If you always wanted to build your own apps but lacked the coding skills or the courage, then this story will definitely inspire you. I have a Google Sheet full of product ideas I have been collecting for years. But as you probably guessed, I haven’t really done anything to test these ideas. 🤷 I’m pretty sure this sounds familiar to you. The main reason? I’m not a coder. Back then, I had no idea how to create a single website—not even a simple web application. I was in a mental trap. I told myself I was unable to learn code.
In 2018, I sat down for the annual reflection and planning for the next year. I had big plans for 2019. Massive ones. Back then, I had an extensive list of app ideas I wanted to test but never really started taking action and actually doing the work. The biggest blocker was my coding skills. So at the end of 2018, I decided to finally take serious action and (1) learn to code, (2) build products. I carefully planned my year, setting pretty stretchy goals. Btw, you can check out how I plan my year here. The plan was…
Quick story 🗺️Fast forward todayI used to think I was unable to learn code, but one day, I took a website development course on Udemy where I built a website from scratch, and that triggered a series of events. I gained confidence (a beginner web dev course makes magic) and started building websites. Since then, I built my first very simple web app using JavaScript (more on this in a further post). And there will be many more to come! Without that course, I probably would still be just thinking about my ideas without taking action, pitying myself because I…
It’s unbelievable. More than 50% of the year is gone. This means a brutally honest check on my progress. I have never done this before. In the last few years, I’ve held only year-end reflections on my progress. This year is going to be different. This mid-year reflection allows me to check on my progress and to make the necessary corrections to get closer to my yearly goals or even to modify my goals. In January, I decided to ship 10 products in 2019, while working full-time and doing 7 hours/week consulting for a startup. You can read more about…
Here is the next, not so well structured update on my progress. The reason I write these is to keep myself accountable, take some time to think things through and share everything I’ve learned. More than 40% of the year is already gone, and 4 out of 10 products were shipped. And honestly, this makes me a little nervous. I have some great product ideas for the coming months, but I’m not having fast enough progress with coding. This month, I spent only 3 hours on learning NodeJS (which plays an essential part in building my next products). Since I need…
Monthly update #3: Selling a side project and other exciting things The last 2 months was a real roller coaster ride with slightly more downsides. Due to my full-time job and consulting obligations, I had much less time to work on my projects and improve my coding skills. This put huge pressure on me since that would have meant I had to perform well on at least 3 fronts. And that’s not possible without spreading myself thin. So, I decided to focus on my job and consulting and spend less time on sharpening my coding skills and building new apps. Apart…
Two months have already gone. Time flies super fast, especially if you’re extremely busy. Honestly, this month was much harder than I expected. At my full-time job, we’re publishing a new report, and I had to coordinate the whole thing, making sure things worked as expected. Also, there are many smaller things that had to be done in a relatively short time. Besides my full-time job, I spend 5 hours a week consulting a startup on growth. So, only weekends and late nights remained for coding. At this point, I’m spending a bit more time doing video courses and reading…
How to Automatically Generate MailChimp Campaigns Using Google SheetIf you need to send a lot of emails using MailChimp, then this post is exactly for you. I built an app that requires me to send a lot of emails every month. This app is TVPremiereAlert where I send personalized alerts to TV show fans on the premiere day of their favorite TV shows. I got tired of copying and pasting templates and manually editing the MailChimp campaign emails one by one. It takes a lot of time, and there is a great chance for error, and it just kills my…
I wanted to give a quick update on my progress of building 10 products this year. I intend to show you exactly how things happen, how I tackle my ups and downs and share all the things I learn about myself and shipping products. Since 8.3% of the year is already gone 😱, here is the first update. Foods Dogs Can Eat: an app that checks if a given human food is good or bad for your dog. You can check it on PH, it was the 4th product of the day. Revenue generated: $0 It’s not the most crucial goal…
I didn’t quit my job but will build 10 products this yearThere are many stories about people who yelled YOLO, quit their jobs and started building things. I admire those people, but I took a different approach. I keep my job while spending most of my free time launching 10 products (MVPs) this year and also aiming to reach 1000 dollars revenue per month. Every single time I came up with a new product idea to test, I hit a roadblock. I can’t code. The next logical step would have been to learn to code and build my own stuff, right?…
Personal OKR: A Bulletproof Way to Plan Your YearThis is a new year. New year = new big plans. Do you want to write a book? Learn to code? Launch that business you were always dreaming about? No matter what you want to achieve, this post is for you if you have big plans for this year. The thing is, we all have great plans, but somehow, execution slips away and we realize in the middle of the year that we haven’t made any progress towards our goal. And man, that hurts. But obviously, you’re here because you want to…
