project_log: 013

Yo. Quick update this week.

I just built and launched a website that's reached over 120,000 people in less than 24 hours as a solo engineer. I cannot comprehend the number of people who have interacted with the code I've just written.

I can't share any details due to an NDA, but this was one of the hardest, most challenging, yet rewarding things I've done in my career. It gave me the confidence to say out loud: "I think I'm actually pretty good at what I do."

Usually, I'd shut myself down and think it was luck, but this time was different. The evidence is just too crazy not to see. I've officially outworked my self-doubt. For that, I am extremely proud.

I wanted to share some of the soft skills that allowed me to pull this off. These are relevant to any freelancer or studio owner, regardless of the service:

1. Independence and ability to take ownership — You have to make decisions and own the result, whether it's a success or failure. Taking the pressure off others to make decisions allows the machine to move forward.

2. Focus vs Communication — In high-stress/high-pressure situations, people will want to communicate with you constantly. Communication is needed but not at the sacrifice of focus. You have to allocate specific time to focus and communication. I work in focus blocks: 1.5 hours of focused, uninterrupted building, followed by 10 minutes of communication. This works well.

3. Prioritization — This is probably the most important. You have to become a master of trade-offs. Being able to effectively communicate and ask the right questions to understand what is a priority vs. what isn't makes a project successful. The client will want everything, but everything isn't always necessary or possible.

Ballpark progress update:

I didn't make nearly as much progress as I would have wanted to this week. The project I mentioned above took 95% of my attention. That's the nature of building something on the side. It's actually one of the reasons I don't want a co-founder on this. There are going to be times when I have to put in the work for clients, and I don't want there to be resentment from a co-founder. There are also times when client work is dead, and I can charge on with this project.

But I did make a bit of progress on something I'm excited about: the ability to open the widget from a button on your website, rather than having a constant little widget at the bottom of the screen. This makes the experience of the widget feel a lot more native to the website.

I also made a start on the widget personalization screen. I've added a logo upload, welcome message, and message name. I'll probably only add colors before getting this out to the private beta.

I posted a tweet this morning sharing a video of the update:ht

I've been in constant battle with my mind on this project. I'm paid based on the level of polish I provide as a freelancer, but this mindset is getting in the way of releasing an MVP. It’s a huge mental hurdle to get over releasing something that isn’t perfect.

But thats the game.

That's all for this week. Keep crushing.

Will.