Lifelog

Last week I decided that [weekends shall be reserved for side projects](https://golifelog.com/posts/side-project-weekends-1679711565154). And it felt great actually starting it this weekend!

It was a productive weekend of coding, building and shipping. What I did:

> 👁 Updated Markdown preview. Previously you hover your cursor outside of the text area to preview in rich text. Based on feedback and dogfooding, found that the hover preview tend to trigger 'jumpy' spurious previews. So now it's a preview button on the top editing toolbar.
>
> 🔑 Added a keyboard shortcut: Hit the Esc key shortcut to preview in rich text.
>
> ✅ Fixed some bugs where the raw text was overflowing out of preview mode.
>
> ✅ Fixed the bug on mobile view where the back to home button overlapped with the preview button on the `/write` page.
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> ✅ Added toggle off to markdown preview button on the `/write` page so that don't have to click on text to disable rich text preview mode. Thanks for feedback, @tao!

It always feels like coming home cracking open VSCode and diving into Vue.js/Nuxt.js again.
It always feels great to make some progress—no matter how tiny—on this special passion project.
It always feels nice to be able to update Lifeloggers on the new features and engaging them on feedback, and not feel like I'm letting them down.

I found myself looking forward to this side project weekend... more than I realised. Literally jumped out of bed earlier to get cracking, foregoing some quality sleep. I guess that's a good sign?

Weekends had not felt more fun in a while.

I started my first day of April cleaning up my Twitter follows, unfollowing more than 1000 of my 2k follows. Now I follow about 700, a good ratio, thanks to the analyses from the Twitter alogorithm going open source.

Perhaps that's a sign that April is going to be a month of purging and spring cleaning.

My desk is cluttered af. I've not touched it for more than a year. My work space is slowly becoming a warehouse, with cardboard boxes and unused furniture crowding up behind and beside me. My cabinet and bookshelves have not seen a cleaning towel for *years*. I have old letters I kept from more than 5 years ago. Around the house, things are starting to break down. A flickering light bulb. Badly flaking paint. Many tiny repair jobs that needs the man of the house to work on.

Living in a tidy, clean and sane space is a form of self care.

And since the start of the pandemic, I mostly forgot about self care because I was either too sleep deprived, too tired, too busy, or too stretched to care. But things are fine now. I don't need to be in crisis mode anymore. I can self care beyond the immediate, to the nice-to-have stuff like clutter.

It's also timely, because I have about one month before the start of my next sprint of coaching and consulting in May. I do need some downtime. And there's no better time during this downtime to finally spring clean my space and by extension, my mindscape.

Not just physical space, but mental, for work, life and everything else.

👁 Updated Markdown preview is here. Previously you hover your cursor outside of the text area to preview in rich text. Based on feedback and dogfooding, found that the hover preview tend to trigger 'jumpy' spurious previews. So now it's a preview button on the top editing toolbar.

✅ Fixed some bugs where the raw text was overflowing out of preview mode.

The nice momentum in February for building didn’t last through March. Fact is, I got busy with consulting and coaching. Public speaking always takes a lot out of me, so with that meant I had limited energy for indie hacking.

All good though. The consulting was necessary. Funds are running low again and that helped eased the anxiety.

Ultimately, there is no hurry. It’s a marathon. Even if I thought I was a charging elephant.


Mar revenue:
Current MRR (all from Lifelog): $109 (•$0)
One-off revenue: $896 (↑$141)
Total revenue: $1005 (↑$141)
Total costs = $323
Total profit: $682 (↑$203) (excl. consulting revenue)
Profit margin: 68%

Yesterday I fell into a rabbit hole of building. Here's what went down:

- Added [animated gradient buy buttons](https://plugins.carrd.co/#mobilenavbarpro) to my site just for fun. Wasn't serious nor thinking about conversion rates. Just wanted to try something random, learn some new CSS, for a few minutes.
- "Oh that was fun!" Then went on to add it to the "power up" part of my [hero tagline](https://plugins.carrd.co) – "Plugins, widgets, scripts to power up your Carrd sites". The animated gradient works well here as it made "power up" look like it's charging.
- Felt inspired! Then went on to create a all-new product - an [animated gradient buttons template](https://animatedgradientbuttons.carrd.co) on Carrd.

And that was most of my day gone by the time the dust settled. All because of surge of random inspiration.

The weird thing is... You know what people often say about inspiration: Don't wait for it. Inspiration is fickle. Go with consistency instead.

I used to be that guy. I was the "consistency guy". Defending consistency over inspiration was a hill I'd die on.

But lately, I'm having a more nuanced view.

It's not inspiration *versus* consistency.
It's inspiration AND consistency.

Like... *why not both?* Consistency matters, yes. Consistency saved my ass so many times where inspiration was dry and motivation low. But when inspiration does show up, don't just ignore it and do the usual consistency stuff. Leverage the hell out of that surge of energy and ideas! It's a great opportunity to kickstart something from nothing. It's a 10x productivity moment that would be so silly to waste on doing the 'boring' consistent stuff. Do the exciting shit happening right here right now.

> Inspiration is perishable - act on it immediately." – [@naval](https://twitter.com/naval/status/1204670141734109184)

The way I see it now: Consistency is for the boring days when inspiration's away. Consistency keeps you around and ready... till inspiration returns. When it does return, drop consistency and act on inspiration. Immediately. Without guilt and holding back.

Drink it all up.

Taking time to stare into space and daydream is also part of indie hacking.


I've come to realise that this is not a nice-to-have, but a necessity. A biological need, like hunger and thirst. Anytime I get too busy and skip my weekly reviews (as I had been guilt of doing the last two months), I can feel the 'weight' of my mind bearing down on me. Everything feels more hazy and crazy. I'm carrying too many ideas and thoughts.

The staring into space and daydreaming, somehow... feels like purging. A nice kind of purging. Like spring cleaning, re-organising furniture around the house. The total amount of things inside are probably still the same, but tidier, neater, saner.

It's not like it feels like work, or like working on a task or something. Sometimes at the end, I don't feel like I've actually *done* anything. Other than just sitting there, staring blankly, listening to my music, daydreaming a bit maybe.

But perhaps this is how it really works. Just like sleep, but done when awake. You let it unfold on its own, then get up and move on like it's the most natural thing. Like waking up in the morning.

If you didn't have side-side projects and side-side-side projects, are you even an indie hacker? 😆

Seriously though, side projects are—in my opinion—one of the best ways to start a main project that you didn't know was a main project. The side project grew into one.

The upsides of starting as a side project:

- **Lower expectations.** Personally, I found the associated expectations and ambitions of starting a main project to hinder more than help. The expectations kinda blind you to what's real, what's signalled by the market and your customers. By starting as a side project, you don't take it too seriously, and can see the forest for the trees. Small bets.

- Side projects often start off as **something fun**. Play is the ultimate creator, if you ask me. You have fun, people can feel it in your product, and in your marketing too. The fun end up being infectious and helps grow the side project.

- **Engineering-as-marketing.** Sometimes we build a side project for a main project as a way for viral marketing. You had fun, learned something new, and in the process, also help bring more attention to your main project.

- **Building tools for your project** means validating a customer of one (yourself). Those tools could benefit other makers too, since it benefited you. It can go from a tool to a project in itself. Spin offs from a main project can grow into its own business.

*What other benefits are there with side projects?*

I had no idea how much I enjoy a blank calendar till recently.

I've been so busy with consulting. I mean, it's feeding the fam. I appreciate that. But ever since working from home, I've come to enjoy that routine and stability. I don't mind an occasional meeting, a networking coffee once every month or so, but I'm a happy camper if I get my routine 90% of the time.

I might have previously committed to saying that consulting will be part of my portfolio, to diversify risks and be more resilient. But man does it feel great to be able to work on my indie products day in, day out. It's like getting into the flow, only that it's over weeks and months of immersion. I remember how it felt like during the COVID years when consulting went dry and I was just working that way on my products for months. Probably most of the year. It felt like hypnosis, a nice kind. A dedication and focus that's nice to get lost in.

It's pragmatic to keep consulting in my portfolio. But I don't feel for it as much as my indie products. It's not pragmatic to just live off my indie products. But man do I feel so much more excited working on my current projects and thinking about new projects.

Pragmatic vs aspirational.

What moves money vs what moves me.

Hard choices.

Twitter Blue just arrived for Singapore! Should I should I? 🤔

But the feature I want (going to top of replies) is not launched yet. I asked in a [tweet](https://twitter.com/jasonleowsg/status/1639567810375585793) if anyone feels like their reach got better after Blue.

Some good points:

- The replies are mixed. Some said it worked. Reach increased by ~30%, follower gain picked up pace. Some cancelled after a few months because it didn't get more reach. So seems like it really depends on context like how you tweet, quality of tweets, your following size, or even algo changes etc.
- But also watch out for self-fulfiling bias due to being more invested. Pay, feel more invested, starts tweeting/engaging more, then get more views. Could be why some say it worked?
- The blue tick does have some benefits for signalling authenticity and social status. An account with the blue tick is less likely to be percieved as a spam account or bot. That's exactly what Blue is meant to do, to verify accounts. There's also some legacy associative memory where people see accounts with the blue tick as a big deal.
- Some nifty features I didn't know came with Blue – ability to change the app icon, and a thread reader view.
- And of course, you can finally edit tweets, and post longer tweets. I'll likely stick to the 280 character limit as I like the brievity, but awesome (less annoying) to know that I don't have to edit the tweet if I'm just off by a few characters!

I mean, in the end, this is a monthly subscription, and at the price of two lattes per month, it's not much to ask. I can always cancel it if it doesn't work. Besides, it's a marketing expense, an investment back into the business. No need to over-think it!

I'm going to experiment for a few months to see if there's a delta in impressions and engagement. Since March is coming to a close, I'll buy Blue on April 1st (not a joke! 😂) to start the tracking properly.

A happy problem is when you got consulting projects that keep the family fed and revenue-generating indie projects that's growing steadily, but no time for side projects.

There's always work to do for the former two. I'm busy 24/7 with something revenue-generating. It's like a fulltime job in itself! But that means side projects get sidelined. Or even ignored. I don't want that. I want to bet on those bets too. Having side projects sustains me as a maker, keeps me going in the long term. I just love the variety – that's why I have a portfolio of product to start with! The things I learn from side projects help me level up, and eventually level up my revenue-generating projects too.

So I'm going to do what those with fulltime jobs do: Work on side projects on the weekend. That way I can chip at it consistently.

A few things I really want to get a move on:

- Improving editing features for Lifelog
- Building and launching career conversation cards project
- Pivoting Sheet2Bio
- Building and launching my social good project Inclusive Design SG
- Improving on Keto List Singapore, 5am creators
- Building whatever's fun or rejuvenating

I'm a fulltime indie solopreneur, but part-time side hustler.

Straight from [James Clear's newsletter](https://jamesclear.com/3-2-1/march-23-2023) today:

> "A phrase I heard recently and found useful: I agree with the idea, but I disagree with the tone. Many ideas get dismissed because they are delivered in a cocky or hostile or dismissive tone—or because of who delivers them. Separate substance from style."

Brilliant way to convey the state of most public discourse online. I wrote about [the price of going viral on LinkedIn](https://golifelog.com/posts/the-price-of-going-viral-on-linkedin-1678780500067), how I didn't enjoy the overly-harsh and caustic comments, even if the points were educational.

The words by James Clear would have been a perfect reply. Writing this out now for my past haters, and for future haters:

> "Hi there. Good points. I agree with them, but disagree with the tone you delivered them with. I prefer to engage in online discussion in a civil and polite manner. Your words felt harsh, judgemental, and caustic. Even condescending. Of course, you can speak any way you want to strangers online. It's your right, and I can't expect you to bend to my preferences. Likewise, I have my right on how I like to receive comments. I'm happy to continue this conversation if you don't mind changing the tone of your delivery. If you do mind, then we'll have to cut this conversation off here. Thanks."

*What do you think of this letter?*

When it comes to product ideas, call me old school but I'll choose boring-but-useful over original-but-nice-to-have any day.

Boring but useful is better because:

- What's boring are often the things that are perceived as dated, legacy, but actually lasting and evergreen. Instead of chasing fads and trends, Jeff Bezos asked "What's not going to change in the next 10 years?" Lindy effect is also at play here. The older something is, the more likelihood it will continue to be around in the future. It will age in reverse, like how Nassim Taleb puts it in his book *Antifragile*:

> "If a book has been in print for forty years, I can expect it to be in print for another forty years. But, and that is the main difference, if it survives another decade, then it will be expected to be in print another fifty years. This, simply, as a rule, tells you why things that have been around for a long time are not "aging" like persons, but "aging" in reverse. Every year that passes without extinction doubles the additional life expectancy. This is an indicator of some robustness. The robustness of an item is proportional to its life!"

- Less competition, because nobody likes to work on boring products. Few have the lasting power for sustained effort on boring products. Everyone chases shiny new tech, the latest hot thing. You might get some competition on boring products, but hang around a few years—a decade—and many will drop off.

- Being around longer means more resources and help are available. I remember when I was learning to code, I went with Rails because it's stable, been around longer, and has loads of support, resources and communities. There's pages of results on Stack Overflow when you have a question. It would have been suicide trying to learn coding on some new Javascript library where few people had tried.

- Between useful and nice-to-have, useful is more durable. After the hype dies (it always does), your cool app will fade. If you're helping someone solve a real problem, address a real need, it's more likely to stay around.

*Caveat: One might object and say, why not both original AND useful? Suuuure. Who wouldn't want that? But it's rare. 0.00001% of the time you're lucky enough to land on something that's both original and useful. But let's be real here: Most of our ideas belong in either camp. So let's work with what most mere mortals have.*

So if I have to bet on an idea, I'm betting on the boring than the original.

Boring > original.

The one-time payment business model is something I've been leaning more and more towards too.

Don't know if it's people having subscription fatigue, or that it just makes more sense for my type of products, but I've been enjoying this approach. Mostly through my Carrd plugins project.

Some reasons why:

- The effort is more upfront, but the recurring effort seems less. Definitely feel like it has less commitment.
- It's more transactional in nature. Pay, deliver and mutual obligations are done, most of the time. Sometimes, some customers need some support and help. But so far—at least for my plugins—it's in the minority than majority. (Side-note: Getting lots of support requests is also a sign that you might need to improve your product or onboarding or documentation)
- You capture the lifetime value (LTV) of a customer upfront. Some say, monthly recurring revenue (MRR) is simply LTV in instalments. In some ways, it's not wrong! With MRR, someone churns midway and you capture less of the LTV.
- With some types of products like ebooks and digital downloads, you can really leverage the build once, sell thrice approach. You might not even need to constantly update or add new features to the product (unlike for say, SaaS).
- Instead of building new features, you might have to build more products and have provide tiered offerings. Which is something that suits me great because I enjoy variety!
- We don't always need to acquire completely new customers (higher costs of acquisition) every month if you have a spectrum of offerings. Returning customers buying upgrades or cross-sells are a viable strategy too.
- It feels refreshing to get one-time payment because everyone's going to subscriptions model, even for a car! Perhaps this is betting against subscription fatugue or a novelty factor.
- One-time payments makes it easier for impulse buys. It's a weird bias where we hesitate over a $9/month subscription but don't think twice over a $100 one time payment. I wonder if it's tied to how we struggle more with being able to predict our preferences over a longer time span versus something bought and paid for right here right now.

*What other reasons do you think makes one-time payments a good business model to try?*

I'm generally wary of the AI hype now, but to be fair, it's great for some tasks. Yesterday I used ChatGPT today to explain a piece a code I wrote, as a commit note to myself for future reference. It was for a plugin.

That saved me many minutes trying to find the right words!

I could do with more codesplaining!
Where was this when I started learning coding?!


I mean, people had been using GPT-3 for boilerplate code for some time now, and it's great, agree. Explaining code felt like a use case that's really standout and unique though, and tapped on ChatGPT's strengths as a language model. We could always get template code even before AI came along, but a service explaining code to a coding noob? Not sure I came across it before until recently.

And codesplaining is also great for debugging too! As it explained my code line by line, it reminded me that I have a variable that I left in there that isn't used (I forgot to delete). Just brilliant!

I've not tried any dedicated codesplaining apps/extensions, and I wonder if there's a market for them? 🤔

A quick Google search for "code explainers" and there's already a whole bunch of them:

https://explain.dev/
https://denigma.app/
https://www.explaincode.app/
https://www.figstack.com/app/explain
https://docs.replit.com/power-ups/ghostwriter/explain-code

*Ok so lots of options already... market validated?*
*OMG some are really good, like explain.dev*
*But what can I bring to the table that's unique?*

*So am I gonna do it or what?*

Thanks to the timely nudge by [@randomshenans](https://twitter.com/randomshenans/status/1637791762990112769), I am now the proud owner of codesplainingai.com:


Now comes the hard part. 😅

I was today years old when I learned that Nike invented jogging. The founders of Nike partnered with a doctor to write a book called Jogging that outlined the benefits of regular jogging. Before this, only athletes did jogging. Then after a while, it got popular and went mainstream. And Nike sold more shoes.

> Following the endorsement of health professionals, the release of Jogging, and the cachet of athletes and celebrities who jogged, the new sport broke through to the mainstream. – via [Vox](https://www.vox.com/2015/8/9/9115981/running-jogging-history)

I'll be damned.

I've jogged all my life, some periods competitively, some for health. I've loved it, competed in it, did it with friends, and I never knew it was invented to sell more shoes.

Not for health or fitness or sportsmanship.

Sometimes I feel adulthood is like learning that everything you thought you knew was a lie. Jogging as Nike's product is one such moment.

But yet at the same time as an entrepreneur, I can't help but feel impressed.

Nike didn't just make sneakers. They also created something that tapped into the underlying human needs that would drive sneaker sales.

The need to be healthy and fit.
The desire to follow those with high social status.

All through this activity called jogging.

Wild.

And here we are, indie solopreneurs, making little toy widgets on the internet and calling it entrepreneurship. These guys in the 60s were inventing a whole lifestyle, conjuring up wants where there were none.

Jogging.

What's the jogging equivalent for indie hackers?

Sundays are rest, and talking about rest. It's so important to know when to rest when you work for yourself.

I've always thought rest is just unplugging, but recently learned there's 2 types:

• rest - unplugging, stop draining the battery, passive rest
• rejuvenation - charging the battery, gives energy, active rest

Rest is when we have a digital detox, putting your phone to airplane mode, leaving it at home, and not going online for a week. Rest is not working and not thinking about work. Rest is staying home and chillaxing, or taking a restful long nap. Rest is waking up after 10h of great sleep, all sleep debt repaid. I imagine reading a book, writing a journal, cooking a meal, having a nice, slow, mindful lunch. Rest is Sundays. Rest is passive. Rest stems the energy outflow, so that there's not more output than input.

Rejuvenation is different from rest. Rejuvenation is active. It's like investing money – give energy to gain energy. Rejuvenation is a walk in the woods, a swim in the sea. Rejuvenation is going for a comfortable run and feeling more alive and alert after. Rejuvenation is doing art, working with your hands, working on a weekend project. It's being totally embodied in an activity that captures not just your attention but your soul. Rejuvenation expends some energy but tops it back up with more.

And we need both. Rejuvenation is not better than rest, nor is rest.

I tend to like doing rest first, to recover and slow down a bit, especially after an intense tiring project or season. Then as I start to get bored or restless and feel my energy levels returning, I get into rejuvenation to top me back up and beyond. And that brings about the next season of intense building again, which then empties me out. Rinse and repeat again.

So in code speak:

Rest !== rejuvenation
Rest && rejuvenation

Where are the 70-80 year old indie hackers?

Honest question, because I would really love to know. And follow them, learn how they're living their life while still indie hacking. I don't know anyone in their 70-80s who's on Twitter and building in public.

Are there any *at all*? Or do indie hackers just retire and do something else?

I want to know, because in 20-30 years, I'm going to find out. And just super curious if indie hacking till you're 70-80 is even possible. Would I be too sick or frail to even sit on a chair in front of a computer? Or would I rather be playing with my grandkids? Would I still need to work? What if I gotta still hustle then? If I'm still indie hacking, would I still be building for profit, or building for fun?


I asked Midjourney about it, and generating this image had been fun. It also prompted some daydreaming.

I frankly wouldn't mind that kind of 'retirement' lifestyle. A cabin in the woods, but not off grid. Near enough to the city for healthcare, but far enough for peace and quiet. A rustic place, yet having all the infrastructure of modern urban apartment. Starlink, wifi, computer, air-conditioning. A few hours of indie hacking work in the morning, out in the front yard. Building products for fun, for joy, for social good. When tired, I take break tending to a tomato and herb garden. We eat local produce that's in season, cooked fresh every day. On hot summer days, go swim in a lake. On cold rainy snowy days, snuggle in the cabin reading.

That's nice. Very nice.

Not a bad way to be a 70-80 year old indie hacker.

If AI is replacing all our jobs, what opportunities should you look for?

High 'touch' work, that requires physical skill or human connection – plumbers, farmers, nurses, therapists, social workers.

High tech work, that requires super technical/specialised skill – like building rockets, AI, robotics.

And within a continuum of human employment, avoid the jobs in the middle because the middle is the part that will be hollowed out by AI. The assumption is that many jobs in the middle are easy to automate. If your job—any job—requires just a ChatGPT query to get done then it's likely to get disrupted. Not 100% of course, but many.

So what does this imply for indie solopreneurs? What opportunities are there for us indies?

- **Work on human relationships.** Be authentic in personal branding and marketing. Build trust with customers. Show personality and embrace your weirdness. Provide first class "human-powered" support. Collaborate. Show empathy, be kind. Be helpful, stay nice. Humans still like to interact with other humans – that's not going to change.
- **Make something that AI can't easily generate out of the box.** The success of a product isn't just the code or the marketing copy alone. It's also human creativity in finding a great niche/opportunity. It's combining technologies in interesting ways. It's working on hardware, software, wetware together. AI can't replicate those.

It's being things AI can't be that we will stand out.

Be unlike AI.

Be even more utterly human than we are right now.

I've been having a launch problem. Built too many plugins, but launched too little. In February, I want to build build build. But I forgot it needs to be paired with another critical action:

Launch launch launch.

And I made 7 plugins recently, but lanched only 1!

What's holding me back? The classic dilemma of work I enjoy versus the work I don't enjoy.

I love building and creating, but don't enjoy making the tutorials for it. That's always been the weak point in pipeline for me. I procrastinate procrastinate procrastinate till like 1-2 months later before the guilt of not launching finally snowballs into a big enough mass to get me to act.

So what can I do? What hacks can I try to ensure I don't skip on work I hate?

Help me out here:

- Lower the bar: Every day do one ridiculously small task at a time.
- Leverage inspiration: Write the tutorial immediately after making plugin.
- Outsource: Hire a copywriter to write the tutorial (but requires familiarity with the code)
- Commit: Recognise the ridiculousness of this problem and just f**king do it.

I think I know which solution to choose now.

I used to have lots of preconceived notions of what I want for my products and what I don't want. Trawling through my old writings back when I just started indie hacking, I once [wrote these](https://jasonleow.github.io/200wordsaday/articles/how-do-i-make-a-million-dollars-6-running-a-calm-not-crazy-business-250065d54061da0c67/index):

> So here’s me saying “no” to how I would want to run a calm business on the internet, hereon:
>
> - I’ll stay a company of one. A solo business. No investors, no business partners. Less co-workers, less drama. But occasional (good) freelancers are fine.
> - Health and fitness as NUMBER 1 priority. What would your schedule look like if health was top priority? No, seriously. Reschedule a meeting, a call, a task or anything if I don’t have enough sleep and exercise.
> - Work normal hours. Work 4, or even 3, days a week. Be lazy.
> - Tell customers upfront (politely) that support is available only during work days and work hours in my timezone. No weekends, no late nights.
> - Self-help by default, as much as possible. Help customers help themselves.
> - Build relationships. Know customers by name.
> - Don’t use “we”, use “me”. Act small, not corporate. Be intentionally tiny, but human.
> - No empty promises just because “the customer is always right”. Just to polite and honest about the difficulties.
> - No roadmap. Get customers to buy what the product is today, not what it is in the future.
> - Set a upper revenue/profit limit. Close shop for the day/month/year when that’s achieved. Go travel, surf, spend time with family.
> - Be lifestyle business proud. I am in this for the lifestyle.
> - No growth (buying more assets, ads, hiring) unless it’s cheaper to do so.
> - No growth hacking for growth’s sake. Intentional and selective growth, where it makes sense.
> - Automate, automate, automate. Use bots, cron jobs, scripts, or even VAs to remove manual hassles as much as possible, as early as possible, but not too early.
> - Leverage tech as default for scalability, beyond the bottleneck of me. Labour, if it can’t be automated, and last, capital.
> - No open startup data, without context. Envy and jealousy are easier on the internet than inspiration, if context is not set properly. Be transparent selectively, where it makes sense, where it authentically helps.
> - Email by default, call for discussions. No coffees, no meetings unless it’s an emergency. Just simply say “My calendar doesn’t allow. Hope you are well.” Don’t apologise, don’t say sorry, just say no nicely but firmly.
> - Profit from Day 1. In the black over in the red, always. When in the red, it’s always crazy. Calm is in the black.
> - Have fun. The moment you’re too serious about your goal, you’re inching it out of reach. Set a random, funny goal alongside your big one.

No this, no that.

Okay, some might still apply because they are based on certain core values that's tied to my personality and outlook on life. But for most other business-related ones—like no ads, profit from day 1, email by default—it's simply not grounded in reality and context. It just something that sounded nice in theory, something that I wear because "I'm an indie hacker", but has no basis in any experience in the market or real life. Frankly, they're just newbie naivety.

Few years on, for my Plugins project, I'm actually trying affiliate marketing. I just published my first [guest blog post](https://starrt.co/blog/mobile-responsive-nav-menu). I'm kinda partnering with other Carrd makers to cross promote. I bought ads. I'm spent $150 on one sponsored ad on a fellow indie maker's newsletter – the single biggest reinvestment I've made so far (I used to keep every cent). I run upsells, and try out promo codes. I'm thinking of how future projects could be set up for acquisition/sale.

Essentially, I'm trying anything that works.

I mean, sure I've still got a baseline of ethics and boundaries I wouldn't cross. Like no cheating, manipulation. Nothing illegal or grey in the law. No ponzis. Stuff that most people can agree on. But beyond that, everything's open to exploration. No lame rules, unless it's been proven in the realities of a real market. No utopian ideals and borrowed narratives on how things *should* be done, instead focusing on what the data shows that *needs* done. No over-identifying with a label or a group of people. No undue emotional investment in my "baby".

No inhibitions. No preconceived notions.

Just doing it what needs to be done, my own way. Just focused equanimity.

I like this.

It smells like I've grown up a bit as an indie hacker.

Some products are better suited for a portfolio of small bets approach than others. A recent reply from [@imgracehuang](https://twitter.com/imgracehuang/status/1634789422808854530) on Twitter got me thinking:

> When I consider what projects to work on, I prefer the ones which require upfront effort but no recurring effort. This way, I can do one thing at a time but do once.

Upfront effort versus recurring effort – what a neat way to sum it up!

I’ve actually been thinking a lot about this approach too, when thinking about my next project. Just that never found the words to describe it so well.

Digital downloads like info products, PDFs on Gumroad, one-time license for software, or code snippets like my Carrd plugins, seems perfect for this upfront effort approach. SaaS, on the other hand... requires too much recurring effort, in terms of building/updating features, maintenance and support.

I guess that's why in the indie space some folks object to the portfolio approach. They are usually SaaS makers who can't see beyond their own SaaS projects that a different world of indie solopreneurship is possible. And those arguing that a portfolio of small bets work in all contexts also fail to realise it's just "an" approach, amongst many others.

Ultimately, it's up to the maker's own preference. What are you optimising for? What's your end game?

For me, I'm aiming for lifestyle. Something that allows me the life I want, rather than me having to build my life around it.

A one-time payment product with low support/maintenance, requiring substantial upfront effort but low recurring effort, something I can mostly build once and sell multiple times. That allows for a lot more freedom of lifestyle. Compared to SaaS, where you got to even bring your laptop along when you're on vacation, or need to be on alert even at 3am because server crashed.

So, I think I nailed one of the criteria I want for my next product.

High upfront effort, low recurring effort.

We just went to hang out at the airport yesterday. Yes, it's a weird thing we do in Singapore. Our airports are like destinations in itself. Shopping mall, food, and entertainment all rolled into one. Of course it helps that our airport looks like this:


Airports always had a special place in my heart.

Before the pandemic when I worked at cafes everyday, I used to enjoy coming to the airport to work. The vibe here is just different. There's an air of excitement, anticipation, and aliveness that comes from people who are either departing for overseas travel or arriving as a visitor. I love soaking in that buzz. Even if I wasn't travelling, just being there gives me a feeling of hope and optimistism for life. Seeing visitors from other countries marvel at my country gives a funny sense of pride, and allows me to see my own country through fresh eyes.

The departure and arrival halls are one of my favourite places to hang out and people-watch. There you see human affection and love in full display. People saying goodbyes with longing in their eyes to one another at departure. Folks arriving and scanning the crowd for their loved one with a confused look in their eyes, and then the surprise and joy of finally finding them, and the hugs that follow.

If you want to restore faith in humanity, airports are the place to be.