Jason Leow

Most would be familiar with how bullish I am about self-employment, indie hacking and entrepreneurship. I subscribe to the school of thought that eventually, everyone will be a creator in a creator economy. In fact, it’s already happening, and pushed forward further by COVID-induced remote work. That future is already here, just not evenly distributed.

But looks like before that dream can be realised, I might very soon need to get back into employment. Regretfully.

Freelance gigs are still non-existent. The little bits and bobs of income from my side projects are small change, not enough to sustain a livelihood and a family.

I really want to continue working on them—Lifelog included—but ironically I might now need to get a job to sustain them. At least until this pandemic blows over. Which could mean 2-3 more years, optimistically speaking.

Miro, Mural, Zoom, Bluejeans

"Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts…
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday."
~ Kahlil Gibran, in his book The Prophet

Because if you write the way I do, that seemingly mundane writing advice actually translates to profound life advice.

My real world voice is my inner voice is my writing voice.

And so if using lots of qualifiers is how I speak to myself, we can then infer that I hedge a lot. And I’m probably not even conscious of it…until now.

What if, for once, I went all in boldly, and not hedge…at all?

How would that translate in mind, body, and speech?

“Be bold, don’t hedge.”

First time using "professional" writing tools to edit my paid writing gig. Learned that:

- My sentences are too long and hard to read. Use more periods more often.
- I use too many adjectives. Most are filler words that don't add much.
- I use words that appear less convincing, eg "just", "i think". As the Hemingway app says, "Be bold, don't hedge."

When I was young, I was an idealist. I found beauty, wonder, and meaning everywhere I looked. When I got older, I became a realist. I saw a world of rough edges and difficult truths. This grew tiresome. I decided to be a surrealist. Things got pretty weird after that. ~ @grantdraws of Incidental Comics

For those in the know, "huat ah"!

(888 is an auspicious number in Chinese folk custom)

When you’re truly financially independent and free (even running a $10k MRR business doesn’t count – it’s about having enough to even walk away from a $10k business), you can’t be cancelled.

Let that sink in a bit: With enough money, you can’t be cancelled.

You can be free to to talk about and share opinions that’s counter-cultural. Sure, there might be social consequences, people might unfollow you, your real friends might drop off, but people will no longer be able to cancel you and hold you hostage by harassing your employer, partners or customers. They can certainly try, but you certainly don’t give a f**k. I’m free to have my own thoughts and opinions.

True ideological independence.

Who would have known… that even though money can’t buy everything, it can buy a free thinking mind.

Keywords: Restaurant, resto, link-in-bio, link, bio, link list, social

getrestobio.com
restobio.com
resto.link
resto.bio
res.to

But "resto bio" in French means organic restaurant?!😩

Learned how to create Netlify site (with custom domain) based on a subdirectory in a single Github repo

And apparently, every single action you can take in Netlify dashboard runs on APIs (walking the talk on JAMstack!), so I can also use the API to programmatically create custom domains, DNS records, etc! There's hope for my sheet-to-link-in-bio SaaS!

For any business, you need this trinity of roles and skills to keep things running and profitable. And at any one moment, a solo indie hacker can be embodying all three:

Entrepreneur – the one who started it all. Optimistic, reality-distorting, collecting ideas, betting on opportunities, taking risks. The dreamer, the visionary, the idealist, the master generalist, the hustler. He gets sh*t done, or finds the people who can.

Technician – the one with deep expertise, the craftsman, the introvert coder who loves to solve challenging technical problems. The Entrepreneur starts the business, but the Technician ensures you even have a product to sell for the business.

Manager – the guardian, the adult. When there’s chaos, the manager steps in to ensure things are well-organised. He puts in place processes, systems, and rules.