Try Something New in 2022

I was recently reminded that on January 1st 2019, I wrote down 3 goals I wanted to achieve over that year: "Be more open", "Try more scary things" and "Worry less". It might be a little belated, but thought I'd reflect on these for this issue. Writing this newsletter and recording myself for youtube seem to check off the first two pretty comprehensively - I've had to put my ego aside and learn to take ridicule on the chin. I've also brought new life to my blog, writing more regularly about what I've been working on. All of these mediums I've thoroughly enjoyed in their own different ways.

I definitely haven't worried less though, not at all helped with what's been going on over the last couple of years. This last year has been tough, there's be constant uncertainty throughout the year, so I'm hoping that 2022 will bring with it a calm that I haven't yet found. I won't commit to making it a resolution though, just a "fingers-crossed" for the coming year.

This hasn't been the case for everyone though, in fact lots of businesses and developers have found success through exploring different avenues, which probably helps with reducing their anxiety levels somewhat. You'll see lots of examples of these with todays links.

As always, if you have any comments on them or content suggestions for the future, please feel free to reply to this email and let me know.

Until next time, keep on shipping!

Ian

Stories

How an Excel TikToker made her way to making six figures a day

The bizarre story of  how "Miss Excel" went viral on TikTok and instagram teaching Microsoft Excel tricks. She now makes six figures a day selling training courses whilst dancing to pop songs.

$7000 in 7 days with an e-book. Channels breakdown.

Victor tweets useful UX&UI tips and shares his story how he's turned them into a a successful e-book.

Marketing Is Scary for a Solo Developer

If you're a stereotypical introvert developer (like me) you'll know this feeling - 'I don't like to do marketing, "build my brand" or whatever. I like to write code instead'. Rauno Metsa shares some tips for how he's got over this.

My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

You've heard this story before. You too can become financially independent. Just get a very well paid job at FAANG, invest your salary and retire 5 years later.

November 2021 Retrospective

Michael Lynchs TinyPilot notes for November make for interesting reading. He manages to increase his revenue 62% by removing a single link.

Code

Build a SaaS product with Next.js, Supabase and Stripe

This free course from egghead, is presented by Jon Meyers shows just how flexible Supabase can be by building a demo SaaS app with it.

git-history: a tool for analyzing scraped data

Simon Willison shares a really useful tool for storing scraped data with git and SQLite.

GitHub - AshleyScirra/servefolder.dev:

Serve a local folder of files in your browser for easy testing without having to run a server.

GitHub - mitchellh/advent-2021-sql: Advent of Code 2021 using SQL

Mitchell Hashimoto (founder of Hashicorp) shares his solutions to Advent of Code using SQL. As if it wasn't hard enough already(!)

A Favourite Tweet