Alex West
I'm Alex, and probably just like you, I have a goal I'm working towards. Mine is to achieve financial independence in 2020. I'm working full time, as an engineer on a device NASA astronauts will wear when they go to Mars. In the past two years, I have launched ~20 products and made 4 of them profitable. I share everything I learn along the way and blog about my progress daily.@alexwestco
No story has only peaks or only valleys. And if it does, it's a boring story. - Note to self. September was a strange month. You can call it the worse month in a long time, business-wise. Or maybe it's the best thing that ever happened to me. A blessing in disguise. Don't know. Only my approa...
August was a slow month. A chill month. For the first time in a long time, I flew back to my home country. Visited my hometown. Even took some time off. Didn't work much. Hardly at all, actually. However, Cyberleads still grew, and broke into the $2k MRR club. Only 1% of all indiehacker ...
What. A. Month. I’m pinching myself. I made more money with Cyberleads than I did at my day job this month. Six months ago I had nearly 20 failed products under my belt and making almost nothing. I wouldn't have believed you if you told me this would happen. MRR is very close to $2k. Tha...
This month I didn't experience crazy growth. A very modest (but still very healthy) 20% increase in MRR. Churn is still pretty high, so I can't relax. I have to keep bringing in new customers. June is gone. That means we are half way through the strangest year in recent memory. Wild fires in A...
Cyberleads is at $1k MRR (cyberleads.co) All the rest are at $200 MRR collectively Wow. One thousand MRR. I suppose I have to write something about reaching this milestone. We're all born with ten fingers and ten toes, so the number 1000 is pretty important to us. But more importan...
This month, MRR went up to $825. Cyberleads is at $674 MRR. (getcyberleads.com) GitGardener is at $151 MRR. (gitgardener.com) EpilepsyBlocker is at $0 MRR. (epilepsyblocker.com) Here is what happened. Initially, this month was a natural continuation of the previous one. Boring...
My total MRR for this month was $367. $164 MRR for GitGardener, $203 MRR for Cyberleads. Costs came at about $100. STORY: This month sucked ass. I am very dissapointed in my progress, but at least I can reflect now and see what went wrong and avoid the same mistakes in the future. ...
My revenue this month was $410 in total. $149 for GitGardener. $261 for Cyberleads. Total costs are about $100. The past month has been crazy. Remember that goal of $500 MRR I had been chasing forever? Well, I nearly reached it already!! Here's what happened. Two weeks ago I launch...
My MRR is $123, all from GitGardener. Net revenue for this month was $185. This was the first month of the year and I'm pretty happy with it. Many things happened. I moved abroad, from Greece to Italy, Milan. I started a Full Stack Developer job full time, and it's going great, I'm enjoying...
Here we are. Ground zero. Not much to say, I have pretty much talked about the previous two years and my plans for this year in my two long articles. You can find them on this website, on the top right corner of the homepage. They are called "2 years of building products" and "Plans for 202...
I think I'll eliminate these weekly blogs. They don't provide any real value and I never know what to blog about. Should I just stop and keep the daily and monthly ones?
Shit, I totally forgot about this weekly blog. And now I can't really remember what happened last week. Oh yes, I returned from Munich to Milan with my girlfriend. The journey was lovely - driving through the Alpes. The temperature is night and day compared to Germany. I actually preferred ...
This week was pretty uneventful. Just me finishing the monthly list. As always, right at the buzzer. Like Bruce Willis, who cuts the right cord and disarms the bomb 1 second before it explodes and the whole city/world is destroyed.
After nearly six months of being in a tiny room in Milan, I left. I came to Munich, at a university campus, to see my girlfriend. It's located next to a big forrest, where I go to run. I love the change of scenery. It helps me refresh my mind and get new ideas. I'm not really sure how I ...
Another week gone by. Summer is here. Everything is beautiful. Cyberleads has started to look like a small little real business! I redesigned the website. It looks a lot more professional. I also got a business domain! I got to $1.3K MRR running Cyberleads with a Gmail account. And I ...
I don't know what to say. I don't know what to write. That sounded like lyrics to a song. Anyway, one cool thing is that I just found out that a client of mine closed a $42k/yr client through Cyberleads! That's amazing. Number one because it means I'm building something useful. Number two, ...
Yuk. This was the last week of the month. Again, I left A LOT of work for the end. You know when you're on a run and you want to stop badly? Like, really want to stop? You have a sharp pain in your stomach, and your lungs are burning? You feel like you're going to fucking faint if you keep goi...
A strange week. A 50/50 week. Half of the week was super productive. Doing exactly what I have to do. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I woke up at 07:00 AM and worked three hours before work. I also ran every day. Studied Italian. Read a book. I'm reading "War of Art" at the moment. It's awesom...
Another week. Another tweet that brought thousands of visitors to Cyberleads. Another week with new paying customers. It seems like I've cracked level two of the game. That of finding a distribution channel and a (somewhat) predictable way to acquire new customers. Things are looking pretty...
This week was wild again. My latest monthly blog post went to #1 on HN. My revenue increased dramatically. Every time I put something out there that get's traction, I get a pump of adrenaline and endorphines. But after that initial pump, I want it to stop. All the notifications. All the em...
Yuck. What an awful week. Spent in spreadsheets. Wrapping up the lists for the month. Honestly, if I knew how much work is needed for these lists, I might have thought about it twice before starting Cyberleads. Kidding. Not really. Or am I? The whole week I was working 5 hours per day on...
This week was pure chaos. Last week I was saying how time is going by and I'm not making any real progress, but this week things went completely ballistic. A random tweet of mine went viral on Twitter, and around 10.000 people visiting Cyberleads. https://twitter.com/alexsideris_/status...
It's already week number 16. Week #6 was when I launched Cyberleds. Since then 10 weeks have passed. Week 1-2: The first two weeks after launching I spent them figuring out the product. I launched without a product, so I was running around like a headless chicken. Week 3: I spent one wee...
Sunday is always a day I enjoy. Nice, chill, relaxing. Maybe drink a few beers on the balcony in the sun. Plan for the upcoming week. Excitement. It can be sour though if what I planned the previous Sunday is not completed. Let me go and check what I said last week. Ok I'm back. Here it is:...
I feel nice.. fresh, clean, focused. I know what I have to do. No distractions. I have Cyberleads, that's it. B2B, low maintenance, in tech. Now I have to grow it. It's that simple. When it comes to creating small internet businesses, there are some steps along the way: 1. Idea 2. Build...
So this week was pretty boring. Last week, I came to the conclusion that I should stop fucking around and just focus on growing Cyberleads. I am literally just 3 customers away from my big goal, ramen profitability. But, this week I can't not do that just yet, since we are coming to the end...
Last week I was talking of launching yet another product. What the hell is wrong with me? This is my dilemma. Option 1: Have multiple products in different verticals that can re launch on PH on a rotating manner. Option 2: Double down on one product with low churn and make it a business. ...
Angelstep's PH launch was a flop, but that does not mean that it is not a good product. I had a few reasons as to why I think it's still a good product and a few ways to how I could validate it. Let's have a look and compare with Cyberleads. Cyberleads sends you a list of newly funded st...
So all this week I was working remotely from home. Initially I thought this was the best thing ever, but it wasn't. I have no clear boundaries of work, personal projects, and rest. Before this, I woke up at 05:00, worked until 08:00, went to the gym until 09:00, and was at the office by ...
Shit is crazy right now in Milan. I’m basically living in a ghost town. Yesterday they announced that the city is quarantined, which basically means there is control for entering and exiting the city. In the beginning I got flashbacks of Chernobyl, the mini TV series, but after looking it up I...
Finished the list at the last minute, on the 29th of February, at night. Sent it out the next day with a small feedback form. Straight away, one guy asks to cancel and a refund. I do it and I'm bummed out. Like, very bummed out. I never got so hurt by negative feedback, but this one was ...
It’s February 23rd, Sunday. This time next week I have to have the list ready. Shit’s about to get real, and the pressure is on. So far, I have everything sorted out apart from the emails of the CEOs. Now I have a bunch of company names and CEO names, and need an API that given a name, ...
This week was the best week of the year. Actually, the best week of 2019 as well. Maybe even 2018. Maybe the best week of my two year journey so far. TLDR; Validated a new product and instantly went up to $150 MRR. Plus, it's B2B and in tech!!! I found it! Long story: I am so happy and...
I think this week has been the best week yet. I may not have the numbers to back that claim, but my brain seems more calm, disciplined and optimistic. The reason for that is that my priorities are straight. Firstly, I made up my mind that I should focus on growing GitGardener. There is no reas...
This last week was ok. Not great, not bad. I continued to wake up at 6 and worked for two hours in the morning. Product Hunt Ship is not working at all, but maybe it's the product's fault, not the website's. But I don't know if I can justify $80/mo for it. I continued to tweet everyday, and...
This week everything went perfect. I stayed on track, and I'm solidifying those productive habits. Wake up at 06:00, work till 08:00, go to the gym till 09:00, be at work at 10:00. I'm basically living for those four hours before work every day. Work is super interesting as well, I'm learni...
Completely different week. If I were to grade week number one as a 4 of out 10, week number two gets 8 out of 10. I managed the gym situation, I go in the morning. Yes, at 08:00 AM.. Me, that used to wake up at 12:00 every day. It’s not as hard as it sounds to be honest. I wake up at 07:00 ...
This week was strange. For one, I had to get organized and find my where abouts. How to get to work, how to get back, what are the things I need for home. I started work on Tuesday, since Monday was a national holiday here, like in Greece. I was a weird experience. Actually, funny fact, work i...
So, this was the first week of the year, and it was cut in half. During this week, I moved from Thessaloniki, Greece to Milan, Italy. I also wrote the "2020 plans" article discussing my strategy for this year. As I am writting this article, I am getting ready to go to bed because tomorrow I start...
My excitement and happiness levels are extremely tied to Cyberleads. Even though I don't want to, when someone subscribes I get excited and pumped. When someone unsubscribes, I become quite sad. I have talked about this before. You are not your business. You are not your MRR. You are ...
Sometimes people ask for your opinion because they want to hear it. Other times they just ask out of politeness. They don't care what you think, especially if you disagree. Today at work we were asked to write down things we like and dislike in our company. Anything. I wrote that I would...
I still remember the day I found a Pieter Levels YouTube video and looked him up online. I remember finding his Twitter profile. Up until then, Twitter was a website I had logged in once many years ago. I followed Bill Gates and Barack Obama, and then logged out. Never went back. My mind ex...
Sometimes things are simpler than they seem to be. I started doubting everything the last few days. My pricing. My payment gateway. My CTA button. My hero section image. Everything. Why did I fall in MRR last month? Could it be A? B? C? A and B together? B and C together? And so on an...
I was thinking the other day that I am as transparent with my emotions on my blog, as I am in my real life. I don't hide much. And what I don't write about, I usually don't talk about in real life either. That means that I share the same amount, with thousands of strangers that read this...
Started with SEO. I'm so fucking excited. I subscribed to Ahrefs. I have some keywords with low difficulty and large traffic. And best of all, I can pump out many of these. SEO will be the main growth engine of Cyberleads, long term. I'm constantly going back and forth as to if I like my...
I keep coming back to stoicism. I'm not a philosophy expert as you can tell, but I find it to be the most complete guide to living life. Just focus on what you can do. Forget about the things you cannot control. Yesterday I saw an ex-competitor start again with his product. In a differen...
To VAT? Or not to VAT? That's the question. What dread.. Why is it so difficult to start a business in 2020? If it weren't for Gumroad or Paddle, etc, I would be lost. I went with Stripe for a few days, instantly came back to Gumroad. My god... It's a wormhole. I would either have to ...
Took the day off today from work. I haven't opened my work laptop for more than three days, and my mind is super calm. No slack notifications. No meetings. No tasks buzzing on Jira. Nothing. The same from my own side. No side projects. No YouTube. Just peace and quiet. I feel refreshed, ...
Every single time I post something transparent on Twitter, I think about how vulnerable this leaves me. I'm willingly giving a detailed, inside look into how much money I'm making. How I'm making it. How I'm getting traffic. How much it converts. How I launched. Everything. But at the same ...
I've been pretty active on Twitter recently. I'm writing this daily blog and drafting a nice tweet first thing in the morning. I'm going to be posting every day from now on, and wait for the results. It's easy to get dissapointed and start doubting your self or your method when you don't...
I fucking hate coding. Honestly, I'm done with it. I wanna do higher level stuff. No more talking about system processes and databases. Sometimes at my day job I feel like I'm in the lab, designing the perfect bullets for a gun. While, I would prefer to be the hunter. Or another metaphor...
Another day, another competitor quit and shut down. I'm going to lie, I enjoyed going to their website and getting a 404. Not that I have anything against them. I don't even know them. I honestly wish them all the best. And even if they were killing it, it wouldn't affect me. They wer...
I have a blocking software on my laptop called "Cold Turkey". I added it to block YouTube, my arch nemesis. I used to get into wormholes every day for hours, and wanted to get rid of it. It blocks YouTube for me, it is very hard to uninstall and you can't kill the program. I mean, I can ...
That's it. Daily blog and tweets are my number one priority from now on. Promoting Cyberleads is the most important thing. So I'll write a small blog post to get my brain working, and then draft a tweet. First thing in the morning. While I'm fresh. And I won't touch any other task unless...
The last two months I have been doing pretty much the same things. I have doubled down on what's working but haven't done much else, really. No creativity. The "athlete vs artist" concept I wrote about in "two and a half years of building products" is still something I'm working on. ...
We are so fragile as solopreneurs. One day you get a new paying customer and feel like you can conquer the world. The next day a customer unsubscribes and you feel like you should polish your CV again. The reason is that we have direct contact with the source. The customer. The new one. ...
The last few days I have been integrating some new features into the Cyberleads website. I have focused hard on agencies, and I am moving towards being a no-brainer for them, compared to all my competitors. It's a vastly smaller market, but still large enough for an indie business. This wee...
Aaand... BOOM. It's live! The sequel to "2 years of building products" has been published. It took over half a month to write, and honestly, I could edit it forever. But fuck it. I think it's great. It tells the story and pushes the narrative I want to push. Basically to not give up e...
Ahhhh.... At last. My monster blog post "2.5 years of building products" is ready.. It took so many hours, and honestly, it will never be 100% ready. But done is better than perfect, and I really want to share it with everyone. Especially people on the idea phase. This is for them. ...
Damn.. I was going to write something about fitness and health, but I saw that we are on day 265 of the year. This massive, crazy, insane year is coming to an end soon. All we have is 100 days. I really want to prioritize my fitness and stick with it for the last 100 days of the year. A...
Yesterday I appeared on a podcast for the first time. The show is called "Bruno Talks" and it was a video interview. It was a lot easier than I thought. I'm sure I'll cringe and probably never watch it, but it didn't go bad. I was in the zone, talking and flowing. For sure I said some...
My back is fucked up. I mean tight. Bad. All my left side from the neck to my hip. My hip even started clicking and I googled and saw that this is the cause. Hahaha. What the fuck, am I getting older? I believe it's from sitting in a chair for eight hours straight all the previous we...
Remote work is amazing. I miss it already. It's a huge jump up from a "quality of life" perspective. As you probably know, I am spending this week in the office in order to meet some new team mates in person. The new guys are great. I could easily be friends with them even outside of wo...
Been in the office three days in a row now. Day 1 --> 10/10 experience Day 2 --> 8/10 experience Day 3 --> 5/10 experience By Friday, I think I'll have had enough.
Yesterday at the office it was surprisingly pleasant. Almost, worryingly pleasant. I saw many people I'm familiar with but hadn't seen face to face for ages. Met some team mates that joined remotely and knew them only from Zoom. Had a great time chatting and getting instant feedback on i...
Back in the office this week for my day job. It's been months. I've been working remotely since the beginning of March, so it feels strange to be back here. Everything was different back in January and February. I mean, of course, the whole world changed. But my world changed a lot as well....
Just some random thoughts I had while I was on a run. I felt like shit prior to going for this run, but when I started pushing myself I became another person. I woke up. Nothing is static, everything is in motion. The planets, atoms, your business, your character. Sleep on your busi...
I love programming after all. I was building some scripts for Cyberleads new feature, and I couldn't stop and take a break. It's like magic. My day job had sort of killed that love I have for programming, but I realize that I still enjoy it. Actually, it's not even the code. It's the act...
Today I’m working on a great feature for Cyberleads. The ability to forecast if a company needs your services. The way I’m doing this is by checking the amount of designers each company has, the amount of engineers, marketers, the industry, the vibe and direction of the company and many oth...
Am I the only one that thinks daily that we are going to die some day? I'm not a special flower so I'm sure there are many people that think the same way, but I haven't met any yet. Me. You. Everyone you love. Everyone you hate. Everyone you care about. Everyone you don't care about. We are...
I've left my home town at last! Let's start working! I already wrote and published the monthly blog post, and I'll post it on Twitter later today alongside revenue numbers and metrics. Last but not least, this week I'll also post a long-awaited blog post. It's called "2.5 years of indieh...
I got Airpods as a present. I started running with them on, listening to audiobooks, etc. Ok, my runs were great. The book I was listening to was motivational as well so I ran like crazy. But my runs were not clearing my mind. So, yesterday, I went running like I used to. Without anything. ...
Oooff.. That was stressful. The list has been sent though. Now I have three more days before returning to Milan and getting back to serious work.
One last day for this month. This time tomorrow, the stress will be over. The monthly list will be sent and I'll be planning for what's next. I'm rested and have a lot of things in my mind for September. Can't fucking wait :) And sorry for these lack-luster blog posts. When I get bac...
I've been very quiet the last week or so. It's because I am trying to finalize this month's list. A looooot of work went into this one. Will be finalized at the last minute as always. My best list yet!
Just booked my return flight to Milan! It's next Sunday. The 4th of September. Super happy day.
What is the opposite of inspiration? That's exactly what I'm feeling right now. Once again, I'm back in my hometown. I can't even work here. Neither for work, or Cyberleads. I don't know why. I just want to get back to Italy again. My holidays were amazing, and I'll miss my friends and fami...
Time goes past fast when you're with friends. Tomorrow is our last day. Before returning to our concrete jungles. One of us is returning to Athens. One of us to Vienna. One of us to Munich. Me, to Milan. A bit sad really. But then again, it's the finite nature of things that make them pr...
It's always fun to be with people that know you to the core. They never get impressed with anything. It's funny. It keeps you grounded. For them, you'll always be Alex. Or John. Or Helen. No matter how much money you make, or how many positive comments or recognition you get for your wor...
The last days have been slow, since I'm on holidays and I'm finding it a bit hard to concentrate. All I want is to be on the beach, reading my book and talking with my friends. However, things are going as normal. As long as I do the two or three most important things I have to do, things c...
Right now I'm on holidays. Me, my girlfriend, my best friend and my girlfriends best friend. So, two men and two women. It's really cool. We rented a big house right on the sea through Airbnb, in Chalkidiki, in Greece. We arrived yesterday, and we went for a late night swim, chilling on the...
It's hard to get inspired in a house full of noise. Siblings, parents, neighbors, friends. Although it's fun, there is just too much noise. It's no surprise I haven't blogged in days. Sorry for that. Both to you, and to myself. Writing is therapy. I'm always calmer and more relaxed when ...
One of my favorite things is looking at old notes. Seeing where I was twelve months ago, and where I am today. I've been doing this ever since I was twelve or thirteen. Looking at my progress. If I don't cringe at myself of one year ago, something is wrong. As I was growing older, throughou...
Yesterday I had a very strange pain in my arm. I felt my right arm numb and it was hard to move. It was like I was losing control over it. I'm always cool and never, ever go to the doctor. But this time it was different. A daemon entered my mind and started whispering in my ear. "Maybe you ...
Yesterday all day I was driving. We drove up to our family summer house in the mountains of Greece. I know what you are thinking.. You went to the mountains in Greece? Are you fucking serious? Chill, the sea is just a 15 minute drive from our house here. And in about a week I'll go on holid...
Working from a coffee shop right now. I like it. It's the first time I'm doing this, and it's not as bad as I thought. It's quiet. It's peaceful. It has AC. The people that work here are super friendly. It's cheap. Greece seems so cheap to me now that I'm back. I had forgotten what it w...
Today I feel a bit better than yesterday. I don't feel like vomiting that much when looking outside my window, at the same old buildings. You are probably thinking that my hometown is some dirty ass village with goats and shit everywhere. Actually, my city is super pretty. It's called Th...
Just landed in Greece. Came here for August, to spend time with family and friends. Can't decide how I feel about this. On one hand I'm glad to see everyone I care about and catch up with them. On the other hand I feel like I'm going backwards. I swear to god, when I got out of the airport ...
Sorry for not writting my normal, long, daily blog posts. This month's list is huge, and I'm literally working 8 hours every day on top of my day job. So, as you can imagine, I'm drowning in red bulls, black eyes, dizzy and sick of spreadsheets. Can't wait to send off this month's list t...
A great day. A tweet of mine blew up, kind like the one about my first $50/mo customer! It honestly feels amazing, yet so much less stressful than last time. You get used to everything after all. Maybe running a business, even a large one, is not that stressful after some time. You can g...
I read yesterday's blog post again. What the fuck, so cringe.. Talking about drinking espressos on my little balcony in Italy, and about how traveling "has changed me". I'm not a travel influencer for fuck's sake. I build products and train martial arts. That being said, it's hard not to...
Drinking my second espresso this morning. Sitting on my little balcony working on this month's list for Cyberleads. Listening to the people walking by and speaking in Italian. Trying to undestand what they are saying. Getting a lot better at it. When I first came to Italy six months ago, I ...
Some systems broke down today at work. Maybe simple systems are more robust after all. Decoupling is good, but you then have more points of failure. Reminded me that I want to read "Antifragile". It's all about risk and points of failure within systems. Taleb is always an Odyssey to r...
Never write about politics. Never write about politics. Never write about politics. Never write about religion. Never write about religion. Never write about religion. Ok, I said it. Today I lost an internet friend because of a blog post of mine on virtue signaling. It sucks, but I kn...
A great assymetry in life and business. In life: We spend most of our energy thinking and trying to win people that don't care about us. We spend less energy on our friends. We spend the least amount of energy on the people we know truly love us. In business: We spend most of our en...
Should we do the things we don't want to do? Or play along our strengths and preferences? On one extreme you have people that can do things they don't necessarily enjoy. They can power through them. They struggle. They work a job that pays well but don't want to do. They never complain. Pro...
There is nothing worse than not doing what you are supposed to do. And usually we don't do the things we are afraid to do. The things that put us even a little outside of our comfort zone. Even little stuff. Like posting in Facebook Groups instead of Twitter. Twitter used to be outside my c...
Yesterday I saw a kid in a wheelchair. It broke my fucking heart. I was drinking a beer with my girlfriend in a square in Milan. We were chit chatting. You know, the usual stuff. Talking about life. The future. The past. Our dreams. It was night time, perfect temperature. A mother came to t...
While I was running, I drifted off for a few minutes. I started thinking of all the money being spent in the world every day. I thought of my customers at Cyberleads. I know that some have made x100 times their money back, but I also know some that wasted their money, as they did not use the l...
Sorry for the missing the past few days. I was traveling with my girlfriend across the Italian riviera. It was lovely. Italy is so beautiful.. seriously. Italian cities beat Greek cities and it's not even close. Greek islands are beautiful, but our cities are ugly as fuck. Here in Italy ...
Losing a customer sucks. It always does. It's rejection. Even though it's not personal, it feels like it. Many times someone unsubscribes and my whole day is ruined. Not as in I cry or anything. But my excitement for the day can go from like an eight to a five. But if I reason about it like I'...
Back in Milan. Went for a run at my favorite place. The canals. One minute from my house you'll find the canals of Milan. They span around 10km each way and you see beautiful colored houses everywhere. The forest in Munich I ran in was prettier, but it was too pretty to think of ideas. The ...
I have a hard time being present. I catch myself thinking about my side projects even when I'm out with friends and supposed to unwind. This year I've gotten a lot better at it. Here's why. My full time job enforced me to compress the amount of time I can work on my own things. It used to b...
Ever since I started building online businesses, my idea of what competition is, changed. I had only competed in combat sports before that. There, by design, when one man wins, another man has to lose. Sometimes in devastating fashion. It's a zero sum game. That might be the reason I kept b...
After two weeks in Munich, I'm back in Milano. It's funny, because I've only been living here for a few months but I felt like home when I arrived. The shittier metro felt better. The louder people that don't speak English seemed nicer. Even the chair I'm sitting in right now is sweeter ...
I want to go on a good streak. Like, at least twenty days of doing everything I'm supposed to, every day. For me that's tweeting, working on Cyberleads, studying Italian, reading a book. Oh, yeah. And of course I have my day job as well. My day job is a bit hectic the last weeks. We have be...
I sent the monthly lists at last. That sets me free to work on growing Cyberleads again. It's like the shackles have been undone. Today I also have to post a monthly and a weekly blog. Can't wait. I also got a message from someone asking if I am ok, since I missed a few days of blogging. ...
Once again at the end of the month, once again running against time to finish the monthly list. I have another two days to finish it. I hate the end of the months.
Nothing makes you grow faster than throwing yourself in the fire. It's actually a hack. As Nassim Taleb says: "When you are on fire, you run faster than in any competition. When you are not anymore, you become dumb again. You may lose your sharpness, you will never lose what you learned...
There are some small thoughts that are so difficult and abstract to explain. They're also so small that it make no sense to discuss with others. This blog is about one of those small thoughts. I have noticed that when I'm almost too confident and I try new things, I always pay for it. Nothing ...
Today I got a little burnt out. My little brother is taking his entry exams for university, and his next course is "programming". Of course, I've been helping him by doing lessons with him through Zoom. They have to do write programs in pseudocode. Some exercises are a bit difficult to be hone...
Time passes quickly. I'll be 26 in a few days. I'm at a university campus right now in Munich, visiting my girlfriend, and most people are younger than me. You can't tell physically, as these three to five years are not visible on the body. But I've been through their phase and I'm done wit...
I feel guilty when I don't work. Even when I don't really have anything to do. The healthy approach would be to go out and do something completely different to get my mind refreshed. I prefer to sit in front of my laptop and "fake work" on my products. Nowadays I only work two to three hou...
Today I went from Milan to Munich, to see my girlfriend. I had three choices. Plane. Train. Car. The plane tickets cost 250 euros and you get there in 1 hour. The train cost 150 and you get there in 10 hours. By car it takes five hours. But I don't have a car here in Italy. A friend of mine...
Have writer's block today, but I have to write something. Just came back from a run, full of new ideas. Ideas like these never used to come when I trained MMA or kickboxing, nor when I used to lift weights. If I could sum up what each one gives me, it would be this: - Martials arts gi...
I caught myself being greedy today. A friend of mine was telling me how he's killing it with his business and is growing twice as fast as me. I felt an urge to grow faster. All night yesterday and all day today I was thinking about it. Where I'm at was suddenly not good enough. As always, I...
Today I managed to wake up early. At last. Yesterday I realized the simple stupid truth. The hard part is not waking up early in the morning. The hard part is going to bed early. Of course it will be a struggle if you go to bed at 01:30 AM and want to get up at 06:00 AM. That's stupid. W...
In Greece when you are in the last year of high school, you take some exams to enter university. I took those exams 8 years ago, when I was 17. I wanted to study architecture, but as fate would have it, I got into my 17th choice, Computer Science. Today, eight years later, my little brother...
I love Italy. It's such a beautiful country. I like to call Italy a better version of Greece. And Italians are like a better version of Greeks. From the way they drive, to the way they dress. But it's amazing how similar they are. I felt ZERO cultural shock when I got here. I feel more of a...
I just took a big risk. Like, 5 minutes ago. I wish I could say what it is, but I can't. You will understand why in a few months. It's nothing crazy, but it will certainly light a fire under my ass now. The steepest learning and growth curves exist outside of our comfort zones. I took this ...
I realized the other day on my run that the fact that I am in another country where I can't speak the lingo might be affecting my mental state. I can't gossip. I can't eavesdrop. I can't critic what someone is saying. Their accent. Their tone. Their choice of words. I am numb to all those di...
New design The last few days I re designed the website for Cyberleads. Initially, I was not interested in doing it. I'm not a believer in design being a needle mover - especially in the early stages of a startup's journey. Even if conversions increased 10% - with the amount of traffic I get...
The last few weeks I've been half assing it a bit. I hate it. I honestly do. There is something really strange that happens when you are consistent. Without trying, magic happens. Trying hard here not to sound like a fucking dork, but honestly, when I do all that I'm supposed to do and don'...
Wednesday morning. 6:30 AM. Quiet. Everyone asleep. The sun is out already. I remember in the winter, when waking up at this time felt completely unnatural. It was pitch black. Dark. The past wind has been insane. Once again, it was the end of the month, and I had to finalise the lists of the ...
The last days sucked to be honest. I have a lot of work - at my day job - and I haven't been able to work a lot on Cyberleads. To be honest, I don't have to. All I have to do is work is this: - Work on the new lists - Tweet and share my progress - Get feedback from existing customers ...
Monday. I love Monday. It represents change. A second chance. You can start clean again. Woke up at 07:00 today. I'm working now, before starting work at 10:00. I also just wrote my weekly post. Week number 21. By the way, all my anxiety as to the percentage of the year that has gone by is ...
Hmm. It seems like I kept my promise. I actually slept in two days in a row. Shame on me. But, I managed to squeeze some work in today before work. On a side note, I've been really improving my Italian, it's getting molto benne. Also, yesterday was one of the very rare days I didn't work at...
I needed sleep. Monday through Wednesday I woke up at 07:00 AM. I averaged 7 hours of sleep per night. That sounds reasonable, but I generally need at least 8 hours of sleep. Especially when I exercise. Today, Thursday, I tapped out to exhaustion. I woke up, and said "fuck it", and went back t...
Wednesday. I fucking hate Wednesday. It's bang in the middle of the work week. Today I woke up at 07:30 AM. I slept great. Last night, after work, I went for a run. I pushed myself a lot. By the time I was home, nothing mattered any more. I was buzzing. I slept like a baby. Today I'm a bit ...
Tuesday today. Both yesterday and today, I woke up at 07:00 AM to put in three hours of work on Cyberleads before work. Work starts at 10:00 AM. Today I want to write about momentum. I've talked about it several times, but it's a concept that fascinates me. I'm always thinking about it. Mom...
Building businesses is very counter intuitive. Our logic often leads us to do things that are actually harming our progress. Although I had read about every single one of these points, I had to learn the hard way about them. That is by losing months on end on each one. - When ideating, don'...
Life is a struggle. I remember hearing that many times growing up. I always thought it was some melodramatic bullshit. But now that I'm getting older, I'm thinking that it may be true. Not that life is hard and therefore turns our life into struggle. But that we need struggle in our life. Even...
Today I woke up super late. I was having a beer through Zoom with my best friend from Greece until about 1AM, so I woke up today at about 9:00AM. I just opened my work laptop. I didn't get anything done today. I might do some stuff during lunch break or if I have some downtime during the day. ...
This morning I woke up and saw the latest UFC fights. The main event was Ferguson vs Gaethje. Ferguson is an unpredictable monster with unlimited cardio and an iron chin. Gaethje is a pure bred fighter, that never takes a back step and is not afraid to throw himself into the fire. Gaethje won....
Retention is more important than growth. That thought always pops in my mind. Even on my run today. It kept coming to me. My revenue is large enough as it is. And I'm sure my revenue will increase in the future. But the best way to grow is with users that stick around for a long time. If yo...
I waited for a couple of days before writting a new blog. The reason is that I was very stressed after my last article went viral on HackerNews. This blog would have been a lot more emotional. Every time I put something out there that get's traction, I get a pump of adrenaline and endorphines....
In the past week I haven't done much. Haven't tweeted. Haven't coded. Just collected the lists and sent them out. Although I rested, mentally I didn't rest much. I feel this sense of urgency, that I have to keep the ball rolling. Right now I'm relevant. People remember who I am. The more time ...
Still working on the list. It's Wednesday today and the 1st of May is on Friday. I can send it out on Friday evening though, as all my customers are either in Europe or the US, which means they are either with me or behind me - time wise. I'll go now to continue.. Wanna hear a random fun...
Whooof. Today I woke up tired as fuck. I worked four hours before my main job, and then another three I think in the evening. On the list that is. I'm on track though, if I keep up this pace until Friday. Work is also stressful. We are working on a Covid-19 remote patient monitoring syst...
This is the last week of the month. As always, I have left quite a bit of work for the last minute, so I have some catching up to do. Today I woke up at 05:00 AM and continued with this month's list. I'll have to continue at this pace all week long. But at least I'll be able to relax when t...
At last my notifications have stopped on Twitter. The past few days have been crazy. It's nice and refreshing to have peace and not multiple notifications and messages every few minutes. Now I can concentrate again. I can work again. That is exactly what I'll do today, work on the list o...
I knew it. Someone already copied me. I'm not mad at them, but it just put me off. I want to share my journey, and I've always shared the good and the bad. But I'm maybe a bit naive, sharing the good stuff like that. Dunno. If I kept quiet, I wouldn't have been copied. But, I wouldn't ha...
The last two days have been surreal. My twitter exploded unexpectedly from a random tweet. My Twitter followers doubled. My MRR doubled. https://twitter.com/alexsideris_/status/1252656159636545538 It's funny cause late last night I went into a bit of a panic mode. I tweeted that I got a $10...
Startup life is a rollercoaster. Especially in the early days. Both results-wise, and of emotions-wise. Yesterday, reality grounded me in it's most eloquent way. That is by punching me in the face. A tweet of mine went viral on Twitter. Well, for my standards at least. Around 1K likes wi...
I can't seem to pull the trigger when it comes to cold outreach. It's one of those things that I don't like, but then again, who likes it? That's the difference between people that make it and people that don't. The latter prefer not to do it and stay comfortable. I find that the best wa...
Today I woke up to a pleasant surprise. A $50/mo subscriber! I asked him where he found Cyberleads from, I am waiting for a response. Maybe it was Quora. Maybe it was ProductHunt. Maybe it was Reddit. We'll see. I started reading a book called "Traction" yesterday. It's co-authored by th...
I'm always rested on Sunday, so I end up going to bed late. So I'm always tired on Monday morning. That sucks. Today I have to follow up with a guy on LinkedIn. That's it really. I also have to post on Quora and Tweet like I do every day. I still have not made my list yet. That's bad. That'...
Friday. Thank God it's Friday, right? Lol. Yesterday I ditched a book I was reading. It's called "Skin in the game". It's a business book. What I hate about some books, is that you can tell they are stretching what they want to say. They are trying to hit their desired number of words. L...
Yesterday I finished with my initial list of prospects. Out of ~50 companies, I found people to connect in ~25 of them. All in all, I managed to have one discussion, which was pretty helpful to be honest. Another guy is always telling me he will subscribe and he never does. Now he came back an...
Haha. Woke up, opened up LinkedIn and saw a message from someone roasting me. I asked for his feedback and said that I respect his time and that I would be happy to pay for it as well. The problem that I made a stupid mistake. I got his name wrong because I was copy pasting the message and...
I feel a bit better now that I committed to direct sales for this month. I know that it's not pretend work. It's actual work. Just get some customers. I have two people that are interested, but I don't want to jinx it. Unless they actually subscribe, it's all talk. Right now it's 07:00 A...
Morning! Just finished the weekly blog post. We are half way through the month. I need to get going. I just made my LinkedIn profile more complete, now I'll go and connect with people on LinkedIn. Bye!
Yesterday I started reading "Skin in the game". It's a very controversial book, written by an eccentric entrepreneur, Nassim Taleb. His main thesis in this book is that theory is bullshit, and that any kind of academic theorem is based on an oversimplified version of reality. Hence, bullshit. ...
Today I started reaching out to people on LinkedIn. Also, I decided I will tweet about everything on Twitter. I will tweet the way I blog. I got good feedback for my tweet storm yesterday, so that motivated me. And by good feedback, I mean ONE comment saying "thank you for being transparent...
Hey. It's been a while since I have been in a bit of a rut. Yesterday and today, I woke up at 08:00 AM. That's far too late, since I start work at 10:00 AM and my goal is to work 4 hours on my own stuff. Yesterday was one of my worst days ever. I felt like shit when I went to bed. At least I w...
I often panic. Especially before this corona thing. I felt like I had to do things fast. "In two months I want to be ramen profitable" or "This time next year I want to be a nomad" Of course, timelines like that are not realistic. If everything I did went according to plan, I would ha...
So, yesterday I defined my target customer. Agencies that help startups go remote or hire remote developers. I started searching manually on Google, but boy was that tiring and hard. Had collected two companies in about 20 minutes. No bueno. So I went, and found about ~60 that are quite goo...
Monday, 6th of April, 2020. Today marks EXACTLY the end of my three month trial period with my company. They want me to continue here, and I'm very happy for that, since I am learning a lot. The only way I would have been caught in a dilemma is if I were ramen profitable and I could beco...
Yesterday, I was looking into direct sales and was looking into Nathan Barry, Jason Cohen and Steli Efti. Here are two articles so you have an idea: https://marketingexamples.com/direct/jason-cohen-sales https://nathanbarry.com/sales/ And two talks: Steli Efti on IndieHackers: h...
Today I realized something very, very cool. One of my customers, who has been a customer for 2+ months now, since the day I launched is a startup from Toronto that's making 1-10 Million dollars in revenue every year. Wow.. I have a million dollar company as a customer! Seems like my goal fo...
<i>April 4th, Saturday</i> Today I got up in the morning super pumped to write a lot of blog posts. Right now, it's 10:00 AM, sunny outside, Frank Sinatra in my headphones :) Today I am going to write on weekly post I owe, one monthly post for March, and a mega post for Q1. The reason I ...
I missed a few days, the reason being that I was compiling the list of startups for March for Cyberleads. The funding rounds did not take a hit from the covid situation, if anything, it increased. One reason for that may be that they are pushing to finilize deals before things get more craz...
I'm not going to be building anything new. I'll focus on Cyberleads. That's it. Period.
Bad start to the day, I woke up at 08:00 AM. Ever since I started working from home due to Covid-19, I sleep like a log. No stress, no nothing. So some times I don't even hear my alarm clock. Luckily, since I aim to get up at 05:00 AM or 06:00 AM, I never sleep past 08:00 AM. That's when my ba...
OK!!!! Let's report our finding and conclusions for Angelstep and compare with Cyberleads. - Name: Cyberleads - What:Monthly newsletter of newly funded startups - Launch: ProductHunt (150 upvotes) - Results: ~1000 unique visitors, 10 paying subscribers. - Name: Angelstep - What: Mont...
Let me be honest, I think I have anxiety the last few days. Although I have written about it in my blog post "plans for 2020", in the top right of the homepage, I fell into the same trap. The trap being placing non actionable goals. Every single time I have seen some "success" it was when I...
New me.. aaaaaand.. I woke up at 2 hours later than I wanted! 08:00 AM :( Anyway, I did most of what I wanted. I launched Angelstep on Facebook and it got a bit of traction. Some interest, but no paying customers. Tomorrow I launch on Reddit. If I get 0 customers, that's it, I leave i...
It's funny how a bit of blogging get's you on the right track mentally. Yesterday, after writting about my laziness and articulating what I've been doing wrong the past week, I slept like a baby. Today it's Sunday, March 22nd. This time last week I was getting ready to launch Angelstep.c...
Let's be honest here. I have started to slack off a bit. I had a small notebook where I write what time I get up in the morning, if I work out and how many hours I work out every day. I write in green what is good, in red what is bad. I have stopped doing it. Basically, ever since I star...
Yesterday was Angestep's epic fail launch. On the other hand, Cyberleads is doing ok, I still have 7 paying customers for $29/mo. However, I truly believe that Angelstep is a good idea, I see so many people paying for databases of investors and such. I am certain. Although my PH launch w...
So today I launched Angelstep.co, it didn't go well. I got up at 05:00 and had 4 hours to prepare. 09:00 in Milan is 00:00 in San Fransisco. I prepared everything, the landing page wording, the product hunt tag line, the image, the description, the images, the initial comment. I also pr...
Wednesday, March 11th, 2020. Since Monday, I have been working remotely from home, they forced us to because of the corona virus. This gives me theoretically a lot more time, but the truth is that I don't feel that motivated the last two days. Monday sucked, I worked from my bedroom and ...
Sunday. Went to bed last night at 01:00 AM. For me, nowadays, that's my definition of being a bad boy. I woke up in the morning and created a small feedback survey. My mind was all over the place, and my question where way too many and too specific, so I went for a walk. It's difficult to a...
February 29th.. Tomorrow is March 1st, which means I have to send out the first list to my nine paying customers. (they were ten, but one of them asked for a refund because he was FURIOUS he didn't receive the previous month's report upon sign up) I simply did not have one, so offered him a re...
I hope my manager doesn't read this, but if you do, sorry Marco! :D All jokes aside, when you work, you always have a few moments of downtime when you have a mini break at your computer. At those times, ideas come to you. Anyone that has travelled on a bus, train or plane with no TV, book o...
Yesterday I was stressed because I could not sort out the email collection situation for CyberLeads. But fortunately I found a great service and the results are pretty good. You send a request with name and company name and it gives you the email. For example, Alex at CyberLeads and it resp...
Today I woke up at 04:30 AM. I wanted to put four uninterrupted hours into CyberLeads before work. Although it sounds extreme, keep in mind that I went to sleep at 08:00 PM. So I slept 8 hours, which is normal. I woke up and did what I talked about yesterday. Applied many filters to ensure ...
Wore up early in the morning, 6 AM. I’m going to pump out some leads. Yesterday morning I tried to get some leads from online resources and enrich them and add them to the list. It took forever… Like, 5 leads in two hours… This can't be happening. This is not feasable. I’m panicking. Today ...
Today I went to work and I was the happiest I’ve been in a very long time. I’m so proud and everything seems nicer. The city, the people, the weather, the future. Everything is great. I went to work and wanted to work hard, since last week I was sick for the first part of the week and in the...
So yesterday was a crazy day, I launched a product at last! And guess what, I think I validated it already! It's in the lead generation space, a monthly newletter with a list of hundreds of startups that just raised money. Three people subscribed for $29/mo and about another three were aski...
At last this illness is wearing off, today I feel like a new man.. I'm still struggling with the validating proccess. I know some people fear launching but I just wanna launch. Here is my situation. I have a space that is already validated. Lead generation. I have an idea that is already...
Wow, so I missed a few days again. The reason is that I got sick, which is something that I was actively trying to avoid. I went to the library the other day and some motherfucker was sick and coughing and sneezing next to me. I was furious but I didn't say anything and didn't get up and leave...
Yesterday I sent many instagram DMs and emails. I got replies and many are interested. Of course, interested does not mean a done deal, many times I get back to them and they don't reply, so I followed up with some yesterday. So far I have -theoretically- one affiliate deal (50/50 split) with ...
It's 5:30 AM. I went to bed one hour earlier in order to get up one hour earlier. Now I have three hours to work before going to the gym at 8:30. Yesterday I sent just a few DMs to Instagram accounts that post programming memes and such and asked them if they would be interested in an affiliat...
Yesterday I sent a few messages to large instagram channels that have a big following in programming. You know, like instagram accounts that post programming memes and shit. Got a few responses, and I'm in talks with someone about an affiliate deal. Basically, GitGardener is at around $200/mo ...
Missed the previous days, please don't ask why. It's funny how one day of going out and changing your sleep can change everything. Momentum is like walking on a rope, there is no balance, you are either getting closer to your goals or not. I'm back now and will be blogging daily. With a new fo...
Yesterday I went out for a beer with my colleagues and although I had a great time, I came home later than usual, and slept like shit. I also had about an hour's sleep less, so in the morning it was the first time I actually thought about sleeping in. If you had asked me about a month ago, ...
I remember once reading that perfection is not when there is nothing to add, but when there is nothing to be removed. While brainstorming about my new product, I had fell in the trap of adding features in my head of what the product would do. But then, I realized I am assuming too many thin...
Monday morning.. I like it to be honest, the weekend was unproductive as hell. This week I'll focus on one idea only, so I'm not scattered all over the place. Structure. The idea is a tool that generates leads for your dev product. It uses APIs like GitHub API, StackShare API, Twitter API, ...
Have you seen the movie Limitless? If not, this guy finds a pill that makes him super smart and productive. He takes it, writes a whole book in a day, cleans his house, get's his shit together and goes to sleep. The next morning, the pill has wore off and he is back to being a useless wannabe wri...
Saturday.. I slept like a baby, 10 hours. When I woke up though, I didn't have that drive to work on my projects. To be honest, I did nothing. However, I had promised myself that I would leave the house and explore the city, so that's what I did. I took the tram, went into town and got o...
Today waking up was a real struggle. I was tempted to sleep again for another three hours. But these three hours are the most important hours of the day, working on my projects and working out. They keep me sane and happy. Eventually I got out of bed and did everything as usual. The gym sessio...
This morning went great. I woke up again on time, and did what I had to do. I'm getting better as well. In two hours I do what I did all day back home. Strip the bullshit and just do what has to be done. Emails, Reddit posts, etc. Went to the gym as well. To be honest the week is creeping u...
I just love this feeling. The last experiment worked. Waking up earlier in the morning and working then as opposed to working after work in the evening. You should do the things that are most important to you first thing in the morning! I don't feel guilty anymore, even though I put in 2 hours...
Today I did what we spoke about yesterday. I woke up and worked two hours before starting work. Honestly, it was the best decision ever. I really give it my all at work so when I get back home all I want to do is eat, relax, read a book, blog and go to sleep. This way, if I can keep up with...
This is the 20th day of the year, and this is my first daily blog. I feel like weekly blogs can make you slack off a bit with your introspection, so I’ll start writing every single day. That’s the best formula for forming habits for me personally. I am better at going to the gym every day than 4 ...