1 Month Building In Public - December 2023 Update
I am more than 1 month in my journey of building 12 startups in a year. I realized that I document more of my journey on my blog. So here I am.
I want to share in this post my results so far, habits changed and habits that stayed the same.
Things have been challenging for sure. Some days I barely have 30-60 min to work on my startups and some days zero time.
I would have loved to use this tagline: building 12 startups in a year with an hour every day.
The one thing that people without children do not realize is how much time they have on hands.
I think the best advice is to try and fail as hard and often as you can in your twenties, so that you can take it easier in your thirties.
If you have not followed that piece of advice, then you are together with me in this boat. Sacrificing things like social media and sleep to invest in a better future.
My social media consumption (read Instagram and Reddit) since I started on this journey is almost close to zero. Twitter has replaced the both of them. I’m better of spending my time on Twitter. Why?
I get to connect with fellow solopreneurs who have made it and I get insights in their thinking, daily routine and what they are up to.
On the other hand, posting on Twitter gets me more attention to my startups and 1 post can go exponentially and get me tens of thousands of views. Opposed to Instagram where posting a picture would only get seen by 60-80 of my Instagram (friends).
So Twitter is the place to be, I get to improve my network and I am surrounded by people who have achieved what I aim to be.
Apart from sacrificing my social media, I have also stopped going to the gym. I directly noticed the side effects of this. If I sit with a bad posture behind my desk, I instantly feel the pain. Deadlifting was my cure to this as it straightened my core out.
Changing My Mindset
Right now I feel that I should prioritise building and shipping products more than training the same muscles.
The main thing why guys like Pieter Levels and co are so successful is not because of the amount they make monthly e.g. 50 or 500k a month. But because of their way of thinking. What separates them from the rest is their ability to think independently and to look ahead in the future, spot trends and act upon those ideas.
They are not a sheep in a flock. They are that lone wolf who is able to survive independently and thrive.
Give them a computer and let them start from scratch and they’ll become successful again. This is all about changing my mindset, surrounding myself with the right folks and constantly let the thoughts flow about building new products in my mind.
Right now I should train my mind instead of my body.
I think that after this journey I will be right back on track in the gym.
Routine - Creating New Habits
Also, I tried setting a new habit of waking up earlier at 04:30/05:00AM but this has proven to be difficult. If one of my kids has a bad night and I need to step in midnight then it is almost next to impossible for me to wake up early. I need a bare minimum of 6 hours of sleep to function properly and to avoid being grumpy the whole day.
So right now I am building whenever I have time and energy. Most of the time that is in the evening after my 9-5 job and when the kids are sound asleep.
Nevertheless, I read a post on Twitter about: not giving energy to the night but energy to the day. I liked that quote. I am still trying to build that new habit of waking up earlier.
Yes, it is difficult. But it is not impossible. I am just making small steps every day. That’s why showing up daily is important to me. To create that new habit of waking up early is everything to me.
If I do not get up before the rest of the household, I’ve lost my opportunity to build features or ship products.
What Does The Future Hold?
I am still at $0 MRR. I need to throw more spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks at the wall.
One of the best parts of this journey is that my whole mind is focussed on thinking about new startup opportunities. My whole awake time I am thinking and writing down new ideas in my Notion file. After a couple of days I read through those and if an idea sticks in my head then I start to build it right away.
That’s how I created ChatInfluencers.com, I couldn’t get the idea out of my head so I started creating it.
Let’s see what the future brings, I have a lot of ideas in my head and will soon bring them into the real world and validate them. But for now I am writing them all down in a Notion file🤣.
I need to sow seeds now, so that I can be reaper and enjoy
It’s live now, so go check it out, see if you like the website and the product and get your own access to the TikTok influencer database. Let me know if you have any feedback or ideas to improve it.
I’d love to hear from you on Twitter or andrewtjongio at gmail.com. If you’d like to write about it, please do so, I need any press and mentions I can get!