December 17th, 2019
I started my vacation on a sour note.
I stumbled onto Indie Hackers right before the vacation started and I got really bummed out/jealous of someone else's success.
As my "vacation" started I kept thinking about it. Started by feeling crappy but slowly that faded away.
I was working a lot before this time off, and when I work a lot, I'm just constantly thinking all the time about my business.
So taking this time off it took a few days to get my mind off of things, but it was really nice to not think about it as much. Slowly, the constant thoughts faded away.
It felt rejuvenating in a way.
But I also had a lot of time to think, about Pigeon and the future. Because part of me feels like maybe I'm going down the wrong path or that I'm not making the right moves.
The real concerns are:
1. I made a product that does too many things
2. That's OK if the product does a lot of things, but can 1 person sustain it with support, engineering, and marketing?
3. Bugs are getting scarier
4. Onboarding/support is tough for a product like Pigeon
Overall, it's a feeling that the product is too ambitious. Should I have dialed it down?
This is certainly making things harder for me.
However, I don't think it makes things impossible. I still don't think it's worth giving up - I just need to be smarter about my future moves.
Regardless of all of this, I need to see these as mistakes that I needed to go through to learn.
Building too many things into the product was a mistake that I needed to learn.
And all of this hard work and pain will lead me in the right direction, whether that's a pivot, a different product, etc. It's better to keep going than to just give up and go back to the drawing board.
And you know what, I also had a mindset change last week - I'm not scared of churn anymore. In fact, I welcome it. This is a big turning point for me, I think. Being more indifferent is the key. Focus on what you can do to fix things, don't think too much in the past or let the ego get in the way.
Thing is, I know Pigeon can be successful, I just need to up the marketing and focus in more and more.
Every day, I'm working on new initiatives that are moving the business forward. I don't have a grand vision. Just moving slowly in the right direction, or at least what feels right.
I stumbled onto Indie Hackers right before the vacation started and I got really bummed out/jealous of someone else's success.
As my "vacation" started I kept thinking about it. Started by feeling crappy but slowly that faded away.
I was working a lot before this time off, and when I work a lot, I'm just constantly thinking all the time about my business.
So taking this time off it took a few days to get my mind off of things, but it was really nice to not think about it as much. Slowly, the constant thoughts faded away.
It felt rejuvenating in a way.
But I also had a lot of time to think, about Pigeon and the future. Because part of me feels like maybe I'm going down the wrong path or that I'm not making the right moves.
The real concerns are:
1. I made a product that does too many things
2. That's OK if the product does a lot of things, but can 1 person sustain it with support, engineering, and marketing?
3. Bugs are getting scarier
4. Onboarding/support is tough for a product like Pigeon
Overall, it's a feeling that the product is too ambitious. Should I have dialed it down?
This is certainly making things harder for me.
However, I don't think it makes things impossible. I still don't think it's worth giving up - I just need to be smarter about my future moves.
Regardless of all of this, I need to see these as mistakes that I needed to go through to learn.
Building too many things into the product was a mistake that I needed to learn.
And all of this hard work and pain will lead me in the right direction, whether that's a pivot, a different product, etc. It's better to keep going than to just give up and go back to the drawing board.
And you know what, I also had a mindset change last week - I'm not scared of churn anymore. In fact, I welcome it. This is a big turning point for me, I think. Being more indifferent is the key. Focus on what you can do to fix things, don't think too much in the past or let the ego get in the way.
Thing is, I know Pigeon can be successful, I just need to up the marketing and focus in more and more.
Every day, I'm working on new initiatives that are moving the business forward. I don't have a grand vision. Just moving slowly in the right direction, or at least what feels right.