Lifelog

It's been 4 months since I first crossed the $1,000 monthly revenue milestone. Initially I thought it was a one-off fluke, even though revenue had been climbing slowly but steadily close to the $1k mark in the past months leading up to the month of March.


That's the thing about one-time payments as revenue – you'll never know what you're going to get. There's always a nagging doubt that this month could be the fateful month where you didn't acquire any new customers, and your sandcastle comes crashing down. It's weird when you contrast that doubt with one-time revenue with the optimism of monthly recurring revenue – by itself, customers can still churn, but yet we tend to *expect* MRR to be more reliable and steady.

When can we start to feel more assured in our hot seats and say with confidence that we passed a revenue milestone, when your business model is mainly one-time payments?

I don't know.

But sometimes I like to think that this "I don't know" is a good thing. That I don't take things for granted and start feeling complacent. Because accepting that you can win big with asymmetric bets that will take off like a rocket, also means you might lose it all in an asymmetric black swan event that rug pulls everything you built up under your feet.

The bold might thrive sometimes but only the paranoid survives.

The trick seems to be knowing the best time to be either.

There's this great Hacker News analogy about how [entrepreneurship is like the carnival](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15659076#):

> Entrepreneurship is like one of those carnival games where you throw darts or something. Middle class kids can afford one throw. Most miss. A few hit the target and get a small prize. A very few hit the center bullseye and get a bigger prize. Rags to riches! The American Dream lives on. Rich kids can afford many throws. If they want to, they can try over and over and over again until they hit something and feel good about themselves. Some keep going until they hit the center bullseye, then they give speeches or write blog posts about "meritocracy" and the salutary effects of hard work. Poor kids aren't visiting the carnival. They're the ones working it.

[I'm that middle class kid](https://twitter.com/jasonleowsg/status/1675089127841071105). I had my one throw, but now trying to afford more tickets for more throws, through things like freelancing.

All the while just hoping I'll never have to go back to working at the carnival.

The funny thing with being middle class is that our situation sets us up to not even try. We're neither here nor there. Comfortable enough to fear losing it all, not poor enough to want to risk it all. So doing this whole indie hacking thing so far feels like swimming against that narrative current.

But try I will. I think us indies can get more throws in by making it as cheap to do so:

- bootstrap and keep infra costs low
- pre-launch to minimize building wrong things
- make small bets, commit to big bets after better data
- move and live in low cost location
- freelance at the side to extend the runway indefinitely
- spouse works in a job while another tries a business

The carnival analogy ain't watertight, but the best part about it is:

Guess what the indie hacker's favourite ride at the carnival is? The rollercoaster.

LOL. #dadjokes

My new intention for every week in July:

Say "F**k it I'm doing it" at least once a week.

Why?

I'm a chronic over-thinker. I think it there's benefits to thinking deeply, especially in an era of fake news, misinformation and media manipulation. But a virtue brought to extremes becomes a vice. Or when in the wrong context.

The wrong context here is this whole indie hacking thing.

Success here depend much on a bias to action. To the point of being almost foolhardy. So the instinctual reflex must be to act. But my first instinct is to think. Deeply. Take a bit more time.

Over time, the missed opportunities accumulate. Deep thinking becomes passivity. Passivity turns into procrastination.

I think myself out of a business, basically.

Not good.

Damn it, it's like I'm just not built for indie hacking. So much to unlearn and let go of. So many of my existing strengths are actually weaknesses.

I need to be hungrier. Like on an instinctual level. If one was truly hungry, they grab whatever, whenever. Grab first think later.

So... for July, that's what I'll do.

Act first, worry later.
Ship more, think less.

At the start of my birthday month, I talked about how I missed that calm and centered self-assuredness, how I want to come back to myself. No more feeling disembodied. Back to mindful presence. Mind and body aligned. To truly live, and to celebrate this gift of yet another year of being alive and well.

I had a super busy month juggling consulting and indie hacking, but I think I lived out the month aligned to those broad intentions.

I felt more centered for sure. None of the anxiety and stress that plagued me for the past few months. It's wild that it could be all due to a [chemical imbalance!](https://golifelog.com/posts/mind-that-magnesium-1685414275146)! Sometimes I don't want to believe it's just so simple, but more and more I'm convinced it is, and could be the hidden cause of all my past depressive episodes. It could all just be conjecture, but it feels relieving to know. That all along maybe my mind's not as broken as I thought.

If anything, the possibility offered through that realisation is probably the best birthday gift I could get.

Onwards to July!

---

📈 Current MRR (all from Lifelog): $119 (↑$10)
💵 One-off revenue: $928 (↓$46)
💰 Total revenue: $1047 (↓$36) (4th month in a row above $1k!) 🎉🎉🎉🎉
💸 Total costs = $170
⚖️ Total profit: $877 (↓$16) (excl. consulting revenue)
💎 Profit margin: 84%

I started Side Project Weekends in March, so that's about 3 months ago. In that time, I built these new things for Lifelog:

- hover md preview
- esc key shortcut to md preview
- rich text editor
- preview button
- typing sounds
- saving status
- screenshot
- scheduled backups
- heroku stack update

3 months, 9 features. Average 3 ships per month.

Which kinda makes sense, because I would ship a bunch of features, somethings break or create more bugs, and then I would spend week #4 fixing them.

I hit a snag in beginning of June when I tried to [over-analyze what I should build next](https://golifelog.com/posts/not-all-features-are-created-equal-1685873032170), but since switching back to ["ship more, think less" mode](https://golifelog.com/posts/momentum-driven-development-1687606035650), I feel the momentum back again.

Not all the features were mission-critical features. Some were for fun, like the typing sounds. Some were helpful, like the rich text editor. Others were invisible, like the backend infrastructure updates and backups. I'm painfully aware that there's many high-value features that Lifelog folks had requested and waiting for, but I had to make the tough decision to trade off and balance user needs and developer needs. The idea is: Better to keep building what keeps the momentum going than building what might stall the building. ***Some progress is better than no progress.*** The hope is that eventually I'll get to the high value features (like a WYSIWYG editor).

Overall, I'm satisfied with the progress. More can be done, better features can be built, but maintaining the momentum is key at this stage.

I want to make a new product, but I'm struggling with ideas on what to build.

Yet when I turn my head and look at my Carrd plugins project, I am—on the contrary—overwhelmed with ideas for new plugins. The funny thing is, I'm not even looking out for them. People literally hand them to me on a silver platter, sometimes directly (like "Hey have you thought of making this...?"), mostly indirectly (like "I got this problem, any help?").

The contrast couldn't be more stark.

That's the biggest benefit of being plugged into a community. If you're happy solving problems for the community, getting new ideas is easy peasy.

Like how I just launched a randomizer Carrd plugin today. The conversation that seeded this literally happened a week ago. A friend and fellow Carrd maker Mark Bowley asked me about it, I saw the opportunity right away, and built a MVP the next day. And today, I launched the plugin.


Maybe I should stop trying to think of something new to build from a vacuum, but instead find a new community I'm interested to be part of, and solve problems *for them*.

No need to think of strategies, do market research, speak to potential customers, think about technology trends.

Just be immersed in a community, be part of it and try to be helpful.

That's it.

You know you got a habit dialled down when you don't have to force yourself to go do it. No need for habit hacking. No need to design the environment. No mental tricks or hoops to jump through.

I've always struggled with making myself exercise in the morning. It's early, I'm still sleepy, I prefer to work, I got to get the kid ready for school. Many reasons I give myself. But seldom 100% true.

But what I do know is I feel better 100% of the time after I exercise in the morning.

It's just that it's not always easy to tap into the posthoc feeling, or memory of that feeling, before doing that exercise. Or maybe it just takes time to truly **embody** that memory, that feeling, not as something intellectual or a mental discipline thing, but to intuitively feel it in my bones and gut just how I truly enjoy it.

That inflection point seems to have happened just recently.

I know it when it goes from "I *should* do it..." to "I *want* to do it...". It's the same with other infinite game type of habits, like diet and sleep, I find.

So now I got the habit part of it dialled down. Next, to actually get the outcome – being [fit af](https://golifelog.com/goals/213).

All the [talk on Twitter](https://twitter.com/daniel_nguyenx/status/1672569199368228870?s=20) about shipping fast as an indie hacker got me thinking:

*Do I ship too slow?*

Went and did a tally to check my shipping speed: I actually launched ~20 Carrd plugins in 6 months so far in 2023. Started 13 new distribution channels \*.

For Lifelog, about 8 features shipped (considering I only decided to do Side Project weekends starting in March).

So I do launch pretty fast!

Just that Carrd plugins are probably a narrow niche and tiny market, so progress and results might be slower.

So it's not just about shipping fast but in the right niches and opportunities too.

I should launch more *different* bets, even while I continue to build and grow my existing products.

I like how [@daniel_nguyenx](https://twitter.com/daniel_nguyenx/status/1672952233401647104?s=20) talked about it here:

> Launching more is a valid strategy. Though I believe “blindingly launching more” won’t make us better entrepreneurs. Between a) putting all your effort into a bad idea and b) launch as many products as possible, there should be a good middle ground. Launch a few small-scale products short term while doing customer development/validation for a longer-term one. This is what I’ve been doing. I’m still trying to validate a B2B SaaS idea that could potentially reach $10k MRR. In the meantime, I’m launching multiple “fun” products: BoltAI and a couple other. All under a same category: business productivity.

Blindly launching fast is one of those rookie mistakes every indie has to learn via trial by fire. And I like Daniel's approach of small scale, short term bets alongside a longer term big bet. Best of both worlds! I'm somewhat doing that already and plan to dive into that approach even more.

Now looking for a new short term small scale bet to bite into!

But tracking my writings and tweets where I mention wanting to try a new project, I've been thinking and talking about it for a few months now. That's overthinking already. I need to just try and launch stuff.

Anything.

Just ship more. Now.

---

> \* New distribution channels for my plugins project:
> - Substack
> - Twitter
> - Discord
> - Tumblr
> - IG
> - Tiktok
> - Sponsorship ads (jannis, ayush, katrin, mark x 2, zite, kevon)
> - Upsells
> - SEO - domaining,
> - Lemon Squeezy, Payhip
> - Affiliates on Gumroad, LS
> - PPP on Gumroad
> - Guest posts on Starrt

I've imagined and written about what a perfect morning or perfect day looks like for me. But being the new dad I am, I've never thought about a perfect morning with my kid.

Until today. When it happened for real, organically:

I woke up at 3am for a quick pee, but ended up not being able to sleep, so I woke by 4:50am to get a headstart on my side project. Sunday mornings are great for deep work. Everything's sooo quiet. Then by 8am my toddler wakes. My wife's still asleep – we let her sleep in some more. He opens the door, peeks out. I walk over, picks him up, and we walk around the house and chat for a bit. After a leisurely moring stroll around the house carrying him, we wash up. I let him brush his own teeth for the first time, with him standing on the toilet bowl. He usually refuses his teeth-brushing, but with the newfound autonomy, he did it with glee. I finish up the parts he missed. Then we're off to the kitchen. He asked for cherries, and I asked him to help me with it. He takes the stalks off, while I remove the cores. We throw in a few of his favourite mini sponge cakes, and a dollop of Greek yoghurt. He asks to eat standing up on a wooden stool at the pantry. I agree. We chit chat while he eats. For a three year old, he's pretty chatty when he wants to. I start eating my yoghurt with blueberries and pecans, and he starts joking about how pecans look like cockroaches. It's true, isn't it? Have you ever thought about pecans are cockroaches? I didn't. We laugh, then proceed to crush some 'cockroaches' into his yoghurt, and he had fun playing along with the joke. We giggle some more. In time, he finishes his breakfast, all by himself, without any nudging needed, without drama, without fighting, without power struggles, without any tears and crying that's often typical of breakfast. *What changed?* I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing it's got to do with the autonomy he got, the full participation he had in starting his day, and (hopefully) the full presence of a parent attending to him.

Sunday 25 June 2023. A perfect Sunday morning with my kiddo.

New core memory created... for me.

[Earlier this month](https://golifelog.com/posts/not-all-features-are-created-equal-1685873032170) I questioned if the features I've been building for Lifelog recently is pushing the envelope enough. I wanted to pivot Lifelog, but I didn't know what.

I wanted to rethink, research and re-explore this side project.

I *thought* I wanted that.

But it woefully failed.

I got stuck by over-thinking, and couldn't figure out what to do. I ended up shipping slow, most of the time unsure what features I should be building, and that killed all my momentum.

The end result is nothing got shipped.

I thought I needed a higher purpose. But it seems like I was so damn wrong. I simply needed momentum. By building what I wanted, what gave me joy, it kept me building, kept me going weekend after weekend.

True, I wasn't always building what people wanted (sorry guys), but look what happened when I tried to solely build based external feedback? Nothing. At least by following my momentum, I shipped. I iterated. I learned.

Perhaps when I just build, I will eventually get to place where it *becomes* purposeful. But I'm not there yet. I just need to keep building first.

Momentum-driven development, not purpose-driven.

A bit of an inside, dark humour sort of joke I have with my wife is how I basically "asked for it" by choosing to go serious on indie solopreneurship right around the same time as having a kid for the first time, and during a global pandemic crisis, and a recession after.

Making a huge career change, from ground up, right around the when everyone's trying to protect their own jobs, businesses shutting down, is just silly. Top that off with sleep-deprived nights and the teething issues of beocming a new dad (mind you, not the baby's teething issues).

My sense of timing couldn't be more off on this occasion, to say the least.

Why make things doubly, triply hard on myself when the smart thing is to lay low for a bit, put the ambition aside, and just get through it with as little drama and stress as possible? If I went back to a government job during the pandemic, I'd have a stable salary, be able to work from home anyway and be a present dad, and wouldn't be as stressed. I could have avoided all that drama, and then when the conditions are ripe again, quit and start over as an indie. Like now.

*Why? Why then? Why now?*

I asked myself those questions pretty often.

I don't know but I feel my path often has a life of its own. First, the soul does what it needs for growth, for reinvention. Then the mind and other worldly needs follow.

I'll find a way to survive and feed the family.

But the growth process doesn't stop.

I think this about sums it up:

> "One of the great balancing acts in life is to be cautious and daring at the same time.
Cautious enough to avoid stupid mistakes, prevent burnout, and maintain a margin of safety.
>
> Daring enough to bet on yourself, to do the things you would regret leaving undone, and to be willing to be uncomfortable in the short term so you can learn and grow in the long term." – [James Clear](https://jamesclear.com/3-2-1/june-22-2023)

I did what was needed to be cautious enough, even though I was taking a daring leap of faith into the unknown of indie hacking. I continued consulting, I opened myself up for coaching and training, I did random gigs, a few hundred dollars here, another thousand there. I survived. My family survived. I did what was temporary, to get towards what was permanent.

Cautious *and* daring.

Now, to just keep the faith, stay the path.

Career switches I made in the past 2 decades:

2003 - Cable tv
2007 - Social welfare
2011 - Web design (self-employed)
2012 - Service design in gov
2015 - Design consultancy agency
2018 - Started indie hacking
2020 - 1st SaaS and MRR
2023 - Still no ramen profitability.. 😕

Indie solopreneurship definitely takes the cake when it comes to how hard it is to "make it"...

In most of my other careers it took 1-2 years, 3 years max to hit my desired goal.

I'm year 5 in indie hacking and still nowhere close!

It got me thinking: WHY?

- It's not due to not having the required skills, knowledge or training. I didn't study media communications, but joined cable tv as my first job. I never studied any web design, but started a web design gig in 2011, and did design consultancy inside government in 2012. In all occasions I learned on the job, picked things up as I went. It was stressful at times, hard all the time, but I learn fast and usually within 1-2 years I hit my stride.

- It's can't be due to running a business, because I started my first business in 2011 in web design, and another in 2015 for a design agency. The only difference is both are services and more analog/in real life, while indie hacking is product-based and more abstract due to being online.

- The key difference is having to learn more about distribution and marketing. And learning how to code (way harder skill to learn than others).

- Season of life. I was single, younger, more energetic. Now, I have family, older, more tired, sleep-deprived. Just energy levels alone to hustle is significantly lower. Risk appetite had also changed - I can't take irrational risks anymore because I got 4 other individuals to feed (being sole breadwinner).

- Timing. The global crisis like the pandemic didn't help. It definitely threw a spanner in the works and added 2 years delay at least.

*What other barriers did you experience yourself when it comes to indie hacking?*

I've always struggled to practice gratitude. The gratitude journaling exercises and other ways of saying thanks for small to huge things in my life right now always felt forced and artificial. If I'm not feeling it, saying I am grateful feels fake at best, self-deceptive at worst.

But recently I've found a way to do that genuinely. It's a thing making its circles in parenting social media. It goes a bit like this:

Imagine you're 90 and you've got a chance to time travel back in time to just one moment in the past to relive it. That moment is right now. Whatever tantrums your kid is throwing, chaos you're going through, heated emotions you feel... all starts to fade away and ceases to matter. Because one year from this moment you'd forgot why were you even upset to start with. And as a time-travelling 90-year-old, I would just want to enjoy the moment with my child all over again, no matter how chaotic it is or how mad I feel.

Visualising and imagining that always helped me not get too caught up in the emotions of the moment. And thinking that one day all the toys, the toddler antics, the hugs will be gone, never fails to trigger an upswelling of emotions.

This period of time is so precious. Once gone, can never be relived.

Money, stress, career, products, revenue, followers, impressions – it matters but also doesn't matter.

This right now, matters.

And for the first time, I can say:

I'm grateful for this moment in time.

Saw an intriguing, thought-provoking thread on why folks with ADHD struggle to complete projects:

> For people who do not have ADHD, dopamine is released *at the moment a goal is accomplished*... For people who do have ADHD things are a bit more complicated. There are various ways to frame this argument, but the one that I tend to prefer is just: we seem to get dopamine from satisfying curiosity rather than completing goals...
>
> Your projects are your way of asking the universe a question, and then digging and digging and digging until the universe answers. You are motivated by curiosity, and that is a blessed gift, not a source of shame. Your unfinished work is the testament to your growth. Those aren't abandoned projects -- those are the remaining scaffolds from the the space ships that they launched. It was never about finishing the thing. Forgive yourself for that. – [@mykola](https://twitter.com/mykola/status/1666274476621803522)

Projects as a way to ask the universe a question. I love that.

Is that why I struggle to finish projects sometimes?
Do I have ADHD?

I'm not so sure about the ADHD part... assigning the condition might be convenient but not always true (as conditions are always more complex than a single facet of behaviour). But the root was what resonated deeply – satisfying curiosity. Because that's exactly how I feel when making my Carrd plugins. Someone asks a question about how to do something on Carrd, in Reddit or Facebook. I get curious. I can see it being possible but I don't know for sure. I wonder if it can be done. I try it, solve it, and in the process, create a plugin.

It's *literally* someone asking a question to the universe, which I happened to see, and that became my own question to ask the universe.

And the most revealing part that it's more about satisfying curiosity than reaching completion, is how I struggle—truly struggle—to launch it. Even to just put it on my site is a barrier. Writing a tutorial and publishing on my stores for sale is a doubly difficult. In most cases, I make it and I feel like my work's done. Sometimes I share it on social media, most of the time, it's just another thing done and left on the shelf.

Now I know why.

Satisfying curiosity had always been the main mission, not completing goals, not making money, not running a business.

In general, that's why I make things too. Curiosity. Satisfying that builder itch is why I build in the first place.

Now I know why I struggle with all other aspects of indie hacking.

Should I go with my base form *ala* just building for curiosity?
Or should I force myself to achieve all these other things with the output of my curiosity, even though I've never intended to?

Whose game am I really playing?

Turned 44 today. Another year, another trip round the sun.

Some birthday wishes:

🏋️‍♂️ Stay healthy
👪 Give the best to my family
💵 Earn enough to do that
🗓 Have time freedom, and be present
🚀 Build a profitable product

Simple wishes. But not-so-simple execution.

It's easy to wish and dream. But to make wishes real, a whole different game. A whole different universe, in fact.

Staying healthy and lean in an era of middle age dad bods and junk food makes food, sleep and exercise choices a daily uphill struggle.

Giving the best to family is great and all, but best is costly. And it wouldn't be possible if I'm just scraping by most months. I got to earn more. I got to provide.

Being a present and calm dad had always been my aim. Being able to work from home, work on consulting and indie projects of my own choosing had been pivotal to that. But I'm far from being present. Time freedom is just the first key. The second key is the quality of my presence during that free time.

Most of all, my work aspiration to have a profitable product that's lifestyle-sustaining. I have profitable products but none that's even close to feeding the fam.

It's all hard af. But I feel the mindset has got to switch. Something more fundamental, at the root.

Aspiring is fine. But actualising is better.

This new birth year, I ~~hope to~~ will stop aspiring and start actualising.

A few thoughts on being an indie dad for three years now:

- Mums have it harder, but it sure ain't easy being a dad too. Both struggle in their own ways. Just want to acknowledge the work that dads do too.
- To provide and protect, yet to also be present. That's a tough juggle only dads will know. It's harder when being an entrepreneur means you're thinking about the business all the time. Learning to switch back to the little human before you is a skill that has to be learned and nurtured.
- It's funny how life goals change as an indie dad. Indie single: $1M ARR! Be the best! Indie dad: Time freedom to play with my kid! Give the best to family. Success in life becomes a different animal. Not to say one is better than the other. There's pros and cons, but there's something natural about bringing up a child that aligns to how the seasons unfold through the year.
- There's a lot less support and resources for dads in general. Many dads might not want to even talk about the challenges they face. Many are silently struggling. Hearts out to those dads.

Happy Father's Day, indie dads!

In the latest episode of @indielifepod, @dagorenouf and @jmckinven talk about Dago's burnout and failed business:

"If you don't look at the risks, you're vulnerable. The reason we failed and we got exhausted, and I burned out, is that we were constantly swimming against the fact that it wasn't a good business." – via [@mijustin](https://twitter.com/mijustin/status/1669783225928138753)

That resonated so much, it hurt. Because it was so effing true.

Previously, I assumed that hard work will truimph everything. But I've learned a lot in the past 2-3 years since going serious on indie hacking. One of the most painful lessons was exactly what Dago just shared.

At the start, your ability to smell bullshit on your ideas is simply not there yet. You're not good at telling what's a good business versus a bad one. Everything seems like a good business, just because you're a naive first time founder running on pure optimism and idealism.

But soon with a few failed businesses, you realize at the end they weren't such good businesses after all. The economics just didn't make sense. The amount of investment needed—especially of your time, effort and energy—to keep it going, didn't square with the financial payoffs. You spend 10h marketing a product, just to get 1-2 new customers per month. You're pushing the product uphill. ALL. THE. TIME. A lot of effort, very little reward.

Yet you keep going just because "hard work".

Now I've learned. You got to feel like you're being pulled downhill. Not that you no longer have to work hard, or ship bad products. But being pulled downhill is when your effort can't keep up with the demand. The product seems to be running on its own momentum. You can stop marketing for a week, a month, you still get sales (though maybe less). A lot of effort still, but with outsized rewards too, comparatively.

In both scenarios, hard work was constant. But only in one where there's a happy ending.

You can't outwork a bad business.

- Removed auto-scroll down to keep typing input at vertical center of screen, because it's distracting af.
- Improved performance of typing sounds. There sound be less of a lag now.

"You can be relaxed and dedicated. Just because you worry more, doesn't mean you care more." – [James Clear](https://jamesclear.com/3-2-1/june-15-2023)

That's my goal when it comes to any project or goal in life. Dedicated. But relaxed.

Doing the former part was easy. All the sports training from school came in handy. Discipline was seldom an issue. Throw in an obsessive, competitive, Type A sort of attitude and you got a formula for dedication.

But the same strengths are also my weakness when it comes to the "relaxed" part.

In the past I used to conflate dedication and worrying. I assumed the worrying was part of what made the dedication worked. So just as I put in the reps for my training, I put in the reps for the worrying.

So finite games like sports, it's not so bad. But when you put obsessive worrying over long term into infinite games like life issues and entrepreneurship, your mental health suffers.

Thing is, relaxing isn't hard on its own. It's easy to do when you're on vacation, for example.

It's being relaxed while being dedicated that's hard. And I dare say, hard for most people to do *well* in. Because it's about balancing. Enough tension to matter, enough slack to be happy.

I'm nowhere near that perfect balanced state, and have no answers to how to get better at it.

*Any ideas?*