Alex West š
I'm Alex, and probably just like you, I have a goal I'm working towards. Mine is to achieve personal and financial freedom. Since 2018, I've built and failed almost 20 products. In 2020, I started Cyberleads and managed in the span of a year to surpass my salary and quit my job. I've been sharing all my lessons and learnings here from day one.
April was a weird month. A month filled with distractions. The reason is that I was moving houses (again) and setting up my base here in Sicily. I rented a temporary AirBnb for a month, and in that time I had to figure out everything. - Which neighborhood I like best. - What my budget shou...
March was a month of change. I left Milan on the 22nd of March, with a one way ticket to Palermo, Sicily. My biggest reasons for leaving were: - I wanted to start a new chapter in my life - Milan is really, really expensive - Sicily is a tax haven for expats in Italy So, I ended up mo...
Straight to the chase. February was my second month of being self employed. And I almost blew it. I made a huge mistake that could have damaged me bad. Maybe even set me back to square one. Here is what happened... A few weeks ago, I was chilling on my sofa. I receive a notification from...
This was my first month being self employed. I honestly did not know what to expect. Would I become a different person? Be stressed all day long? And work all day? Or would I become lazy? And crumble under the pressure of having zero constraints? Well. Spoiler alert. None of that happene...
What a year. 2020 was like a movie. And it closed with a happy ending as well. Me quitting my job and going full time on Cyberleads. I'm free. But, to be honest, it doesn't feel real yet. I still feel like I'm on holidays, and any day soon I'll have to join a zoom meeting to talk about upco...
Once again, history repeats itself. As I'm about to lose all hope, things blow up. And I can't take credit for it. Nassim Taleb would call it a "Positive Black Swan". A positive event you cannot forecast, and will have more impact than anything else. You attract them by exposing yourself to th...
This month was bad. My inputs were the same. But I didn't get any customers like I usually do. I don't know what went wrong. I remind myself all the time that the results are not up to me - only my inputs - but it's hard to follow up on it. I find myself drowning in doubt and pessimism. Īs if ...
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. Iām 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 (getcyberleads.com) 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 impo...
What. The. Fuck. This month, MRR went up to $825. Initially, this month was a natural continuation of the previous one. Boring. Uneventful. Me bashing my head against the wall to think of something. Trying everything to find a way to grow Cyberleads. Nothing working. I tried many things....
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...
This time last year I blew up online for the second time. The amount of stress I went through was crazy. I don't really enjoy attention, so it was all new to me. One year later, my life is pretty much full of online exposure. Only this time it feels normal. Hopefully next year the ...
Have been working out a lot lately. Two to three workouts a day. I've built up to it. I bought a pull-up bar which I have been abusing every morning. I also run with my sister daily. 3K along the sea front - then jump into the sea - then return another 3K. And I also do my normal work...
Running your own business is not a personality trait. Nor is your job title. I think we get confused in our little bubble, thinking that our business, revenue or growth define us. But normal people usually donāt care about that. They just want someone cool, interesting and easy to hang o...
Rewatched Pixar's Soul today. What a fucking movie.
I made so many memories on my holidays around the island. And I was so much in the moment - that I didn't write a single word. Even though I wanted to. I sat down today and went though all my holidays, in my mind, as if it was happening again. You can find them on the Daily section. From...
Someone suggested I should make some arrows to go through the daily blogs without having to navigate back all the time. He is right. Also, another person told me that the width get's fucked up on large screens. I checked it. She is right. I will fix both today.
Today my sister is visiting from Holland. She is going to stay here for ten days and then we are going together back to Greece. It's been more than a year since we last saw each other. We will hike mount Etna together. A 3,000 meter active volcano. My sister is a fitness freak. Runs m...
Yesterday we left super late to return to Palermo. On the road we listened to the broadcast of the football match. The roads? Completely empty. Everyone is in front of their TV, watching the match. I am getting messages in my family group chat from England. Everyone outside, wearing England...
Today we are returning back home. And today is the Euro finals. Not to blow my own horn (!!!)BUT AS I PREDICTED(!!!) Italy and England are in the finals. I donāt really care who wins. Honestly. I should support England - being half English. But I want passionate people to win in life. An...
Today we are going to our final destination before returning home. We are going to Taormina, a beautiful coastal town on a cliff in the north east side of the island. It looks like Monaco to be honest. And itās a rich personās holiday location also. Tennis courts. Restaurants with $70 plates. ...
Left this morning from Ragusa to go to Syracuse. A city on the east coast of Sicily. Jahid was right. It is amazing. Our favorite place so far! A Greek colony. With Greek and Roman structures and buildings. This side of the island is super Greek and Roman. The west side, where I live, is...
Last night we went out in Ragusa. Such a beautiful place. Completely human centered. No cars. We walked around for hours and then sat somewhere to eat. We went to a place called āThe Four Catsā. But in reality, it had around 50 cats outside. The owners were in love. Haha. The food was gr...
Yesterday we visited the Greek temples of Agrigento. And I swear to god, I will never forget them. They are so well preserved - a lot better than the Greek temples we have in Greece. We put an audio guide in our airpods and walked around. We were discussing how in the future they might have...
Last night we arrived in Agrigento. A little city in the south of Sicily, where the Greeks used to live thousands of years ago. We got to the city and tried getting around the center. Huge mistake. I could hardly even turn without scratching the paint of my rented car. And it was a double r...
What is the point of having āfuck you freedomā if you never use it? Sounds silly to say, but itās hard to use it effectively. Meaning, without sacrificing your productivity and without feeling guilty. I caught myself touring Sicily with my girlfriend and thinking about work. While drivin...
We decided to tour the island of Sicily with my girlfriend. Itās been a little while now since Iāve left my place to go elsewhere. The reason is that I feel as if we are on holidays anyway. We donāt feel the need to pack up my bags and hit the road. We are ten meters from the beach. Always ...
On one hand, having and sticking to a program is deeply satisfying. Eating clean. Sleeping at regular times. Doing the things you want to do every day. Itās both mentally and biologically satisfying. But on the other hand, this creates routine. And routine creates zero memories. Even if ...
Italians play football with a burning passion. With a certain kind of flair. And with mean intentions. They try to score with every opportunity that is given to them. And they never give up. Even though I'm not a football fan and I'm not Italian, I can't help but root for them through and t...
Iām reading too much lately. And Iām sacrificing writing in itās place. Hell, I never thought I would ever say this. In all of my life, up until a year ago, I had read a total of 5 books to completion. A couple of Harry Potter books when I was growing up and a couple of self help books in u...
I used to think that working hard is the difficult thing of being an entrepreneur with no one to push you. Now Iām realizing that itās the opposite. Not working is actually the hard part. Understanding that itās totally fine to take a break, since your inputs and outputs are not linearly co...
Happy 4th of July to all my American friends. Today I was reminded that Iāve never visited America. And that when I was young, it was my dream destination. I remember watching skateboarding tutorials on YouTube when I was 13-14 and all the guys showing the tricks were Americans living in su...
If I could go back in time, meet my 20 year old self and show him myself now at 27, I know he would be disappointed. When I was 20, I wanted to conquer the world. Change the world. Build a legacy. Become a billionaire. Become a rockstar. I think itās an age thing. All little kids look in th...
People usually go through āquarter life crisisā, after school or college, when they start their first job. Itās the profound shock that life might not be like a Hollywood movie after all. Maybe youāll just be working a 9-5 in a soulless cubicle for next 50 years. Looking back, I think I went t...
A few days ago it was my birthday. I turned 27. And as always, I took a few days off to reflect on my life. Itās something Iāve been doing ever since I was a teenager. I remember being stressed and reflecting on my life when I was 14 or 15. Kinda sick, but itās true. āHow was I this day las...
I have guests at my house at the moment. It's me, my girlfriend and two friends of ours. It's lovely. We go out for drinks. Go to the beach. Go to museums. And so on and so forth. However, the last few days I can't even concentrate for two minutes on anything. I think it's the alcohol. ...
Sometimes I fear of sounding like a broken record. Yes, I have a story. And the story is not really unique either. That of failing for a long time and then succeeding. Most stories are like that. The difference is that most people hide it, while Iām embracing it. Sometimes Iām afraid th...
I would never have guessed it, but I have online friends. Fellow entrepreneurs from Twitter, with whom I regularly chat through Zoom. Itās kind of trippy, because although Iāve never seen them in real life, I feel them like friends. And to be honest, we have more in common that many of the peo...
Reading āFooled by Randomnessā by Nassim Taleb. Itās the only book of his that I havenāt read yet. On one hand, Iām happy that Iām close to finishing reading his work. His books are hard to read and take a lot of effort and time. And they are completely worth it. But Iām also quite sad that...
The weather has improved a lot in the past few weeks here in Sicily. It's officially summer time. All day in flip flops. All day half naked. And every day at the beach. It reminds me of Greece. And it reminds me of the place I used to go for holidays with my family when I was young. The ...
Have some friends from Greece, staying here at my house in Sicily. Itās so nice. Still able to get work done. And then off to the beach with friends and for drinks at night. Sometimes I catch myself off guard, thinking how nice it would be to be left alone to get to work. But why? Wasnāt th...
Sometimes I feel that Iām doing the right things. After all, my revenue and MRR are growing. My churn is dropping. And my life is improving. But could I be doing everything wrong? For example, who is telling me that Iām not growing just because Iām at it for a long time? Or because Iām incr...
Was talking with a friend last week through emails. He is a few steps ahead of me in his entrepreneurial journey, pulling in around half a million in revenue. Main traffic channel, SEO. Anyway, he did a small analysis of my work so far and it was really interesting to see how open minded and n...
The best (modern) business book of all time for me is Traction. Itās co-authored by the founder of DuckDuckGo and itās full of useful nuggets. Itās main thesis is that startups die due to lack of traction. Not lack of product market fit. And you canāt predict what will work. You have to try...
I feel like organic social reach is reaching itās maximum capacity. Yes. I can still bring in customers through sheer effort. But Iām not experiencing crazy growth at this stage. Churn and new MRR and quite close, resulting to slower growth. Looking at my conversions and stats, I feel the l...
Yesterday we went for a big family dinner. My girlfriend has family down here in Sicily. Uncles. Aunts. Cousins. And nephews. It was full of people. And of course, I was the only person that wasnāt family. Everyone had heard about me, since I was the reason my girlfriend is all of a sudden ...
Earlier this month, I decided to take the leap and go away from Gumroad and go to Stripe. I did it because Iām paranoid and afraid of platform risk. And although it was far more complex to calculate taxes with Stripe, it was a battle I was willing to fight in order to own my subscribers. Ye...
Early on this week, we didnāt have water for around 6 hours. Yesterday, we didnāt have electricity for around 5 hours. Today, the elevator isnāt working. Italian problems. Itās funny, the south of Italy reminds me of Greece so much.
Yesterday I rewatched āFord vs Ferrariā. Itās about a battle between the two companies. On one hand, you have a factory-like company in Ford, ran by Henry Ford II. He jumped into the office in a helicopter for two minutes per day. Had no idea who worked for him. Or who his customers were. Didn...
After nearly two months of using my mobile phone's 4G data and hotspot, I have internet. Feels good. Might start chatting with others and podcasting soon :)
I am a big proponent of actionable goals. What does āReach $10K/monthā even mean as a task? It doesnāt help with what you have to do today. And itās completely meaningless once you reach that goal. Around this time last year, I stopped setting non actionable goals. It was when I hit $1k ...
My girlfriend went to Germany for a week to see her parents and go to a doctor's appointment. That means that I am completely alone in this beautiful location by the beach. While I'm a bit bummed out, I must admit that a part of me is excited. While re inventing Cyberleads, I want to go ...
Next month I'll be running an experiment with turning Cyberleads from a newsletter into a database. While I'm preparing the ground work, my head is continuously spinning. Even though I've set up everything so they are 100% reversible if things go bad, I've been thinking what could happen. ...
I want to add a live demo on Cyberleads' landing page. As of now, there is a "View live demo" button above the fold. While that's good and people click on it, it requires action. Why don't I just add a live demo straight away embedded on the landing page, instead of having a static image...
I've been experimenting lately with turning Cyberleads in sort of a tiny database. But as I was redesigning the landing page, I realized that I started to become vague. The previous tagline was: "700+ companies that just raised money and are looking to outsource to agencies. In your inbox. ...
While my robots are helping with compiling the Cyberleads database, I've been tweaking the landing page. I'm always terrified of updating the copy. Because one wrong move is all that's needed to make your product seem completely different. Or super complicated. When, in my case, it's just a...
I'm not a good back end developer. And I'm a terrible front end developer. Honestly, I don't even enjoy programming websites and apps. The only thing I love is writing scripts. Robots that work for me while I sleep. Right now I have a monster robot running and cleaning up the data from m...
Yesterday was one of the worst days in recent memory. It gave me flashbacks of an older time. As I was chilling, I got a notification of a new paying customer. Amazing! A brilliant video product agency from Brazil. It made my day. This was my first Stripe subscriber ever since I left Gum...
In March I migrated from a no code platform to a Ruby on Rails app. Also, this week I migrated from Gumroad to Stripe. With those two things and with platform risk out of the way, I am now in the fortunate position to have optionality. I could leave Cyberleads as it is and keep doing my thing,...
Another point of failure I addressed this month was leaving Gumroad. Yes. It's a little sad. Yes. I love Gumroad. As a company. The people that work there. Literally, everything about them. But there is something very specific to Cyberleads that I am afraid. And that is privacy laws. Off...
Lately I've eliminating a few points of failure. It was a high level plan I had set out to do in Q1 of 2021. But you know... Life gets in the way and things take a little longer. Better late than never tho. Anyway, the first point of failure I addressed this month was splitting my money int...
Many people talk about serendipity. But mostly in the context of moving to a vibrant place in order to meet new people and bounce ideas around. I haven't heard anyone talk about increasing through your own mind. Especially in a remote setting, this kind of serendipity can change your life. ...
Today I spent the whole day on the beach reading books, with my girlfriend. Lately, I have a recurring ill thought that crosses my mind. A voice that tells me that I don't deserve what I have. A hobby that has turned into a job. A perfect location. Living on one of the most beautiful island...
The last few days I've been thinking a lot about the synergy between robots and humans. Robots, not in the sense of human like androids that walk and talk like us. But, simply, code. I don't know why this is a recurring theme in my mind. Maybe it's because I've been writing and running a lo...
I've noticed that for anyone that's a half decent engineer, building new features is not hard. Heck, you can build pretty much whatever you want, without code, in a fraction of the time it would take 10 years ago. Yet, what is truly difficult is adding those features to the copy of your lan...
I always remember a tweet I saw a few years ago, about Ryan Hoover, the founder and ex-CEO of Product Hunt. The tweet was from a Product Hunt employee, saying that the most impressive thing about Ryan is that he iterates in very small, yet very fast steps. His GOTO question when a new idea ...
I don't really know what to write about today. This is a common thing when I'm not consistent with my writing and I miss a few days in a row. But I have also noticed the opposite pattern. When I start writing again, I know that I won't be able to keep up with ideas. It's funny how the world...
On one hand, it's annoying that humans are not as consistent as robots. Unlike robots, we a constant battle between slacking off and doing the things we are supposed to do. And no matter how hard you try, we will always at some point fall off the horse. Like James Clear says in his book,...
At last I have internet! That was the final piece of the "moving and setting up a base" puzzle. I didn't enjoy this process. The last two months have been a whirlwind, but at least we are done. For the next year or so, I'm not going anywhere. I'm right by the beach. In a beautiful place. In...
Some days I get new customers and I feel like it was a productive day, even though I did hardly anything. Other days, I do a lot of things but because I didn't get new customers I feel like it was an unproductive day. Which is a huge illusion! Money and customers come and go as a result of ...
Nearly finished with moving. All that's left is a WiFi connection. Went with a fiber connection, but as with everything lately, I've had a problems and hiccups with contracts, etc. Hope to have it sorted by next week. Honestly, I have no idea how digital nomads and perpetual travelers d...
Missed many days of work. Reason being that I am moving houses and it's a lot of work. For legal and business reasons, I have to rent a long term apartment under a normal contract and transfer my residence. That's not as easy as booking an AirBnb. I had many problems. Many people also viewi...
One year ago, I blew up on Twitter for the first time. I went from being lost with Cyberleads, to discovering a clear and repeatable distribution channel, that also comes natural to me. Organic social reach. I had around ~500 followers one year ago. Now I have around ~10k. This just reminded m...
Two are the most important qualities I want to cultivate. Patience. And the ability to quit without ego. At first sight, they seem contradictory. How can you be patient and quit? Well, you have to be patient on the macro scale. Never give up on your dreams for example. But there are a...
Whenever I speak with friends of mine that don't have goals, I feel kinda sad for them. Not because chasing goals brings you happiness. In fact, most of the time chasing goals makes you unhappy. But because they have nothing to work towards and improve themselves. I used to be like that as ...
This time last year I was in a rough spot. I had a few customers, and I was struggling to find new ones. Meanwhile, my initial customers from the launch were churning, since the product was still very immature. I was trying everything. Direct Sales. Quora. Blogs. Sponsoring newsletters. Twi...
Running a subscription business entails a few daily dopamine hits. - The new subscriber alert. - The new cancellation alert. - The customer support message. - The positive feedback email. - The negative feedback email. Out of all of the above, nothing makes me happier than the positive ...
I'm looking for houses at the moment. My goal was to live on a budget here and have a super low burn rate. However, I'm noticing that a little bit of money can skyrocket my quality of life. Let me explain. Right now I'm torn in between three places. Option number 1: Live in the city of P...
Went deep into my notes today. Found an essay I wrote while being bored at work, a little over a year ago. A bit dramatic, but I still wholeheartedly agree with what I wrote. Here it goes: Offices. Where man spends most of his life. Working. Giving back to society. It's the way the moder...
Lately I've been reading different types of books. I've tried to break out of my comfort zone and read other stuff. Not just self improvement, business or philosophy books. I'm currently reading some simple Italian story novels. Has helped me to improve my Italian. I'm also trying to experimen...
Back in high school and uni, I remember I used to get motivated in an annual fashion. Every New Years, Christmas, Easter or my Birthday, I used to look back and reflect on the past year. And would feel motivated to continue. When I started working a full time job, I started getting motiva...
For the past 6 months, I've been trying to develop a new distribution channel for Cyberleads. Namely, SEO. But I have to admit that I've failed miserably. After six months of consistent effort, I'm still at zero. Literally and figuratively. I was thinking about it yesterday and it reminded ...
Calling and booking appointments to find a new house. I hate these kinds of jobs. But they have to be done. Depending on people speaking English is tough. Because Italians don't really speak English. Especially Sicialians. And my Italian is still basic conversational. Not good enough for...
Back in October, I decided that I wanted to get in shape again. I hired a personal trainer. Started sleeping better. Started working out again. And started eating healthier. The literature on sleeping and working out is pretty straight forward. There is some battle going on about how heavy ...
Random thought of the day: As a whole, the world is amazing. Flying metal planes. Trains that go up to 300km per hour. A magic box that keeps your food cold or frozen. Warm water. Groceries at your fingertips from all over the world. Prawns from Argentina. Bananas from Africa. Avocados from...
New goal for the next 3-4 years, until I turn 30. Build a small, independent internet business with minimal costs that generates $1M/year. That's $80K/month. Have no full time employees. No offices. Maybe a couple part time remote workers or freelancers. Super arbitrary goal! But why not...
My intuitions were confirmed. Some locals told me that the area I live in is indeed pretty rough. You should never walk by here. Let alone live here. Yesterday at 9PM at night, as I was hanging my clothes on the balcony, I saw three people boiling heroine in a spoon, one meter away from my ent...
Looking for a new place here in Palermo. I like what I'm seeing. Compared to Milan, prices here are less than half. I used to pay close to $1k for a private room with a private bathroom in Milan. Here, with $500 you can rent a whole apartment with two bedrooms in a great area. I think I ...
Yesterday I went to pick up my girlfriend from the airport. The airport here in Palermo is one hour away from the city, by train. As I was waiting at the station, bored, looking at the walls, I remembered that on this day last year I was working. And that if I were still working for a compa...
Nothing more satisfying than being on top of your things. Doing what has to be done. Yesterday, I finally took my drafts from the February and March blog posts, and finished them. You can have a look at them on the "monthly" column of this website.
My internet is good enough to work on Cyberleads and watch Netflix or whatever. But, unfortunately, it's not good enough to record podcasts. Which is truly a bummer. I really want to record podcasts this year, but I tried talking to people through Zoom and it was always cutting off. And ...
A huge trap I always fall into is believing that I am one step away from the perfect environment to work. As you have guessed, it's usually my evil and cunning procrastination disguised in sheep's clothing. A few examples: The last week before moving from Milan to Palermo, I didn't work ...
I remember that I used to jealous of athletes when I was in school. In an age where the rest of us were trying to figure out who we were or what we wanted to do, they had a purpose. In our teen years, they already had a path and goals. In our early twenties, some of them had a career already, ...
One thought that made all my crypto FOMO go away: Instead of speculating on whether Crypto or the Dollar will prevail, focus on the one thing that will never change. If you are useful and provide value, you will be rich. Because people will pay you for it, no matter the currency. Will El...
Ever since I quit my job, I've been struggling with shiny object syndrome. I don't know if it's 2021, or just me having more time now to ponder on bullshit. Bitcoin. NFTs. Gamestop. OpenAI. Clubhouse. Bitclout. The list goes on and on. We are all obsessed with whatās new. Or whatās chang...
Today I found out a fellow solopreneur sold his business for $1M! Maybe my old self, around two years ago, would feel jealous. But today, I honestly could not be happier for the guy. He was at $20k MRR and probably sold at a standard 4x ARR multiple, which means $1M. I am at $5k/mo. Not ...
My new place here has some bullshit wooden chairs. A lot worse that the chair I had in Milan. And nothing like the fancy, $1000 chairs we had at my previous day job. After just one week here, my back is already fucked. However, today I started googling and reading, and found out that there ...
Almost all things that are worth it are fucking hard. And I feel it's the same way with SEO. I've been trying to nail SEO down for Cyberleads, but it's been hard. However, I know it's worth it. It's leverage at it's highest form. Once you nail it down, it will work and distribute your pr...
A professional opera singer lives in the same building as me. My landlord told me that she performs at the Teatro Massimo. You know, the place where they killed Michael Corleone's daughter in Godfather III. Since she's a pro, she practices all day long. And you can hear her crystal clear. ...
We are close to the end of the first quarter of 2021. At the beginning of the year, I got a blank piece of paper and started designing my lifestyle again from zero. I noticed that there are a few things that make me happy. And they are small things, that I can do every day. Some of the t...
One of my favorite artists of all time is Ai Weiwei. He is a Chinese artist and activist. Was prisoned in China for his art. And was kicked out of the country. I remember finding out about him by accident, in 2015. I was in London to visit my family, and my sister happened to recommend an a...
I feel like switching up your working environment can be very beneficial. Every time I change place, my brain feels refreshed and eager to work. The same is happening again now. I have sorted out the basics: found where the supermarkets are, have full fridge, know where the bank is, etc. ...
I wish I could say that I love it here in Palermo. So far, I don't like it. Reminds me too much of the bad aspects of Greece. The infrastructure, the way people drive, etc. It's funny. Even though I'm still in the same country, it's a completely different vibe. Milan felt like Germany...
Murphy's law says that whatever can happen, will happen. Well, yesterday, almost everything went wrong for me, while traveling from Milan to Palermo. - First of all, the previous night I couldn't sleep. I was just staring at the ceiling. So, I only slept three hours. - Woke up late, and ...
Not much to say. Tomorrow I'm leaving for Palermo. Everything is in a single suitcase. Now, all I have to do is catch my plane. Goodbye Milan.
Yesterday I calculated how much money I spent in Q1. I was going paranoid. "Why the fuck did I spend so much money?" "Why didn't I forecast taxes and shit like that?" Reminds me that I'm on a very steep learning curve. I'm completely green and naive. I know that this time next year...
Calculated what I made and what I spent so far in Q1 2021. Made around $12k from Cyberleads, but spent over $9k. Very disappointed. I thought I was frugal and didn't spend much. And the worst part of it is that it legitimately wasn't my fault. I hardly spent anything on myself. 80% of...
Today I emptied my room and put everything in a single bag. Brains are funny. Because my stuff are ready to leave, my brain is also ready to leave. Cannot work. Cannot do anything. Although I like it here and I have a good time with my housemates, my brain cannot wait to leave. It's i...
In five days I'm flying to Sicily. I can't wait for my brain to be stimulated again. Milan opened my mind. I managed to grow here a lot in a single year. But now this place feels almost like my hometown back in Greece. An environment my brain has gotten used to. The interior of my hou...
Today I gave away all the stuff I don't need. Now - OFFICIALLY - all my things fit in a single suitcase. I put everything in bags, loaded myself like a mule and went to a specific charity organization in town, where they accept clothing. What I like about them is that they don't just take t...
Half way through March. I knew this would be a hard month. I had, and still have, a lot on my plate. Legal things regarding my business. Moving houses. Giving away the clothes I don't wear anymore. And more. This time next week, I'll be in Palermo. I haven't been able to double down and put...
Today something almost magical happened. A breakthrough moment. All of a sudden, I started speaking Italian! No, I'm not talking voodoo magic. Since I went full time on Cyberleads, I've been studying daily. Mainly, the 1000 most common words, which contain 80% of daily language. Thanks agai...
Not caring about the price of my cart at the supermarket is one of the biggest improvements in my life, over the past year. It's a small thing. But it's a daily improvement, and a daily stress that has gone away. Good quality food. A full fridge. And not caring about the price of products a...
Went through some old notes on my phone today. It's a trip, going down memory lane. Usually, it's nice. You cringe at your old self and feel better about yourself now. But this time, it was different. Some of those notes were really emotional. Saying that I give myself a year to succeed...
I miss training martial arts. I miss the fact that you are allowed to behave almost like an animal for an hour or two, several times per week. And it being completely socially acceptable. All of our lives, we are pretending as if we are pure intellect. That our bodies are just meat bags tha...
Had a look at Bubble yesterday. Wow.. if only I knew of it five years ago. I wouldn't even learn coding. I would have built everything with it, in a fraction of the time, with even better design. Not gonna lie, I'm even tempted to use it now. The problem is that I understand it's shiny o...
Exactly one year ago, the first quarantine started here in Milan, and we started working remotely. Even though we were all scared of this new possibly extremely deadly pandemic, personally, I remember my quality of life improving one million per cent. Going to the office is what killed me m...
1PM. Worked for four hours. Already done for the day. This is exactly the lifestyle I want.
I feel guilt when I focus on my business, instead of myself. For the last two weeks, I've been rebuilding Cyberleads with code. - To move away from my no code tool, and avoid platform risk. - To automate a few very specific things. - To be in a flexible position, where I can extend Cyberlea...
This week I rebuilt Cyberleads, using code. I no longer have the constraints of a no code tool. I can pretty much do whatever I want. Amazing, right? Well.. actually no. - I could do things with design that I couldn't do before. - I could slowly turn it into a platform like BuiltWith or Crun...
A very underrated power of people running "low" tech businesses is that they don't have to code too much. Newsletter businesses. Media businesses. Ebook businesses. People selling courses. People running communities. When running a high tech business, like a SaaS, there is always something ...
Lately I've been coding a lot. Moved from my no code tool, to my own custom website. The reason is that I don't want to be locked in a tool and have severe platform risk. However, it sucks to be programming again. While programming, you are living in a closed, bounded, deterministic worl...
Today was bitter sweet. I said goodbye and shut down to a project of mine that was making money. It was a stupid bot that pushed commits for you on GitHub. I built it completely for fun, but it ended up going strong for over two years. And it was my first project that ever made money. If...
Started writing the monthly blog post. For February. A few things I'm writing about: - Being naive and green - Inevitably, making mistakes - Avoiding ruin - Avoiding shiny object syndrome
Last summer, I came to the realization that I was slowly becoming fat. And that can't eat like I used to. Being 25 and eating as if you are 18 is not going to work for you. The pivotal moment was when I saw a photograph my girlfriend took of me. I was on a boat, sitting with a smile on my face...
Monthly list sent. Always super stressful. But always feels great when I hit send. Now, I know I have time to work on my business. On distribution. On marketing. On the product. On everything. I have so many things I want to do!
I'll keep this short. I'm back in Milan now, finalizing the monthly list. The funny thing is that this time next month, I'll be preparing the monthly list from Palermo. Sounds insane just to say, since I've done literally nothing to prepare for moving. Yes. All my stuff fit inside one b...
Yesterday I returned to Italy. Took the bus from Germany. But it took eleven hours to get back. The reason is because we had four border controls. One in Germany. One in Austria. One in Switzerland. One in Italy. In the first border control in Germany, two Turkish guys were asked a milli...
Yesterday I lived a real nightmare. I made a huge mistake, that could have damaged me really badly. And I'm still on my second month being self-employed. Yikes. A few days ago, I got a notification from Revolut, saying that I am eligible to upgrade to Revolut Bank. It's still Revolut, bu...
The last few days I didn't have much to do. I started working on things for the future. When running an online business, some days you work for a while and you are done. Meaning, you have handled everything urgent that had to be handled. Customer support emails. Bugs. Invoices for customers...
Spent the last few days migrating Cyberleads' website from my no code tool, to my custom website. The reason is that my blogs have started to rank on Google! I don't want to invest more in my no code tool and be locked in there. Especially since it's capabilities are limited and it might sh...
Got an email from a new customer today. He went on to explain how they got to subscribe to Cyberleads. Here's how it all happened: ---> Your name popped up while browsing Daniel Vassalo's twitter ---> Checked out your Twitter ---> Checked out your awesome blog content ---> Discovered Cy...
Lost three days of writing. I'm writing this blog post three days late. I wasn't fucking around. I was still working and still doing everything else I am supposed to do. However, I lost the first day of writing. It was quite rare and felt bad. I almost got out of bed to write, but didn't. ...
Today I went for a long bike ride with my girlfriend. The weather is great here in Munich. Even though it was snowing like crazy last week. While leaving, I closed my laptop and left a task half done. I hate doing that. As a result, I left the house with my usual guilt. That of not working ...
Yesterday I overheard one of my girlfriend's meetings at work. She works as a designer for a healthcare startup (around 100 people). They were discussing and analyzing the pros and cons of changing the copy of a small button in their app. You know the drill. Talking in a "professional" way....
Money is weird. It's almost as if it's attracted to the people that don't lust over it. And won't spend it either. You know, the cliche that rich people are simple. And don't spend much money. And the cliche that people living on salaries many times wear Luis Vuitton and Burberry on their w...
Feeling like shit today. Stressed and depressed. Mostly because of some taxes and expenses I hadn't taken into account. I'm scared that my runway might be shorter than I thought. Right now, I'm in the process of listing down with my accountant every single business expense I'll have 2021. W...
Yesterday my accountant contacted me and requested some money. He talked in some jargon language and asked for one thousand dollars. "Bla bla bla bla bla. $1k this month." What. The. Fuck. I'm here saving and managing my personal expenses diligently, and out of the blue these kind of exp...
Today I'm doing something completely awkward and outside of my comfort zone. I'm uploading my first podcast episode. In this one, I sit down with my friend and fellow indie hacker, Lachlan. I cannot even describe how much I cringed editing it. But, I know I'll improve over time. We al...
Didn't work today. Spent some quality time with my girlfriend. Now I'm ready to go to bed. I quickly drafted a plan for the week and wrote this blog post. This coming week, Cyberleads will turn one years old. So much changed in a year. And it was so unexpected. What seemed like random...
I constantly hear people talking about platform risk. "Oh, you need an email list. You have to own your platform." In my own anecdotal experience, I've never been able to utilize an email list. And I don't subscribe to newsletters, either. However, I thought about it. Why not add an emai...
A tweet of mine did pretty well in the last few days. But no matter how many times it happens, it always stresses me out a little. Usually, the best remedy for this is a long run. No phone. No AirPods. No audiobooks. No music. No nothing. Slowly, while running, you start thinking and solvin...
Today, someone asked me a question on Twitter. - "How many years have you been hustling for?" (actual message, not my choice of words) I usually respond "three years" to that - because it was three years ago that I discovered Pieter Levels and the indie hacker movement. However, the rea...
Today I'll be writing the monthly blog post for January. I'm ten days late. But, the ideas will be accurate. Luckily, I had drafted it on the 2nd of February. I was just overloaded with all the writing I did in January and I couldn't be bothered to sit down to finish it. I'll do that today.
Next month I'm leaving Milan and moving to Sicily. Going from the very high north, to the very low south. From almost Germany, to almost Africa. Last night I saw a documentary on Netflix. It was about Palermo, the capital of Sicily. The place I'm going to. It was the epitome of negative ...
What is money well spent, and what isnāt? And what is the point of money, anyway? I started thinking about this yesterday. I took an Uber to get to the train station of Milan, so I don't have to drag my huge bag in trams and buses. It cost me 20 euros. I started wondering. "Am I wasting ...
I'm on a bus right now. Going from Italy to Germany. Milan to Munich. Long trips are almost spiritual experiences. They are hard. They are tiring. You are forced to think. And you arrive slightly changed. You have no WiFi. No YouTube. No distractions. It's just you. You are not comfortable....
Ten percent of the year has already gone by. Normally, my reaction would be to feel stressed. "Oh, shit. I have to work harder. I'm running out of time." For example, this time last year, I would be freaking out. Actually, I think somewhere in a daily blog post I talk about it. This y...
Today I spent some time automating mundane tasks and processes. Some things with 'no code' tools. Other things with code. Mostly around generating new blog posts and around cleaning up data. Oh boy, did I enjoy it! A few weeks ago I wrote in "Why I Quit My Job" that I hate coding and ...
Sometimes I feel all grown up. Other times I feel like I'm still a kid. Sometimes I feel both at the same day. Like today. I'm working on my business. Sounds like an adult thing to do. But at the same time I'm listening to a playlist called "LoFi Pokemon". It reminds me of my childhood y...
It's been a bit over a month since I quit my day job. I honestly didn't know what to expect. Would I become a different person? Would I be stressed all day long? Would I become lazy again? Or would I become more motivated than ever? Well, none of the above happened. And, frankly, not muc...
Two months ago I ran a marathon. Out of the blue, without much training. That's 42 kilometers. Today, I couldn't even run 5k. I cut my run short and ran 3k in total. I was reminded that nothing is static. You are who you are now. Not your past. And not your future. At any given time, ...
Sent out the monthly list. Having a beer right now to celebrate. Sometimes, during the month, I get impostor syndrome. Especially this month. Maybe it was because it's the first month I'm full time on Cyberleads. My default answer when someone (or myself) tells me they have impostor syndrom...
No matter how many hours I have, I always finish the monthly lists at the last minutes. Even now that I don't have a day job. It managed to beat me down to the ground. I always put more than 100 hours into them. And not matter what, I manage to finish them at the very last minute. I thin...
Sometimes I wonder if I'm working on the right things. I run a tech business in the lead generation space. But lead generation is an old and saturated market. Whereas AI, remote work and GPT-3 are up and coming. I just started a video podcast. But podcasting is almost 20 years old now and p...
Today was the first time I've ever felt sick of Milan. Coming from Greece just one year ago, everything still felt new to me. The language. The neighborhood. The buildings. The people. Today, however, while returning from the supermarket, I stopped to take a quick photograph of the sunset. ...
Often when I'm working on something, I take a step back and ask myself. - Am I iterating? - Am I being a perfectionist? - Or am I procrastinating? Procrastinating means you are scared of doing the things that matter. Perfecting means you don't understand leverage. It's a low leverage a...
Uploaded "Plans for 2021" yesterday. People seemed to like it, which is always nice. It took more time to write than I was hoping. But, at least it cleared my mind. Enough writing for now. I'll cut back for a bit. Just daily blogs for now. Time to focus on my business.
I love that it's been over a year since I started writing daily. At any point, I can just scroll down and see exactly what I was doing and thinking one year ago. Did that this morning. And wow. I'm so grateful I can look back, otherwise I would have forgotten everything and wouldn't appreci...
A lot of writing this month. More writing than coding. More writing than marketing. That would be unacceptable, if it were not for it's introspective nature. At least it clears my mind and sets me on the right path. In the next few days, I'll upload "Plans for 2021". That will be my last lo...
Today was a weird day. I worked too much. And now I'm all stressed and tired. I don't want to work on my business all day long. And if I work more than five hours per day, I've noticed it's diminishing returns. I don't get much done. And all I manage to do is not recharge my batteries fully...
Just recorded a second podcast. One hour long again. I'm slowly starting to get the hang of it. I just have to put in the reps. It's super awkward, cringe and out of my comfort zone, but I'll upload the podcasts on this website this Sunday. I also finished writing "Plans for 2021". I wil...
Still writing "Plans for 2021". I was expecting it to come out small and simple. But, it's turning out a bit larger than what I thought. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Probably a bad thing. Maybe my mind is not clear enough? Anyway. Today a new housemate came to stay in our h...
Three years of building products is released at last. You can find it on this website, under the "Long Essays" tab. It was great for organizing some ideas and lessons I had in my head, floating abstractly. Now, after that thorough introspection, I'm ready to write "Plans for 2021". It...
Exactly one year ago I wrote my first daily blog. Before that I was blogging weekly. But it wasn't good enough, as I wanted daily accountability. Reading it, I cannot help but notice how scattered my writing was. And my scattered writing makes me wonder if I had a scattered mind. Did ...
Today I talked with a Cyberleads customer. Big company. Many employees. Multiple offices. Might sound scary, but it was not. They showed me how they use my lists, etc. It was very insightful and I took many notes. I know many people would be hesitant to present themselves as a company of...
I love having structure in my life. I used to be in denial and romanticize going with the flow, like the stereotypical artist. Now I admit that I enjoy being structured. It gives me peace of mind. Lately, I've been doing everything I have to do, and by the time the night comes I feel con...
Today I recorded my first podcast, with a maker friend of mine, Lachlan. It's not an interview. Not a formal conversation. No agenda. Just a chat. We recorded one hour and the time flew by. Then I edited the footage. Took about ~2 hours to do it. Now I'm trying to upload to YouTube, b...
Saw some MMA fights today. One of my favorite fighters, Max Holloway, was on it. His performance was impecable. Honestly, one of the best performances of all time. It inspired me. In his pre-fight interviews, he was talking about showing up every day, discipline, learning to fail, res...
Still writing. I'm a little frustrated, because the piece is not turning out the way I wanted it to. But then again, nothing goes exactly according to plan. Today I was thinking about how lucky I am. Normally I would have been working all day, today. Actually, I would have been workin...
Still writing "3 years of building products". I'd say I'm at ~50%. Not my best piece of writing. The reason is that I haven't managed to make it much of a story. It's mostly a list of things that I learnt this year. "2.5 years of building products" covered so much of the journey, and the...
Still writing "3 years of building products". The worse thing about these long essays is that it's hard to know what to include. Constraints create freedom and help you be more creative. Now I can write about anything, and I'm a bit stuck. Not much inspiration. I actually wanted to qu...
Tried recording a podcast yesterday for the first time ever. It was with my best friend from Greece. Just a 30 minute chat, in Greek. It was to try out my gear and see what it looks and sounds like. Now I'm in the process of downloading the recordings and editing the video. This is wh...
Just started writing "3 years of building products". It's a blog post that recaps my 2020. "2.5 years of building products" covers what happened until July 2020. But, I was not able to cover everything. In that blog post I emphasized on idea phase. That's because most people were asking ...
Updated the blog's design. Will be writing more long form pieces, so they will not fit in the nav bar any more! Removed the "Weekly" column and added a "Long Essays" one. Also updated the text on the homepage. I'd love a fresh pair of eyes, so please shoot me a DM on Twitter if you ha...
Nothing is easy, and all skills require years to master. I started working on SEO a few months ago, and I'm getting slapped around. Zero results so far. I'm getting humbled. It took more than two years to start becoming good at building small internet businesses. It took more than two ye...
Now that I have more free time, I want to pick up one new hobby. Not many. Just one. I decided it to be podcasting. It's easy to start. And all the gear can fit in my suitcase, which is important for the new lifestyle I'm designing. I also want to have deep conversations and meet new peo...
My mind is so peaceful and quiet. The opposite of what I expected. My girlfriend started working again today. She's a designer, working remotely from my place here in Italy. Seeing her work and participate in meetings made me realize that I don't have a job anymore. Now it feels real. Ho...
Just wrote the December blog post. You can find it in the 'monthly' column. By the way, I have to update the blog. The writing on the homepage is outdated :)
No more relaxing. It's time to go pro. I'm never, ever, ever going back to work in an office. I promised that to myself yesterday, when I returned my equipment. I just have to stick to my plan. The few "hard things", that if I do them, I will be able to have an "easy life". Waking up ear...
Today I took my professional equipment back to the office. Work laptop, chargers, etc. Even since leaving the office building this morning, I feel like a new era has began. It feels real now. Scared? Yes. Excited? Very. Today marks exactly one year since I came to Milan. A lot can hap...
I updated all my blog posts with the new format. I took the chance to read them as well while doing it. I ended up reading every single blog post I've posted this year. It was very helpful, especially since I am in the midst of planning out my year's plan. I went to the dark places of "i...
Getting ready to close out the year with two monster blog posts. Going to write "3 years of building products." and "Plans for 2021". I want to clear my mind and have a nice, simple and clear plan going ahead. Time is not an issue any more. But direction can still be a problem. Before...
New format for the blog. I will have to update the other blog post titles also. Fresh start to this year. Just sent the monthly list. Today, just out of curiosity, I checked out a few competitors. Both direct and indirect. It did absolutely nothing good for me, apart from making me nervo...
New Year's Eve. And here I am, banging away the monthly list. There are no holidays. But at the same time, every day is a holiday. I wouldn't change my new life for anything.
So strange to write "Day #364". I remember writing "day #1" - close to one year ago. So much has changed. All for the better. All my anxieties have turned into excitement for the future. Man, what a ride....
Man, I love writing so much. One of my best decisions of 2020. I've already started writing "3 years of building products" and "Plans for 2021". Can't wait to get all these bullshit, abstract thoughts out of my head. Analyze them. Throw away most of them. And then formalize the rest in t...
Wow.. The amount of people that have reached out to me in the last two days, because of "Why I quit my job", is insane. I'm so happy that there are so many like-minded people out there. Twitter is amazing at connecting us from all over the world. People we would never be able to meet nor...
As many of you already know, I decided to leave my job to focus full time on Cyberleads. I've been asked many times about my reasons, so I decided to write a blog post that explains them. You can find it on the nav bar of this website.
Got an email this morning while I was drinking my coffee. Close to $1k of sales just arrived into my account from the past week. "Great, that's another whole month of oxygen... If ever needed." That's was my first, spontaneous thought. I'm very happy about that. I'm planning to spend ...
Apparently, wanting to become a millionaire instead of a billionaire is considered a revolutionary idea in tech. That's so crazy. Since when is being a millionaire is not enough? Just asking that out loud makes me cringe and understand how ridiculous of a statement it is. Talking abou...
Sometimes I'm afraid that I'm locked in an echo chamber and I don't know it. I find myself constantly nodding and agreeing with most of what I see. Either when reading stuff from the people I follow. Or when reading books. Or when having conversations with others. How is this possible? E...
I see many people focusing on metrics. Twitter follower growth rate. Monthly Twitter impressions. Who followed or unfollowed them. Conversion rates on landing pages. Number of words written on blog posts. Or number of blog posts on a personal website. At first I thought I was missing ...
Today I woke up and wrote "Day One" on my notebook. First day waking up, self employed. I am my own boss now. With the good and the bad that comes with it. I am no longer an employee, being fed milk from the tit of a company. However, I no longer have a nice, cozy salary rolling in ev...
Today was my last day at work. Unfortunately there was a little bit of drama. What would be a warm goodbye, ended in a very cold goodbye and a fuck you. Disappointed. But what can you do. And who cares. Now, I'm free. And no one is going to spoil this day for me. I haven't felt so ...
It's easy to engage in low level thinking and conversations. Who said what. Who meant what. Who "won" an argument. Most of the times you shouldn't even think about it. You have bigger things to think about. If it won't matter in five years from now, it shouldn't affect you. Have cl...
Was just listening to an old Joe Rogan podcast. He had an old school, rich entrepreneur type of guy. One with hundreds of employees. He was so cocky. You could tell he is surrounded with yes-men in his life. He was laughing at his own horrible jokes. And thought that even the stupid pseudo ...
Still working a lot for my day job. Closing things up before I leave. Haven't worked on Cyberleads at all for almost a week. On the bright side, I just found out that my last day is on Wednesday, not Thursday. So, four more work days to go...
Haven't been blogging lately. My mind is all over the place. Catching up on emails. Catching up with my accountant and Italian paperwork. Catching up with tasks that are left at work. I have one week left. I'll miss everyone, and the cozy feeling of a standard salary rolling in ...
Just re-read "2.5 years of building products". Wow.. I had already forgotten some stuff. I have to document everything. Because it's priceless. In 20 years they will be gold for me. Especially during this period of my life. Quitting my job. Going full time. I have so many thoughts and...
Last week I ran a marathon. It wasn't planned. I didn't train for it. I didn't sign up for any race. I didn't receive a medal. Or take a celebratory picture. I just went out and did it. Somewhere throughout October, I found out that there was a half marathon here in Milan. So, I enrolled. I...
This year, my Christmas present will be the best one I've ever had.. Can't talk about it yet, but will let you know very soon! On another note, I'm very sorry that I haven't written the October and November monthly blog posts yet. I'll get to them this weekend. October was my worst mo...
I'm sorry I wasn't active. It wasn't that nothing happened. The opposite. This month that just passed (November) - was the craziest month of the year for me. Will write about everything shortly!
Last month I asked every single colleague of mine to recommend an accountant to me. The reason is that foreign professionals in Italy are eligible for some tax benefits, but you need an accountant to help you. Italian burreaucracy is hell. My main criteria were: - Speaks English - Knows t...
Oh god. What dread. I'm trying to deal with the Italian government, and it's really bad. Nearly as bad as Greece. I have a few more paperwork stuff to do, and then I'll have Cyberleads up and running as a proper business. This is my number one priority right now. I have one more month...
Yesterday I saw a movie with a fucked up father-son relationship. Being from a broken household (divorced parents, etc) - it hit me. But the most interesting thing about this movie is that I didn't identify as the teenager. I identified as the father. That's strange, because I'm prett...
It has been nearly a year since I installed "Cold turkey" and unistalled all social media apps from my phone. I have set up a timer, where they only unblock on Sundays. The only thing I use is Twitter. But, that is for work. However, I unfollowed some people that tweeted too often, so thing...
As humans we have very limited energy. There are only so many things you can do in a day. I was reminded by this again. Since last month, I have been eating very healthy, working out three times per week, and running twice per week. I still work my day job. Eight hours every day. Straigh...
Have been thinking of what my ideal lifestyle would look like. I usually end up on one structure. - Very few material possesions. - One hobby that makes me money. Cyberleads. - One hobby that keeps me fit. Working out at home, at a gym, or a martials arts school. Running. - One hob...
Shiny object syndrome is real. We all want to be excited. We all want to think that our next idea is the next big thing. But 99% of the times, it's not true. It's hard to find something that works. If you have something that is working and generating revenue, stick with it. Especially if it...
Nothing makes you grow faster than throwing yourself in the fire. Itās actually a hack. As Nassim Taleb says: āWhen 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...
Today I was invited for a QA with a group of people building small projects. I'm generally not a big speaker. I'm usually quiet. But when it comes to building internet businesses, I cannot shut up even if I try to. It's the thing I'm most passionate about. Sometimes I wonder if I'm ev...
Sometimes it's hard to find pretend work. It's sneaky. It tries to reason with you. Justify why you are doing it. Right now, SEO for me is my pretend work. I've been pretty much posting a new blog post for Cyberleads every single day. Automatically, that means slacking off on writing these ...
Found this note on my work laptop. It's from March, 2020. Just a few months ago. My whole dream was to reach $800 MRR, aka $10k ARR. Some months since then, I have made three times that amount. But as you can imagine, I'm still not content. I still have the hunger to grow Cyberleads. ...
I remember a few months ago reading about Nathan Barry's story with ConvertKit. For anyone that is not familiar, Nathan started an email marketing tool, ConvertKit, as a side project. For about a year and a half, he was not actively promoting it, and all growth happened through his social m...
Today I was reminded how much the internet is like the wild west. I put on the Cyberleads website a "30 day money back guarantee" I used to have it back in the day, when I first launched, and very few actually asked for refunds. It was a net positive. Added it again yesterday, to see ...
Balance is an illusion. Doing multiple things, at the same frequency, at the same pace, at the same time. Being present. Working for the future. Working for yourself. Working for your company. Working out. Spending time with friends. Spending time with your partner. No one can do that...
Change happens in pendulum swings. When one idea bursts into the scene, it usually comes with a bang. To cancel out an opposing idea. Don't worry. I'm going to talk about politics. I'm talking about entrepreneurship. A few years, or even months ago, every one in the indie hacking scene w...
The biggest individual factor that affects happiness is worrying. At least for me. A person with no real struggle in his life. Healthy. Loving family. A degree to fall back on to. Four limbs. A health brain. I think this is universal. Even the richest prince worries about things. I wa...
Today I woke up and wrote "Day 1" on my digital notebook. The beginning of the month is day one again. I'm motivated and have a small feedback loop to analyze from the previous month. I've set my goals for this month, and have already started going towards them. Nothing crazy. Just keep ...
Last day of the month. Finalizing the monthly list. Another month gone by. Another month that I made more money with my side projects than I did at my day job. It's been four months in a row. It's starting to get real. The ride is bumpy. With many ups and downs. But, I'm optimistic. ...
You have to have faith in your systems. If you have found something that works, you should double down and trust in the process. I'm saying this mostly as a note to myself, as the last months and a half have been a bit rough for Cyberleads. Not a lot of traffic -> Few new customers -> Dr...
Another week gone. Another month nearly gone. We are 80% through the year. It might seem that the year is over. But if you apply the Pareto principle, you'll realize how much can happen in the remaining two months. That excites me. And it should excite you too. Two months to go. Br...
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 ...
Every single time I post something transparent on Twitter, I worry 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. Zero 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. Badly. 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 ...
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 Iām working on a great feature for Cyberleads. The ability to forecast if a company needs your services. Since it's complex and subjective, it will not be fully automated. I'm starting with design, development and marketing. The largest categories of agencies. There is a lot of ...
Am I crazy that I remind myself daily that I'm 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 received a pair of 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. Wit...
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 super happy.
What is stronger? Our inner state? Or our surroundings? I feel like I'm my old self right now. Exactly the same I was before leaving.
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 Helena. Whatever. No matter how much money you make, or how many positive comments or recognition you get f...
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 girlfriend's best friend. So, two men and two women. It's really cool. We rented a big AirBnB right on the sea, in Chalkidiki, in Greece. We arrived yesterday, and we went for a late night swim, chilling on the beach and ta...
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? Yes, but the sea is just a 15 minute drive from our house here. And in about a week I'll go on hol...
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...
Saw a maker complain that he was copied. He builds in the open and is transparent about revenues. He is killing it. It comes with the territory. We all know what we sign up for. If you are getting more upside than downside, like me, continue doing it. If not, stop it. Iām in an even wors...
Today I feel a bit better than yesterday. I don't feel like vomiting so 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 Thes...
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 writing my normal, long, daily blog posts. After that viral tweet, business is booming. Also, 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 spread...
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 ...
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 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 the...
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 ...
Shit, I totally forgot about this 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 the wea...
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 20km 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 Milan. 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 t...
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 write programs in pseudocode. Some exercises are a bit difficult to be honest....
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...
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 email domain! I got to $1.3K MRR running Cyberleads with a Gmail account. ...
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 disc...
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% - let's say from 1% to 1.1%, with...
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'...
I don't know what to say. I don't know what to write. 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, that means that maybe I could charge even more, once I lock in my d...
Yuck. This past week 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 y...
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. This past week has been insane. Once again, it was the end of the month, and I had to finalize 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 Mondays. 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...
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...
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'...
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...
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 good 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 you...
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 ...
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...
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 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...
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 with...
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'...
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...
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!
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:...
Yesterday I started reading "Skin in the game". It's a very controversial book, written by an eccentric entrepreneur slash philosopher, Nassim Taleb. His main thesis in the book is that theory is bullshit, and that any kind of academic theorem is based on an oversimplified version of reality. ...
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 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...
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 :) I am going to write on weekly post I owe, one monthly post for March, and a mega post for Q1. The reason I am a little bit behind is because things have been crazy at work. Th...
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 finalize deals before things get more craz...
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. ...
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 - Results: ~1000 unique visitors, 10 paying subscribers. - Name: Angelstep - What: Monthly newletter of active investors - ...
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...
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 ...
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 ...
Shit is crazy right now in Milan. Iām 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 ...
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...
Itās February 23rd, Sunday. This time next week I have to have the list ready. Shitās 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, ...
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. Iām 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 foreverā¦ Like, 5 leads in two hoursā¦ This can't be happening. This is not feasable. Iām panicking. Today ...
Today I went to work and I was the happiest Iāve been in a very long time. Iām 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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 Iāll start writing every single day. Thatās the best formula for forming habits for me personally. I am better at going to the gym every day than 4 ...
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. Itās 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...
2020 was the best year of my life. Started Cyberleads. Scaled it. Surpassed my salary. Quit my day job. I'm not going to go over all the story. Or the things I've learned. I've already done that in 2YOBP, 2.5YOBP, 3YOBP and WIQMJ I'll keep this sweet and simple. Just like last year. Actually, I'm sitting in the exact same spot I wrote...
Sounds strange, but 2020 was the best year of my life. Moved abroad. Started a full time job. Started a side business. Scaled it. Surpassed my salary. Saved up a lot of money. Lowered my burn rate. Quit my day job. Gained my financial freedom. This blog post is the sequel of 2.5 years of building products. There, I talk in depth about how I found...
As many of you already know, I recently decided to quit my job and go full time on Cyberleads. It's been a long time coming. I launched Cyberleads nearly one year ago. But it's been three years since I first started building products and dreaming about this moment. If you want the full story of how...
At last I did it! After more than two years of constant trial and error, I managed to build a successful, profitable product and achieve financial independence! In this blog post I will explain in detail what happened and how I went from no idea to $2k MRR with Cyberleads inside six months. The story...
"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face." - Mike Tyson While writing my article about my two years of building products, I noticed some patterns. Condensing two years of actions and results into one piece of writing was a great reflecting moment that helped me immensely with the...
This is not a success story. This is not a "humble brag". In 2018 I start with a goal of reaching $500 MRR through my side projects. Six months in, I am at $50 MRR, riding a huge wave of momentum. Fourteen months in, I am at $200 MRR and have three profitable products. Now I'm two years in, I have shut...