#1 - Nov. 2023 - My first month as a solopreneur
Mixed feelings between enjoying freedom at work and struggling with time management
A month has already passed since I started my journey as a solopreneur, after leaving my last 9-to-5 job, and if I have to sum it up in one word: freedom. Freedom to choose the projects I want to work on. Freedom to work whenever I want, wherever I want. And most importantly, freedom for my inner creativity. I'll come back to that later.
But this freedom comes with a price. Unfortunately, it's not all fun and easy, at least for now. I'm sure it will change at some point when I start receiving money from my product subscriptions and when I receive gratitude for my work from my community and customers. But for now, I don't earn any money at all, and only one of my projects has been released.
And I’m fine with that. It’s an investment, in myself, for a better future (hopefully 🤞).
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Takeaways
If you want to skip the whole thing, here’s a summary of what happened during this past month.
🤯 The first struggle: UI/UX. It can be a real challenge if you're not a designer. It's actually harder than I thought to find inspiration for app screens.
🤯 The second struggle: time management. This is another challenge for me, because I have to start everything from scratch while keeping a busy schedule outside of work.
💡 Creativity is back! My brain is always buzzing and brainstorming to come up with new ideas. It's both exciting and a bit overwhelming at the same time.
🎯 My first 50 followers on 𝕏 (Twitter): November 16 2023
🔥 My first “viral“ tweet: November 18 2023 (Check it out here @VivienMahe)
🚀 My first app as a solopreneur: It has been released but I made mistakes.
🤯 The first struggle: UI/UX
When I started working on my project, the first challenge I faced was finding inspiration for the UI/UX. The project is a small mobile app which allows users to create their own workouts using training cones to help improve mobility and reflexes. The app is built with Kotlin Multiplatform and Jetpack Compose, targeting both Android and iOS platforms. I had the idea, the code wasn’t an issue, but the UI/UX drove me crazy.
I gave it a shot, but it didn't quite hit the mark. I didn't get the vibe I was going for, so I scrapped it and gave it another go, then another. Even after browsing through the popular tools like Mobbin, Dribbble, Pinterest for some inspiration, I still wasn't feeling it. I started getting a bit frustrated.
I didn't wanna waste too much time, so I had two options: either ditch this project for now and start working on something else, or accept that it's not perfect and just release the app as it is and then improve it later. After a few days hesitating, I decided to go with the first option. I accepted the fact that it's not perfect but at least I now have my MVP and I’m cool with it.
So, if you ever find yourself in the same situation I was in, just remember: time is a very valuable resource, especially when you're going solo. Every minute you spend working on a new project is money not coming in your pocket. So make quick decisions about your MVP, get it out there, and then make improvements as you go along.
Talking about time..
🤯 The second struggle: time management
So, there have been quite a few changes in my life lately, both at work and in my personal life.
On the professional side, I ditched my boring and lazy 9-to-5 job as a mobile app engineer in October 2023 to kickstart an exciting and busy career as a solopreneur. Being a solopreneur means you gotta handle everything by yourself. (Unless you're already generating income and can hire someone to help you with some tasks.) These days, I'm all about coding, building a community, hunting down cool and affordable tools to improve my productivity, staying up to date with new technologies, writing for my newsletter, building my personal brand, and much more.
On the personal side, sports play a big role. I was already into table tennis as a competitive player and hitting the gym 4 times a week. And guess what? I decided to add another sport: cheerleading. So now I'm juggling these three sports, which takes up around 20 hours of my week. And to make things even more intense, because of the physical demands on my body, I now have to squeeze in physiotherapist appointments regularly to prevent any possible injuries.
Yeah, it's a lot. But I don’t wanna let go of any of these sports as long as I can handle everything else.
After the first couple of weeks with this rhythm, I quickly realized that I wasn't being productive enough, my time management wasn't on point. I had to switch things up if I wanted to hit my goals and meet my deadlines.
So, here's what I've got for now. I've narrowed it down to two actions that I'll be testing over the next few weeks/months to see if they make a difference:
Meal prep: So, I used to cook every single day, like twice a day, which honestly took up so much of my time. But now, I've started cooking just once or twice a week. I have no idea why I never even considered meal prepping before 🤷♂️
Planning for the upcoming week: I used to be all about living in the moment, not really into making detailed plans ahead of time. It was easy when I had a regular 9-to-5 job with a clear job description because, as a developer, it’s not your role.
What about you? Have you come across the same issues? If yes, how did you manage to sort them out? I'm pretty curious to hear your thoughts on this. Feel free to drop a comment and let me know!
💡 Creativity is back!
As an engineer, working as an employee kinda kills your creativity. You're hired to do the tasks you're asked, mostly the same ones over and over again. You don't have much freedom to do what you really wanna do. And with AI coming in strong these past months, you quickly get that your job will be replaced with AI, simply because you don't add any additional and unique value. (Look what Github Copilot or ChatGPT can do with coding…).
So, here's another thing I figured out when I made the switch from my regular ol' 9-to-5 gig to being my own boss - my brain never stops looking out for new ideas or ways to make things better. And I mean never stops, seriously, it even wakes me up at night! I can't even remember when was the last time my brain was buzzing with so many ideas. It's insane! I gotta write down every single one of them on a Notion note to make sure I don't let anything slip away.
🎯 My first 50 followers on 𝕏 (Twitter)
I gotta admit, I wasn't really into 𝕏 until this year, it just wasn't my thing. But I knew I had to jump on the 𝕏 train and start getting involved if I wanted to connect with other solopreneurs/indie hackers to learn from them, share knowledge and tips, and get enough visibility for when I release my products.
So I started following accounts of other solopreneurs, whether they are big accounts or small ones like mine. I mostly used the hashtags #indiemakers and #buildinpublic to find them. And I started engaging with some of them, about their content, their ideas and sharing tips.
And on November 16th 2023, I achieved the first milestone of 50 followers! 😁 It may not seem like a lot, but as someone who is new to 𝕏, I was truly happy.
I'm not really aiming for a huge number of followers, I'd rather have a small group of high-quality followers. I don't take 𝕏 too seriously, I just see it as a fun game. 🙂
🔥 My first “viral“ tweet
So, I'm kind of new to 𝕏, and honestly, I don't really get the whole algorithm thing yet. Most of my tweets get like, 0 to 5 likes, maybe a few comments here and there, and a few views. But then on November 18th 2023, I randomly posted this tweet about a tip for Jetpack Compose, and boom! It went viral! Well, at least according to my scale.
About 10 reposts, 40 bookmarks, 90 likes and almost 10k views! And I gain about 20 followers thanks to this tweet, that’s crazy!
I honestly don't get why this happened, maybe just pure luck. But if you wanna grow your 𝕏 community, I'd suggest not stressing about it too much, just tweet about things you wanna share and let the fun happen!
🚀 My first app as a solopreneur
It's been a whole month already since I started working on my first app as a solopreneur and I finally released it. But here are a couple of mistakes that I made:
Wasted too much time: I feel like I could've done a better job to get it out sooner. There weren't any technical challenges and I knew exactly what I wanted. If I had just made quicker decisions for the UI/UX and managed my time better, I could've had it ready for launch in just 3 weeks.
Didn’t build in public: To be honest, I gotta say, I never really felt all that comfy with the whole idea of talking publicly about a project before it’s even launched. I mean, it freaked me out, you know? Like, what if someone stole my idea and released it before me? So, I just went ahead and developed this first app all by myself and never said a word about it in public. And now, I regret it because I realize I don't have a user base to test out the app, give me feedback, and maybe even buy a subscription.
But hey, what's done is done, right? The important thing is to learn from our mistakes and make sure we don't repeat them in the future.
Alright, here's my advice if you wanna work on your first project:
Focus on your MVP and it’s okay if it’s not perfect. You can make improvements once it's released.
Build in public: talk about your idea as soon as possible. Don't hesitate to seek advice and start building an audience that matches your target. Create some buzz around it. That way, when you're all set to launch your product, you'll already have a bunch of people eager to use and buy it.
🎬 And that's all for this post, folks!
I wanted to share everything that went down this November 2023 to keep things transparent.
What are your thoughts? Did you come across the same challenges or different ones?
Drop a comment below and let me know, I'm all ears for any feedback! This is my first post, so go easy on me 😁