Building feels hard because I lost momentum.
I spent a week or so implementing subscription payments on Telegram. No one paid. Yet.
I ran a survey for my top users and asked what they wanted. The vast majority (80%) said they just wanted more subjects on telegram.
I started thinking if this was the route I should have doubled down all along. I wondered if I just wasted 2+ months building a solution no user cared about.
So this is what doubt feels like. This is what the trough feels like. Earning the first dollar feels super hard. Getting to $1,000 feels impossible. This is what hard feels like.
On the bright side, almost 200 users are still using my app each week. This is the only silver lining that it does add some value.
I’m at crossroads:
- Double down and build new subjects on Telegram as quickly as possible, start marketing and start decreasing free AI requests each day. Work in cycles. Basically double down and ship things to users as fast as possible.
- Start AI consulting to get side income while I build.
- Get a job, work on the side
If I choose route 1 (double down):
- I have to decide what price I’m willing to pay to make it work. This means I have to give up things I enjoy to make it work.
- Give up:
- Doom scolling on twitter. Twitter does not serve me at all. Books are actually more useful
- Youtube: I watched 17 hours in the past week. That’s 2.5 hours per day. I should cut it down to 1 hour
I need to design a life to ship as much as possible.
The hardest part is having high expections on how fast things need to go. High expectations lead to a hard journey. I need to be realistic, focus on the process and try to enjoy the process as much as possible.
I need to decide if this is the life that I want to live, or go back to corporate world and earn a steady salary.