Notes
My personal notebook for dumping ideas, thoughts, learnings, and all sorts of things that catch my attention.
Loyalty
Microsoft has laid off yet another big round. Someone has worked for nearly 2 decades, made significant contributions, and is still one of those.
Some people criticize the young for not being loyal and always changing jobs every 1 or 2 years, but do the layoff events make them think otherwise?
A milestone
Thuan has been a collaborator working on Win7 Simu for more than a year now. He's just agreed to work with me as a part-timer.
A milestone for me and my projects, might turn out to be one of the best decisions I will ever make. Let's see.
Advantage
I know the fact that expanding my skill horizon helps me be more versatile and get more jobs done.
But I'd rather be an expert in an area where I'm most confident and can consider my unfair advantage.
Life meaning
20-ish-year-old guys.
One is making thousands of dollars per month, raises millions more, establishes a company and is hiring, has a girlfriend and lots of talented friends.
One is living in his "mom's basement", single, no MRR, no life goals, just chilling and working on his game that no one has yet to know.
Everyone is born different, different in education, different in opportunities, different in mindset.
There's really no good or bad, right or wrong, just differences.
AI
Sometimes I feel like being left behind for not using AI in my day-to-day work.
Sometimes, not so much.
I don't know how to cope with this just yet.
A popular game
Yesterday, someone suggested a game be included with Win7 Simu.
At a glance, it doesn't look very impressive. But the author's Twitter got 1,7k followers, his YouTube got 10k subs, and 10k members in the Discord server. The game has no server, everything is stored in the local storage, no ads, no tracking, no subscriptions.
This is very intriguing.
Russian users
I don't want to be that guy, but from time to time, I get really annoyed by their behavior.
They swarm your product/service, in the most abusive way. They never want to pay, don't respect your hard work. They keep asking for more, for free. They leave random comments, totally unhelpful and irrelevant.
I can understand why some people just straight-up ban Russian IPs from their service.
Technology
They are supposed to be tools that help businesses generate money, get our job done, and improve life.
But somehow, we devs tend to worship them, willing to argue with those who criticize our choice, calling ourselves "advocates".
When you're busy doing that, someone is out there making a fortune with just jQuery or <insert_some_random_js_lib>.
Sharing = best marketing
This guy built his web agency and shared valuable insights in this Reddit comment.
Not a self-promotion, but I think it does him wonders as everything he shared is quite surprising, extremely useful, and genuine. Now, more people will know of and seek his service without him having to seek for clients actively.
The extremes pt.2
Reddit can be hostile and toxic, but it also teaches you to be honest and direct. No fluff, no cringe, no nonsense.
X can be supportive and positive, but mindlessly following everything you see there can eventually lead you to rage quit, burnout, or waste your valuable time.
B2C in a nutshell
- "$2/month is too much."
- "I don't want to pay, but you gotta do these things for me."
- "Don't show me ads, but I won't pay either."
- "Doesn't work." (proceed to rate 1* with no elaboration)
Apple vs Google fees
- Developer account: $99/year ($299/year for enterprise) vs $25 once
- Development: Mac device vs None
- Commission: 30% vs 15%
- Sideloading/3rd-party stores: No (except EU starting 2025) vs Yes
And yet there are still people worshipping Apple and their money-thirst policies... 🤷♂️
Big words
Please. Stop using them. You're not a genius. You're not one of those special folks. Faking it to make yourself look like a big deal. It's ridiculous.
- What is "a founder with 10+ startups"? Do you mean "I built 10+ useless side projects and no one helps me"?
- The hell is "changing the world, one line of code at a time" ??😃??
A negative note, I know. But it's a fact. Please, be humble and genuine. People will appreciate you more.
Titles
I never paid any attention to this before, I guess because everyone does it, it becomes normal. But somehow, lately, I've begun to realize, how obsessive people (including myself) are over titles.
"Software Engineer, Product Designer, Problem Solver, Tech Influencer, Entrepreneur..." ⁉
Well, I guess those sound way bigger and fancier. But, have you told them to people outside of your bubble (industry)? What's the point if they just don't get it, and you have to start explaining those fancy titles in a common sense?
Authenticity
I'm on a fence, not sure if I should keep having my identity concealed, or reveal myself where appropriate.
It's understandable that several platforms (e.g Product Hunt, Peerlist) prefer personal accounts over brand/company accounts for authenticity, but somehow I still feel reluctant to do so.
Being mediocre is OK
It's 12.50 AM, yet I'm still awake.
I found this Reddit post when using Google Search to see if my notes appear in search results. I read the comments there, and it's like every comment under that post touched my soul.
It feels amazing.
Marketing
As an indie maker, I enjoy building a product more than anything. I realized a fact, if I want to get sales and grow my product, people need to know it exists.
But I don't like marketing. At all. Not because I'm shy or afraid to talk about my projects. It's because, the more I'm on this side, the more I realize, marketing involves gimmicks or sometimes blatant lies to capture people's attention.
Sidephone
Just discovered this project, looks pretty damn cool!
I absolutely love the creative design, especially its retro aspect. Let's see how the final product will turn out.
(Probably there are things I can apply to Brick 1100?)
The extremes
Feeling down? Go to Reddit to cheer you up. Plenty of "sharing" about failures that will make you feel you're not a loser.
Feeling lucky? Go to X to crush your energy. People brag about their success here, $10k MRR, $1M MRR... Whatever you've achieved will never be enough, go make MORE MONEY!!!
Ads again
I'm struggling with the idea of ditching popup ads altogether for Brick 1100.
It's intrusive, ik, but it's been my major revenue source since day 1.
Idk if I can make good use of reward ads, or if I can come up with an alternative solution to improve paid user conversions...
A human nature
We see other people succeed, we feel envious. That's human nature.
It's not a bad thing if we could transform it into inspiration or motivation.
But sometimes, it's also OK to settle down. Success is not all about having a lot of money. It's about having peace of mind.
Fate
Every person has their fate defined on the day they were born.
Like it or not, we cannot change it. We can only live in a way that we won't regret.
More than money
I build retro apps for fun, and it's nice to see them making some money. But sometimes, receiving feedback like this is worth a lot more.
Corporate vs indie life
Being on both sides, I can see things from different angles. Each to its own struggles.
- Corporate: I struggle to fit in the social events, work on things I hate, can't catch a break.
- Indie: I feel mediocre, isolated, lonely, and uneasy about my financial situation.
Ads
No matter how hard I try to balance out the user experience and the ads, there are always people displeased and have bad things to say about it.
Though I enjoy working on my projects, I still need to eat, and I have a family too. If you don't want to pay for someone else's work, ads are the only way for them to sustain, you know.
Ideas for Brick 1100
QR generator, file transfer (mobile <-> web), AI-powered features...
I'm having too many ideas for Brick 1100, yet I don't know if this project will ever be "successful", and the most important thing is, I don't have that much time.
Reddit
Reddit's communities never ceases to amaze me with its hostility.
This guy made a post to vent out his frustrations about his product being abused from going viral.
He shared his "lessons", encouraging people to discriminate and permanently block countries as the very first step to "protect" their product.
Embrace the mediocre
After a long time, I've just updated my LinkedIn profile's headline to Writing code to build software for a living.
It now may look "mediocre" to other people, and that is OK.
I'm not seeking anyone else's approval. I'm not trying to live up to anyone's standards. If anyone knows me, they just know.