July 2024 wrap-up

For July I wanted to just start with ridiculously small step for a new product. But life had other plans for me. I did start, yes. In a vastly different way than I imagined on 1st July.

I started freelancing as a frontend dev. All from a single tweet. And my wife also started on a part-time job.

So money issues became better. Now I feel like I can breathe.

*Phew

That was a close one.

That said, it’s not all a bed of roses. I’m a complete noob in devops, embarrassingly so. I had no clue how to use Docker, how to set up a local development environment, got to research terminal commands every time I use them, have no idea what’s the difference between workers and runners, partials and helpers. I had to learn Rails, Typescript, Docker, Git. Doing these frontend gigs exposes the part of me who feels like a fraud. But I’m learning fast (no less thanks to Claude AI and Cursor), and one month in, I feel much more settled.

This too shall pass.

It’s just temporary. I will learn, I get better, and imposter syndrome be gone.

I said “I give up” to my dreams of building a new product this month, but it’s ok. After I’m more settled and feel more at ease in my freelancing, I can start again.

Here for the long game, but actually… it doesn’t necessarily need a long time, because it’s also fascinating just how fast things can shift.

Onwards to August!
 

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JULY 2024 METRICS

– Revenue:

• Current MRR: $127
• One-off revenue: $4998
• Total revenue: $5125
• Total costs = $305
• Total profit: $2432
• Profit margin: 94%
   

– Jason’s Plugins For Carrd

• Total revenue from Carrd: $2571.60
• Sold 13 plugins at $330 revenue. Sold 3 mobile navbars, 1 testimonial sliders, 5 mega navbars, 2 listing with filters, 2 video button.
• $741.60 in affiliate income from Carrd. Affiliate income = Referral ($672.30) and Seller ($69.3) program.
• Made $1500 from work done for managing @Carrd X account.
• Felt like I lost momentum for Carrd plugins… so kicked my a** and launched 1 new plugin this month – the translate plugin.
• Made another plugin for in-app browser redirection on a whim based on someone’s question in Telegram group.
• Reinvested $97 revenue back into product in sponsorship ads.
• Telegram Carrd group at 146 members.
• Substack subscribers at 214.
   

– Outsprint design consultancy

• Failed the “Outside Activity” background/reference checks phase of interviewing for Deputy Directory position at CoCreate Lab, MSF. I think going back to fulltime employment in gov is out of the question now…
• Completed a 2-day training workshop for SP, ~ S$1600. 4 online and 3 f2f workshops left till early 2025, ~S$7200
• Confirmed 1 out of 2 programme opportunities with SoX DSG, total 7 workshops ~S$5880
   

– Lifelog

• MRR stable at $127/month.
• No new subscriptions, nor cancellations.
• No new features this month.
• Downloaded Writebook from Once.com - software to publish your own books on the web for free in a simple, browsable online book format, no publisher required.
• Lifelog chat group at 27 members.
   

– Indie solopreneur build in public journey

• Started freelancing as frontend developer at 2 startups. Made US$2136 this month.
• Didn’t follow up with learning on PHP, SQLite and my $5 VPS from Digital Ocean. Next: PHP API authentication. Won’t give up yet on my dream tech stack.
• Built a satire site called The Blue Screen of Death to poke fun at CrowdStrike-Window global IT crisis.
• Hit Day 200 of daily commits!
• Twitter analytics:
  
   

– Lists Kit

• 3 new sales for premium licenses this month. Revenue = $291.
• Continued adding 1 new item a day and completed 100 items in SaaS Starters, 42 for Commit365 and 48 for Directory Starters.
• Added 1 new feature to directories and boilerplate - a copyright year and affiliate link disclaimer in the footer.
• Next steps: Conduct keyword research to know which long tail keywords to build SEO pages for - sign up to Ahrefs/SEMrush?
• Planned more next steps here.
• After adding affiliate registration link to footer this month, got 3 affiliate sign-ups!
   

– Keto List Singapore

• Just realised Keto List Singapore had climbed up to no.1 top search result on Google for keywords “keto singapore”!
• Added 1 new item to Keto List Singapore directory, updated other directory items, changed search bar’s search to be based on description not title, added copyright year and affiliate link disclaimer in footer.
   

No updates this month for:
– Tech for good
– Sheet2Bio
– Sleep hackers club Telegram chat group
– Sleep biohacking
– Health
– KeyboardSG
– Career Conversation Cards
– Mind My Millions

Onwards!