We are still in the first month of building in public, and I already change the process of writing my weekly updates. Switching to a bi-weekly rhythm keeps it sustainable for me. Read below why. This time the update will also be in a shorter format, easier digestible for you.
What happened
Bi-weekly updates only
With a high probability, I will work five days per week for my clients until the end of September. I experienced after my vacation in June to kickstart building in public that it is super hard to keep up with meaningful weekly updates next to it.
So, as long as I cannot decrease my client work, I will do bi-weekly updates instead.
Bad news: I make more money for a longer time
I cannot decrease the time at my clients as fast as I hoped. But this is ok, that’s what we have contracts for, and I am not a fan of asshole moves. I help one client to find a replacement for me soon.
This also means I have a bigger cash flow for at least three months.
Hiring a freelancer for the backend
I exchange time for money with my clients (well, I charge for value creation, but a different story). I can do the same for DevOps Metrics, and that’s the crazy thing I will do. It is the first time in my life I am paying someone to code for me.
In this early stage, outsourcing frontend work will not help me much, but the backend is something I can specify and slice working packages.
Submitted a talk to a conference
The talk “DevOps: the secrets to sustainable innovation” was submitted by me to a conference in Germany. Let’s see. I got the ‘Call for papers’-email last week and thought this topic would fit quite well.
The first test if I can position myself in this space. I will iterate and submit more talks to conferences. I want to evangelize for the DevOps Metrics. Not necessarily for the tool, I am building. If teams start to measure these metrics on their own, I also count this as a success.
UI Progress: charts and KPI widgets
I made some excellent progress on the UI side. The first widgets are working: a basic KPI widget and a simple bar chart. However, it is not finished yet. There are some rough edges I want to clean up.
The following weeks will probably be around getting the visibility aspect right before designing actionable insights.
KPI widgets show you how to interpret the DevOps Metrics
First attempts on charts
What did I learn
Slice smaller tickets
I need tickets to finish in a max of two hours to have a sense of accomplishment.
How to design React components
All the years working in full-stack positions are paying back. I enjoy building components and think about the best possible UX and UI for the user.
Don’t make the user think.
It sounds simple but is hard to achieve. For DevOps Metrics, I want that the UI explains the data for the user. No guessing.
Lazy on customer interviews
Many meetings with my clients consumed plenty of time. I did not follow up as planned on all people on the waiting list.
Coffee Kitchen Talk
In the coffee kitchen, we chat about interesting and funny stuff like you would be a co-worker.
It is very nerdy, but I found a very active and fabulous artificial life community and project: The Bibites It is using Neuroevolution of augmenting topologies (NEAT) which is an algorithm to evolutionary evolve artificial neural networks. These neural networks are then literally the brain of the creatures. I find this mesmerizing.
Inspirational tweet
This time I post a thread about building habits to keep going with your projects or business. Motivation is vanishing and very fluid. Set up a system to hold yourself accountable and make progress.
90% of startups fail.
— Blake Emal (@heyblake) July 5, 2021
So how can you make your customers love you so much that you couldn't fail if you tried?
Answer: create atomic habits.
Here are 10 lessons from Atomic Habits by @jamesclear to grow your startup: pic.twitter.com/TztgL2wfBV
Next weeks
It looks like I need to build out some components first to finish the UI of analytics pages. That is the trade-off of using Tailwind. Furthermore, I prepare everything in the backend to start working with a freelancer next week already. And last but not least, send out more emails to people on the waiting list to interview them.
See you in two weeks.
– Felix