Jason Leow

Happy to announce that after more than 2 years of sleeping at 8-9pm and waking up 4-5am, my body clock had finally settled into that routine. Maybe my circadian rhythm had switched over for some time already but I didn't realise it until I had to change my routine.

Because recently when I had to work and sleep later than usual (past 10pm), when I sleep out of routine like this, I wake up feeling like I have a hangover. 😵

Like literally:

- Head feels heavy, groggy
- Tension in the forehead
- Feeling sleepy by late morning
- Fatigue even though I sleep more for 7.5h
- Not alert unlike my usual alertness at 7.5h sleep
- Thirsty

I used to just wake up at the same time anyway on weekends even if I sleep late, at the expense of sleep quantity. Not sleeping in might be better for your heart, at least. A University of Arizona [study](https://twitter.com/steveonspeed/status/1497798849129107457) showed how for every hour your sleep shifts on the weekend, you're 11% more likely to develop heart disease. So consistent sleep keeps you alive.

But that's at the expense of sleep debt/deprivation. So to be honest, I'm not sure what's worse:

**Sleep debt or sleep hangovers**

Something to learn more about on this sleep biohacking journey!

Now that my body had settled into that 5am routine, next goal is to be able to wake up naturally on my own at 4:40am without an alarm.

Onwards!

I'm sitting on a goldmine of untapped potential all this time with my project [Plugins For Carrd](https://pluginsforcarrd.com).

Seeing [Components UI](https://componentsui.com/) by @oscaroarevalo made me realise that.

It has all the tricks of the trade that we creators are familiar with:

- beautiful well-designed landing page with ConvertKit CTA
- Affiliates program through Gumroad
- Testimonial from Carrd founder AJ himself
- Selling bundles - 7 components for $59 while I sell 1 for $15/$25
- 10 day email sequence on Carrd tips
- Free guides - simple pricing tables, 10 days of Carrd, set up web analytics, a week of better design, How to: Design Agency, How to: Freelancer
- FAQs
- Templates, UI components, dark mode, Spanish version of UI
- Subdirectory blog for SEO purposes - tutorials, and posts about the journey of building in public (even a dedicated emailing list for this journey)
- Roadmaps, Changelog, License and Affiliate program pages

I look at Components UI and see my future for Plugins. I should really be doubling down on it and executing on all this tricks. I kind of already knew I *should* before seeing Components UI, but seeing something in real life was the kicker.

A few things I might do differently though, or will stick to doing it my way:

- Calling it a "plugin" instead of component because non-technical creators are more familiar with "plugins" (ala Wordpress) than "components" (a more UX designer / frontend developer term)
- Selling individual components *as well as* bundles
- Showing demos for each plugin on a Carrd site for street cred
- Keeping the marketing simple - too much conversion copy can feel too salesy. I like how it's simple and straightforward now for Plugins.
- My giving/helping focus on social media and communities as a way for marketing and reach, plus it's a great way to discover new plugin ideas

Excited!

Marketing is simple:

Give, give, give, give, give, give, give, give, give, give, ask.

Give 10x, ask 1x.

That's it!

It's funny how I've always known this, but I realised I've only scratched the surface of what it means and how it applies to me.

***What if I made things to simply give away?***

Tools, templates, apps.

Not just content to impress or to establish myself as an authority.

A few reasons why I think giving as marketing works super well for me:

- I enjoy giving, helping others.
- My personality tends towards altruism (I started my career in non-profit, charity sector).
- I've always made pro bono stuff already

Thinking back, this is exactly how it worked out with [Plugins For Carrd](https://pluginsforcarrd.com) - my free plugins are a loss leader but converted so many customers. I also enjoyed helping others with their Carrd problems on Reddit, Facebook and Telegram.

That's how it worked out for my consulting too. I gave more value than I charged. Over-deliver. Always top up with something valuable that the client never asked for.

Maybe that's why my marketing didn't work out for Lifelog - I wasn't giving enough, or giving ten times before an ask. I was trying to "create content" *just because*.

Giving as marketing might just be the path for me. Not sure why I took this long to realise!

Just show up leveraging on my strengths:

- helping others
- creating things

A strengths-based approach, onwards!

Removed G Sheets link for stability, hardcoded all the contact info in HTML

My one goal in September:

**Go all in and do well for my consulting gig.**

The ironic thing is... I've once wanted to transit out of consulting badly. I wanted to stop doing it. I wanted instead to go fulltime on my indie products.

But—here's a BIG but—from a neutral, business point of view it didn't make sense.

I'm good at it. The clients I serve are my tribe (especially non-profit folks). It's meaningful. It scales for social good. It pays well. I do enjoy working on it.

If you look at the famous ikigai framework, it checks off all the circles.


Why did I ever think I would want to stop doing this over some internet product that just has 10x less scale, revenue, meaning and social good?

It's weird. I wonder if it's influence from social media, from the exciting digital nomad lives I see. Perhaps that made more sense when I was single. But my life stage situation had changed. More stability and routine might actually be beneficial for the family.

That's why I recently set an intention for my consulting service have a permanent place in my portfolio of projects. Not just something that pays the bills while I try to grow my indie products. Not something that I transit out of once I make enough MRR. But as a lifestyle, career choice.

I admit, sometimes I still get inwardly drawn to the fulltime indie path.

But I can have both.

I can consult, and also work on products and travel in the off season.

Either/or is a false dichotomy.

Current MRR: US$109 (all from Lifelog)
One-off revenue: ~US$345↑ (vs ~US$281 in Jul)
Total revenue: ~US$454↑ (vs ~US$390 in Jul)
Total profit (excl. salary): ~US$414↑ (vs ~US$350 in Jul)
Tweet impressions: 254k
Engagement rate: 4.2%
New followers: 254

It's no secret that I'm trying to build a brand and an audience on LinkedIn. It's been about 6 months since starting in late March this year. So am pretty happy to hit 888 followers there! (Only locals will understand the significance haha)


Here's some learnings and thoughts:

- Started with 600+ followers in late March, so I grew about 200+ over 6 months. Not crazy growth, but steady at the least. Got a handful of viral posts (>10k impressions) but nothing regular. Most days my combined impressions are ~1k or less.
- But since starting, I've received more opportunities to consulting and training gigs. My current project was something that came via someone messaging me on LinkedIn! Another training opportunity with a non-profit institute also came from LinkedIn. My regular posts gave visibility, made my presence more top of mind, and at the right time, they remembered me and the skillset I provided.
- As always what's most surprising to me was how posts have longevity here. No 24h algo like Twitter. Some of my posts get impressions and likes even after weeks.
- Being a content creator on LinkedIn is still uncommon. There's still lots of leverage to be had in these early days. You get more exposure, less competition.
- Posts with images of interesting designs and some commentary on it seems to do better than text based posts.
- Experimented with different posting timing (8am, 11.30am) but it didn't seem to make much of a difference.
- Memes have a place on LinkedIn too. What works: funny, work-related, nothing super outrageous. People in employment are often too worried to post memes. You'll stand out.
- Photos of my past projects seems to be well-liked too. Which was surprising to me since I thought no one would care.
- Unlike Twitter, there's still a market gap of LinkedIn tools. Writing editors (to count the number of characters before the truncation), carousel generators, analytics, etc.
- Hashtags still work in LinkedIn, unlike on Twitter where it's mostly dead as a tool for reach. I get people outside of my LinkedIn connections liking my posts.
- The "reply guy" approach that work on Twitter works on LinkedIn too, but I'm not spending much time doing that. I really should, since just 1 post per day won't be enough.
- Know who your audience are. My audience on LinkedIn are: designers, local in Singapore. But because many indie hackers are starting on LinkedIn, I end up connecting to them as well and liking their posts. Which doesn't help me with my brand- and audience building on LinkedIn (it shows up on your activity feed, and LinkedIn algo sometimes also shows what you liked to your connections/followers, which I don't want). So I'm experimenting now with engaging with fellow designers and locals more.
- It's been pretty hectic building 2 different audiences for separate niches. Even with batch scheduling and all, it's been hectic, and big time suck. I need to find more tools and systems to make it easier.

If you only did something once a year, does it still count as a hobby?

Not sure about you but I'm taking it as a hobby. Especially when it comes to mooncakes.

Mooncakes are a specialty pastry that's given and eaten during mid autumn. It's a Chinese ethnic custom that dates way back. Right now it's more of a commercial festival, kind of like Christmas.


But there's something about mooncakes that I'm particularly passionate about. My annual mooncake pilgrimage to the [old school store Tai Thong Cake Shop](https://www.taithongcakeshop.com/) in Chinatown that's been around since the 50s. Buying this gives me sooo much joy.

The hollow sounds of the wooden mooncake moulds.
The yellowed posters from the 80s.
The smell of glorious bakes.

I’m like a kid in a candy store there.


I'm fascinated by the heritage craft behind it. That it's still made by hand to this day at the shop is an achievement in itself – most mooncakes are now factory made, even the brands that are so-called heritage brands (looking at you Tai Chong Kok). It's just not the same. The taste simply isn't as good. The browning on the crust is too even, under-baked. The sweet lotus paste and salted egg tends to be dry and crumbly, unlike freshly baked ones which are oily and moist. The shops are revamped to a modernized look to appeal to younger folks. There's no much soul.

What's the most precious about these heritage, hand-made mooncakes is how it's a disappearing trade. The masters are old. They have no successors. If there were successors, they modernize the business and the old flavours get lost. Within the past decade, I've seen 3 heritage pastry brands lose their soul to modernization.

My heart breaks when I see that.

I love my heritage pastries with a passion, and also hate that fake modernization with a passion.

So I guess this qualifies me as a mooncake hobbyist?

All the elements of a hobby are there: passion, interest, delight, loving it for it's own sake.

I'm a mooncake hobbyist.

There I said it.

+$10 to MRR, bringing total MRR to $109

Are expectations ever useful?

Because if you expect something and didn’t get it or got less, you get disappointed.

If you expect something and got it exactly how you expected it, you feel neutral.

Only when you got way more than expected, you’re pleasantly surprised and delighted.

So imagine if you had lower expectations, or little to no expectations at all… wouldn’t your surprise and delight be through the roof?

Some might object to this, saying that without expectations, we wouldn’t work as hard, put in effort, or play the part. And we’ll more likely end up with nothing. Expectations makes us rise to the occasion, they say.

I disagree. It’s mutually exclusive. It can be. If I enjoy the process; if I like putting in my best effort anyway, then I’ll be motivated to work just as hard. Just without the weight of expectations.

Jason Fried (https://world.hey.com/jason/tossing-a-key-87b91f17) recently wrote this, which inspired this reflection:

"We land where we land. Trying too hard narrows the desirable outcomes.

Expectations are the enemy here — they limit the number of great landing spots, and make the idealized one impossibly hard. Relax your expectations, and hundreds of positive possibilities open up.

When you don’t go in with expectations, you almost always come out ahead. It’s better to have a wide gaze, point in a general direction, do your best, and just see what happens."

The distinction is subtle, but it’s there nonetheless. Don’t try to run a business, just run a business.

Indeed. Instead of expecting results in exactly the way I want it, perhaps it’s time to retire that unrealistic need and just land where I land.

If I’m not always looking ahead for what I expect, perhaps then I can be more aware of where I am right now, the opportunities available, the landscape around me, in order to leverage everything better.

And ironically that might end up helping me get to the success I want faster.