing
- Product description writing 🤖
- Making video tutorials 🤖
- Web design 🤖
- Viral promoter/Influencer marketing
- Teach language
- Transcribing audio files 🤖
- Astrology
- Creating gifts out of recycled materials
- Financial consulting
- Writing reviews 🤖
- Social media page setup
- Creating Pinterest pins 🤖
- Travel planner
- Infographic 🤖
- Making jewellery 🤖
- Social media manager
- Writing CV, cover letter, resume 🤖
- Website building using templates 🤖
- 3D, 2D modelling 🤖
- Business consulting
- Social media advertising
- Presentation design 🤖
- Architectural design 🤖
- Cartoonist 🤖

The writing gigs can already be done by GPT-3. With more specific training, you could have a SaaS.

Using AI to generate designs for logos, flyers, book covers and ad thumbnails sounds like great opportunities! Within each category lies even more opportunities for more niche uses cases, like how @Winkletter created AI-generated coloring books.

*What other AI design opportunities are there?*

If something is a small enough bet that you won't lose sleep over if it fails, that's actually great for your mental health as a founder or creator. Just heard this from [Arvid's podcast episode with Daniel Vassallo](https://twitter.com/arvidkahl/status/1595866963716120577).

More needs to know this.

I think there's too much hero worship around the founder who goes all in on one big bet and succeeds. Because the road to that hero's success is littered with 100s or 1000s more founders who didn't succeed from going all in that you never heard about. And these 1000s of founders likely got super stressed, lived with anxiety, and finally ran out of cash, burned out, got depressed for a while.

Is that worth it? No matter the personal growth opportunities, I doubt it's *that* worth it.

Cue small bets.

Just small enough in scope, effort, resources, time and emotions invested that you wouldn't flinch if it tanked. Make something minimum and viable, with a feature set (or just a single feature) that solves the most painful task for your user. Cap your effort by working in a calm and focused way, not stressed out. Pay for a domain, get free or cheap hosting, or run it on a free trial plan to contain costs and not overspend before it's even validated. Timebox your work, eat and drink well, have some downtime, not burning through the nights. Lower or have zero expectations that it will work to not lose sleep over it. Then rinse and repeat to make more small bets to up your chances that something will succeed.

There.

A formula for a portfolio of small bets that's great for mental health.

A saner, calmer, healthier way to create and make a living on the internet.

Used the cover story about sharing my free confetti plugin with the community, in order to market the BF deal at the end of the post 😆

Always gotta be a bit more careful on Reddit - give some value before the plug