December 2023 wrap-up

jasonleow  •  31 Dec 2023   •    
Screenshot

Monthly goals
$10k/m revenue
1% compounding
Biohacking sleep
Decoding coding
#marketing365
Fit AF

My intentions for December was to just accept that it’s not going to be the slow month I usually associate with December, and try my best and just keep going.

And I did.

I completed my Github streak challenge. I finished building Lists Kit and now it’s ready to launch in the new year. I launched the last Carrd plugin of the year to round up 12 plugins in 12 months.

I can’t stop.
I didn’t stop.

All the while squeezing in moments for reflection and reviews, as per personal tradition.

2023 had been a super tough year. Economic recession, bad market, no gigs. I came close to going back to this:

“My 2024 goal continues to be avoiding going back to this:” – @dvassallo

Yet, here I am, still indie hacking. I survived. Hope to continue to avoid it as long as I can.

Every year I see indies churning from Twitter and from indie hacking… so just surviving is a huge win imo.

Play to keep playing, not win.

Onwards to 2024!
 

DECEMBER 2023 METRICS

– Revenue:

  • Current MRR (all from Lifelog): $118 (•$0)
  • One-off revenue: $832 (↓$386)
  • Total revenue: $950 (↓$387) 😕
  • Total costs = $219 (↓$12)
  • Total profit: $731 (↓$375)
  • Profit margin: 76.9% (↓5.8%)

– Costs:

  • Domains (33): $50/m
  • Heroku: $7/m + $16/m = $23/m
  • Carrd: $17/m ($209/y)
  • Blogstatic: $1.60/m ($19/y)
  • Sidebird: $7/m (US$84/y)
  • Telegram: $4/m ($50/y)
  • IFTTT: $2/m
  • [New] ChatGPT Plus: $20/m
  • Reinvestments: $92 (ad sponsorships)
  • Virtual office renewal: $3/m ($38/y)
  • Table2site: $8/m
  • Chatfuel: $15/m
  • Twitter Blue: $11/m
     

– Plugins For Carrd

  • Total revenue: $832.80 (↓$385.17)
  • Sold 14 (↓9) plugins at $337.50 (↓$227.67) revenue. Sold 2 mobile navbars, 1 testimonial sliders, 5 mega navbars, 4 listing with filters, 1 dark mode pro, 1 randomizer plugins.
  • $495.30 (↓$157.50) in affiliate income from Carrd. Affiliate income = Referral ($433.20) and Seller ($62.10) program. Big drop this month…
  • Black Friday campaign revenue = 27 (↑7) plugins sold, $630.87 (↑$277.97) revenue.
  • Officially launched background video sections plugin on 38 (↑17) channels, got 4 downloads so far.
  • Completed my 12 plugins in 12 months challenge! 🔥 It’s been fun doing the 12 startups in 12 months challenge but WITHIN a single project. It’s like placing small bets for diversification, but more informed and targeted for customers of 1 project. A nice balance of diversification + concentration, variety + focus.
  • Published 2023 Recap of 12 plugins in 16 channels.
  • Celebrated Christmas with snow confetti and Santa hat on main site.
  • Signed up for Beam Analytics, set it up on main page. Will also use it for all my Carrd plugin demo landing pages.
  • Continued experiments in reinvesting revenue back into product:
  • Reviewed my reinvesting strategy and outcomes. Summary: Impact of sponsorship ads is limited. Other free channels did better!
  • Fixed bugs and issues:
    • From the SEO audits, realised I got to add “carrd templates” copy to all my plugins. SEO copy fixes to come!
  • Plan to use my $19/y blogstatic.io subscription – use it with a meta refresh of the blogpost URL with a query string, e.g. plugins.carrd.co/?post=my-blog-post.
  • Telegram Carrd group at 94 (↓5) members.
  • Substack subscribers at 121 (↑14). Published 1 Substack newsletter this month (open rate 61%), to launch the background video sections plugin.
     

– Outsprint design consultancy

  • LinkedIn metrics: 1968 (↑29, ↑1.5%) followers, 11,741 (↓17.6%) impressions + 205 (↑0.5%) engagements (based on past 28 days), 386 (↓103) profile views (based on past 90 days), 33 (↓30) search appearances.
  • Impression and engagement down as I stopped posting everyday. Need a break and also to rethink my approach as my posts are getting stale. But what’s interesting is how my tech for good posts and my indie hacker posts are getting attention and follows.
  • Will use my Lists Kit boilerplate to refresh my Outsprint site.
  • Went for podcast with IPS to talk about sandwich generation caring for elderly and kids.
  • 1 new coaching project coming up with non-profit client in start-2024.
  • Applied for 8 (last month=11, total=53) fulltime jobs so far - Service Designer, Senior UI/UX Designer, Product Design Lead, Senior UX Designer, UX Project Manager, UX Designer, Product Designer, Head of User Experience. No replies whatsoever. This is how bad the job market is right now.
  • Continued to send job applications to recruiters as an indirect way to get consulting jobs as they also place people for freelance positions. Formalized this as a regular workflow for Outsprint.
  • Sent out 3rd ITQ extension for potential gov client in a S$90k project bid on Gebiz 😅😓😰🚩🚩🚩
  • Still awaiting discussion for a potential S$6k project doing design research for gov-related project.
  • I should really submit a proposal to my non-profit client to discuss new work in 2024!
  • Renewed domains outsprint.io, outsprintdesign.com, outsprint.org
  • Renewed virtual office subscription at S$50.
     

– Lifelog

  • MRR at $118/month (•$0).
  • Got a $10 subscription revenue but the user never used the site, so I’m bracing for the cancellation. Awaiting for subscription charge to kick in for 1 active user.
  • 0 new Lifelog trial sign-ups this month.
  • Deployed 2 new features this month – Discover more and Lifelog Wrapped:
    • Fine-tuned the Related Posts feature to be able to mix the data from different POST requests. Positioned it after comments instead so that the separation between original post and related posts is clear, fixed text overflow issue, fixed duplicate posts using .filter, and added author name and published date. Maybe v2 can include some AI summarizer API to summarize whole post into 4-5 keywords, then search contains said key words.
    • Rebranded the Related Posts feature into “Discover more”.
    • Built and launched Lifelog Wrapped in a day! What a great way to recap the writings that each Lifelogger wrote for the year.
  • Lifelog chat group at 27 (↑1) member.
  • Cohort-based writing course for introverts – Planned for 2023 as a top of funnel, lead generating FREE product for Lifelog. Could be an automated email drip campaign/ course on Convertkit, or a Gumroad standalone product. Subsuming this under Lifelog now.
  • After being inspired by Twitter account @PoemHeaven last month, got to thinking about marketing revival for Lifelog using Substack.
     

– Indie solopreneur build in public journey

  • After 9 months in a row where my revenue is above $1k, revenue dropped to $950 this month. Sigh… was bound to happen one day. 😕
  • Completed my 1 Github commit/day challenge!
  • Completed 12 startups in 12 months challenge! Not my first time, but glad to have completed this on 2nd try.
  • Twitter stats for Dec vs Nov:
    • Followers: 9579 vs 9277 (↑302)
    • Emails: 403 vs 378 (↑25) subscribers
    • Tweet impressions: 1.3M vs 764k (↑536k)
    • Engagement rate: 2.1% vs 2.3%
    • Link clicks: 1.5k vs 1.1k (↑400)
    • RTs: 621 vs 165 (↑456)
    • Likes: 8.1k vs 3.8k (↑4.3k)
    • Replies: 1.6k vs 1.2k (↑0.4k)
    • Profile visits, Mentions: ???
  • Impressions are back up? Last month I was losing faith in the reach, but this month everything seems back to normal again? Not sure if 1 month since cancelling my blue check had anything to do with it… The weird thing is, my reach seems to have went up slightly even, after cancelling.
  • Finally upgraded to US$20/m ChatGPT Plus, and played around with @levelsio’s LEGO brick box generator to make classic scenes of Singapore. The images went viral on r/Singapore!
  • Made my first custom GPT - 3D Emoji Generator. A DALLE-3 generator that converts any emoji into a 3D illustration, Thought since I’m doing this a lot for my website assets, might as well try to make a basic one. Wrote about it here.
  • Made my 2nd custom GPT for fun - Anime Figurine Generator. And then a 3rd one, a Barbie-inspired fashion doll generator custom GPT, but OpenAI blocks me from using “Barbie” brand name…
  • Got 2x interviewed in Indie Goodies and Founderoo.co.
  • Domains ending with .ing were released, and bought decodingcod.ing. Added it to my Decoding Coding project (an old project where I documented my coding journey) but not sure what to do with it yet…
  • ⛈ But on a more sombre note… I’m at the end of the runway in terms of finances. Feeling bit desperate, helpless…
     

– Lists Kit

  • Road-tested boilerplate on Keto List Singapore - it works!
  • Created a dark mode SaaS version for landing page.
  • Thought through business model, added pricing plans. Decided to have a simple one-time payment model with unlimited use for personal/commercial.
  • Created Telegram community for community support - https://t.me/listskit
  • Launched beta test, got 11 users.
  • Set up Gitbook account for documentation - https://listskit.gitbook.io/listskit/
  • Switched all imgs to ImageKit CDN.
  • Listened to feedback and optimized Lighthouse score to 100!
  • Used DALLE 3 to make my own icons for your web design instead of downloading them from svg repos.
  • Added problem-agitate-solution-outcome copywriting to landing page.
  • COMPLETED 1 Github commit a day till end 2023 challenge. Most of it was shipping Lists Kit. I did it.
  • Next, to launch the effing thing already in Jan 2024! (Delayed launch because no point launching something over Xmas/New Year). But got to research where my customers are because they might not be on Twitter…
     

– Sheet2Bio

  • I had a change of heart for this project. I probably misjudged the business potential as this isn’t a product I can validate using my Twitter audience. The idea of a link-in-bio is mostly validated by the market. It’s not a new market or novel product, just a spin of using Google Sheets on the conventional link-in-bio page. I just need to build it out, and use SEO to slowly move my presence up. Inspiration from Pallyy.
     

– 5am creators Sleep hackers club Telegram chat group

  • 118 (↓4) total members this month.
  • Get people in by making free tools for sleep hacking, like sleep cycle calculator, sleep directory ala Nomadlist, Telegram bot to track sleep stats/streaks, maybe even a sleep hacking 101 ebook.
  • Will use my Lists Kit boilerplate to start the sleep resources directory.
  • Bought 2 new .ing domains for this group - sleephack.ing, sleepbiohack.ing!
     

– Keto List Singapore

  • Zero ad revenue (•$0) this month.
  • Keto chat group at 124 (↑1) members. Getting more spam accounts trying to sign up again.
  • Site refresh completed within 1 week! (Took 2h but the records took a week to migrate) Love the new look. Used the Lists Kit boilerplate - with this, the site will last forever.
  • Cancelled my $8/m Table2site subscription… finally!
  • With AI content generation tools being so powerful these days, considering it for blog posts, Facebook posts…
     

– Tech for good

  • Will use my Lists Kit boilerplate to start the Inclusive Design SG directory.
  • Closed down Chatfuel chatbot for Grant Hunt, because can’t afford it anymore with my financial situation. But now that I got ChatGPT Plus, I can create a custom GPT for Grant Hunt bot!
  • With the new Lists Kit boilerplate, I can revive many of my public good info directories like Public Design Vault!
  • Podcast with IPS to talk about sandwich generation caring for elderly and kids.
  • Chat with social worker to help him think about using nocode tools for community engagement work in Punggol.
     

– Sleep biohacking

  • Planning to fix my sleep (again) in 2024. Back to early nights (9.30pm bedtimes).
  • No more tools. No sleep quantum cards, no anti-snoring device. Just fix the basics.
     

– Health

  • The daily morning exercise of body weight exercises—push-up, pull-ups, squats, crunches—is helping with well-being.
     

– KeyboardSG

  • Snapped up keyboard.sg domain as a domaining investment because previous owner lapsed on it. Was thinking something about mechanical keyboards, or an affiliate site.
  • Will use my Lists Kit boilerplate to start it as a listing directory.
     

– Career Conversation Cards

  • Single item ecomm store upcoming.
  • Might use Payhip as payment processor for ecomm physical goods.
  • Marketing channels to be SEO/organic search, ads and word of mouth (locally amongst career coaches).
  • New idea: Build this digital card sort site for career conversation cards, like Frog’s Cards for Humanity! And then after that build a SaaS for allowing designers to build card sort ‘games’/sites!
     

– Money

Onwards!

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