#34 Weekly Dan — 3 Lessons From 2022
#34 Weekly Dan — 3 Lessons From 2022
Reflecting my Indie Entrepreneurship journey
Hello there
This is the #34 Issue of Weekly Dan.
Ready to become a better Maker?
Every Tuesday, I share an actionable essay for Indie Entrepreneurs.
Today let’s talk about 2022.
This was a wild year:
Lived in 2 countries as a digital nomad
Became a full-time Indie Entrepreneur
Got married
My 2022 bingo card wasn’t expecting it. But after all, it was a nice ride.
And today, I will share three actionable lessons from this journey.
It’s 6 months away
Here is my journey from May to November:
0 Twitter followers → 5000 Twitter followers
0 newsletter subscribers → 500 newsletter subscribers
0 products → 9 products
$0 in revenue → $30 000 in revenue
If I saw these numbers in May, I would be speechless.
How can we have 9 products, if I don’t know what product to build first?
Baby steps.
Get the first follower, launch the first product, and earn the first buck on the Internet. Don’t quit for 6 months — and see the magic happen.
This rule works everywhere. Start doing something, and stick around for 6 months.
There are no chances you won’t see progress.
We have been doing SEO for 3 months and just recently saw the first clicks. In the first 2 months, we got nothing. We just didn’t quit and continued writing great articles.
We got no word of mouth in the first month. Our response? We didn’t quit and kept improving our products. We started getting the first recommendations in November.
Your dream goal is 6 months away. With one condition — don’t quit.
Do less
I worked 80 hours at my first startup. I thought doing more was the key to success. In reality, I tried to outweigh poor strategy with immense effort.
No surprise it didn’t work.
Then I tried to blame limitations for my poor choices.
Why couldn’t I have more time and marketing budget?
But I was wrong again. Now I know that limitations are growth fuel.
Twitter’s 280 characters limit forces you to write sharper
Bootstrapping forces you to value execution over reckless budget spending
Working 40 hours forces you to prioritize ideas ruthlessly
Limitations nudge you to quit. You just need to stick around for 6 months.
Go beyond “spreadsheets”
Product Hunt is cool, MRR charts are cool, and marketing memes are cool.
But this can’t be my whole personality. There is life beyond our beloved bubble.
And it’s not a work-life anthem. It’s an investment:
Learning an offline skill (surfing, cooking, etc.) will make your digital skills stronger. By learning new concepts, you will unlock hidden similarities to leverage.
Experiencing boredom will make your mind search for new ideas. If you are busy 24/7 looking at Excel, how can you come up with a creative idea?
Being interesting increases the number of people who are interested in you.
Bottom line.
To generate outside-the-box ideas, you actually need to come outside of the box.
Simple.
That’s it!
Thank you for reading Weekly Dan. That means a lot to me.
This year we passed 780 subscribers. Next year it will be 10 000 🤩
Mind to give me some feedback?
See you in 2023 ❤️
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