Lifelog

...this whole marketing thing is really a craft. Like how music is a craft, an art. Something that you can bring a craftsmanship mentality to it.

I’ll be honest: I didn’t think that way about marketing previously. It was just work tasks, to me. In retrospect, that was probably disrespectful, and somewhat belittling. This story from Sam Parr opened up my eyes to a different way to look at this whole marketing game. A perspective that I’m really liking actually. The same way I look at coding and design as a craft, as parts of my work where I can be a craftsman at.

Marketing is a craft.

And of course I forgot to update immediately after the upgrade....! Hope some of my user don't assume there's another db upgrade today! 😓

Creation is life, and creating is life-giving.

I probably have way too many projects at hand right now for my own good, but somehow I can’t stop making something new from time to time. It’s not so much about revenue returns, high growth or going viral...I can’t stop making because it helps keep me motivated on this looong indie hacker journey.

There’s something about creating and creation that’s so magically life-giving to me somehow. Something I could never put into words...But like how the magic disappears if the magician reveals the trick, perhaps it’s best to just leave it unexplained this way:

I make, therefore I am.

• Email
• Telegram
• upon login on home page

So, I made a thing again. For safe distancing rules in Singapore this time.

I realised each time I want to check the latest safe distancing restrictions, I have to google it but end up getting confused by the outdated news articles and past gov press releases.

There isn't one constant, easy-to-remember link that I can refer to each time the rules are updated. So I made one myself.

https://safedistancing.sg

🚨Currently the site shows rules for 10 Aug onwards.

I really made this for myself, but figured maybe others might have the same problem too. Hope you like this birthday present, Singapore!

Happy National Day for all the Singaporeans here!

Heroku's documentation for this is super not clear. Stuff like this just gives me anxiety!

• leveraged on the viral opportunity and posted Lifelog on Reggit, a nocode clone of Reddit made using Bubble (which I saw on HN)
• posted/commented about Lifelog in various groups in Indie Hackers

Recently, to get to alternative points of view about various social issues, I had to dig deep into more unsavoury parts of the internet. As expected, I’d find a gem on rare occasions. 90% of the time – just pure poison.

So I’m going to detox from these toxic channels for a while, and just participate in the ones that give me light.

So bye bye Facebook, some Telegram groups, local news. Especially local news.

Hello Maker Twitter, Lifelog, podcasts, Discord/Slack groups.

It’s funny how it’s the ultra-niche channels based on my passions that uplift me in dark times. And most of them are filled with strangers whom I’d never even met, and share zero commonality by location, culture or country.

But makes perfect sense now.

And a great opportunity to time to triple down on the work I love than be distracted by, pulled away, and tossed about by silly arguments on the internet.

• more engagement with pseudonymous accounts
• engaged huge following accounts
• scheduled more tweets

I need to pivot myself, from a developer/maker to a marketer.

But it doesn’t have to feel like I’m ‘selling out’, or trying to be someone I’m not. That’s the main lesson I’m drawing from reading personal struggles from folks like @dagorenouf.

That realisation, gives me hope.

I’d always yearned for a dummy’s guide to marketing for introverts. So far not come across any, but happy to be proven wrong.

That got me thinking:

What would that book contain, if it exists?

Here’s my shot in the dark, and little hacks I learned along the way:

Changing mindsets
• Addressing some of the concerns and reasons why introverts hate marketing
• Different ways to reframe marketing for introverts
• Or don’t reframe it. Stay introvert and use approaches that work for it

Tried and tested marketing approaches for introverts, by introverts
• Build in public
• Asking questions instead of talking
• Aiming to understand instead of persuade
• Having many one-on-one serial conversations instead of mass broadcast
• Planning buffer time to recharge pre and post engagement
• Helping instead of selling

List of resources to read or follow
• People to follow on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook
• Books to read, e.g. Quiet by Susan Cain
• Podcasts to listen to

What else should go in there?

• scheduled "Good morning to everyone who's ..." tweets for 1 week to experiment
• followed more pseudonym accounts
• need to identify the top 10 high follower accounts and turn on notifs for them, be first to engage and start authentic conversation
• organic engagement with other accounts - target pseudonym accounts? Faceless to faceless is fine, not weird.

• Fixed notifyxf bug (used the wrong variable on my part)
• Tried to find the bug that redirected me to home page upon publishing my post (supposed to redirect to post slug), but no luck. Works fine on local and can't reproduce it.

It’s exactly 6 mths since I started this 4am goal.

First 3 mths: Pure pain, slept too late ~10+pm, ~50-70%
4th mth: Ok getting the hang of it, via coffee naps
5th mth: Stagnating at high 70%
6th mth: Breakthru to >90% by sleeping even earlier

ONWARDS

• Added new writing prompts.
• Added bio to profile page.
• Fixed bug where comment didn't appear on post pg after commenting.
• Updated roadmap.
• Updated blog to include makerlog task logs.
• Integrated Notifyxf bot to send notifications to myself whenever I post.
• Added frequent updates banner on home page pages index.
• Added height for notifications page before data is rendered.
• Some changes to individual goal pages which I forgot - I should git commit more frequently and in-the-moment!

Week 1 - 2
5 - 8am: Coding
9am - 12noon: Daily writing
2 - 4pm: Marketing

Week 3 - 4
5 - 8am: Strategy, planning, long form writing for blog posts
9am - 12noon: Daily writing
2 - 4pm: Marketing

Rinse and repeat till 100 days are up.

• scheduled tweets on Lifelog acc, experimented with more formats/templates
• scheduled thread on personal acc last night didn't work

How to get 4 more subscribers - do things that don’t scale:
• Ask existing users to convert
• Find individuals on Twitter and cold DM them to join
• Personally reach out to individuals on other platforms like Indie Hackers and any creator-centric platform
• Keep tweeting and marketing
• Continue organic conversations with high following profiles

How to find 1 reliable distribution channel - try again, try harder, try different:
Try again:
• try scheduling more posts on quotes from famous people
• look for tweet templates and tweet them on schedule, a few times a day
Try harder:
• Research questions frequently asked about writing + goals, and write 3 blog posts about them. • Share on said platforms/communities
• Cross post on Medium, Indie Hackers, and everywhere else
• Convert blog posts into threads for Twitter
Try different:
• post in Nuxt directories
• post in product/maker directories
• try Facebook ads
• try Reddit ads
• try posting on Indie Hackers, Facebook groups
• try engineering-as-marketing: what side product can I make from my existing product? A word count tool? A writing prompts extension?

What else can I do?

• Tried something new today since I want to re-focus Lifelog on goals - engaged folks via search key words "write monthly goal" "monthly goal" using Lifelog acc
• First time ever scheduling a thread on personal acc! To test if posting later at 10pm (GMT+8) is a better time

What I think I need in terms of marketing:
• More likes, impressions, mentions, profile visits
• Less unfollows
• More followers
• Publishing a lot (tweets, threads, posts)
• More comments

What I actually need:
• More conversions, new sign-ups
• Less churn
• Better connections
• Posts that my audience find relevant, valuable, insightful, useful
• Better relationships with potential customers

Tweeted out July review on personal acc

My goals for August are simple:

• Hit $100 MRR for Lifelog (Current: $60 , so need 4 more subscribers)
• Find 1 reliable distribution channel for marketing, that I can use on a recurring basis

Other side quests:
Plugins For Carrd - there’s been requests for me to add some plugins, so will follow the energy:

card listing + search plugin
top banner plugin
product tiers: individual vs enterprise license
Tech for good - I’m planning to make yet another COVID tool for local purposes. Safe distancing restrictions in Singapore are constantly evolving, yet there doesn’t seem to be a constant ‘one-stop shop’ that people can keep referring to when new rules are announced. It’ll be a static informational site based off Google Sheets as a MVP, so shouldn’t be difficult. A next level version could be automated to crawl the relevant government websites for the right information, without needing me to manually input.

Onwards to August!

Revenue:
– MRR: $60
– One-off revenue: $641

Lifelog:
– ✅ Hit a double century (200-day streak) on Lifelog!
– ✅ 1 subscriber churned this month, but gained 1 new subscriber today! Thank you @Melanie for your support!
– ✅ Launching profile images on Lifelog - happy to have launched the feature! Also added a nifty little updates banner that syncs with a Google Sheet.
– ✅ More content marketing for Lifelog - much neglected, and happy to get back to doing it. Experimented with Twitter ads, but not much impact. Definitely need a better marketing strategy, and pin down on a distribution channel that works and is sustainable. Feeling kinda stuck.

Grublink:
❌ Didn’t do anything about my yet-to-be-launched project Grublink - just didn’t have time, and unsure about my commitment and interest to it 🤔

Plugins For Carrd - added 35 users, sold 8 plugins (US$120)

Keto List Singapore - made S$30 from ads

Sweet Jam Sites - made US$499 for making one JAMstack website!

Tech for good - launched the Giver Quiz, a quiz to find out your giving profile

Sleep biohacking - Achieved >90% on sleep score the first time ever this month! And went on to score another a few days later. Everything feels possible once you’ve done it once.

• wrote thread on personal acc using Lifelog post
• RTs on Lifelog acc