DeveloPassion's Newsletter #16 - Dad x3

Welcome to the 16th edition of DeveloPassion’s newsletter. I wanted to check in and keep in touch with you all. It amazes me, but there are now so many of you following me that I’m getting nervous when pressing the “Send” button! I’m really grateful that you’re interested in what I’m sharing over here! So thank you for being here with me. This is going to be a rather short edition, but there’s big news in here. Here we go! As usual, I’d like to ask all of you to help me out a bit. If you find this newsletter interesting, then please do take a bit of time to share on social media: . With your help, others will also get a chance to discover and enjoy reading it. As an added benefit, it’ll also motivate me to continue the experience! Don’t forget that you can also follow me on Twitter.

This month, I’ve made good progress with the third volume of Dev Concepts, my latest writing project. I try not to think about the finish line because it’s still so far away. But I’m getting there, day after day, page after page. I’m not all that sure that I’ll meet the arbitrary deadline that I’ve set to deliver the twelve volumes, but I’m doing my best to keep the pace, independently of everything that’s going on in my life (good, bad & ugly :p). Each volume costs roughly the price of one or two coffees and should help you get a clear understanding of a ton of concepts. If you’re looking for a good read, check out the first volume and the second one; those two are already available. If you do, then please get in touch with me to share your feedback, whether it is positive or not. I’m not getting nearly enough! If you can’t afford it, then send me a DM on Twitter, and I’ll give you a free copy. I’m also interested in giving free access to the content in exchange for honest feedback, so please don’t hesitate to reach out to me ;-) If you want to follow the project, then check out my weekly status updates on IndieHackers: https://www.indiehackers.com/product/dev-concepts

I’m not the kind of person that likes putting on a mask and acting as a corporate drone. I’m a real human being, and I like bringing my whole self everywhere I go, and in everything I do. When I started DeveloPassion, I made the mistake of using “We” on the Website, even though I was alone in the company. At the time, I thought that it would look “more serious”. It’s definitely something that I should change. It’s just not me. So I’m not going to act like this with this newsletter. So what’s the biggest news of the year? Well, I’m going to be a dad for the third time, and it’s the best news ever; especially in these troubled times. Here’s the picture we sent to family & friends a while ago:

The text in french means “New show in our circus in October 2021”. My other children are now 11 and 8, which means that there will be a big gap between them. I didn’t expect to be a dad ever again, but this is such wonderful news that I just can’t shut up about it 😂 As you can imagine, this will have an important impact on how I spend my time in the coming months; hence my doubts about the timeline for Dev Concepts ;-)

You may have heard that I’ve been working on a SaaS startup project for the last two years. I gave my everything to that project and spent more than 2000 hours on it so far. Unfortunately, after so much effort, we still haven’t been able to convince our first customers. Meanwhile, we’ve tried raising funds but failed so far. I still strongly believe in this project, but as time goes on, hope slowly fades away, and team morale goes down. It’s unavoidable. The journey is long, dark, and lonely. Doubt creeps in insidiously, and the financial aspect is very impactful. The opportunity cost is now well above 200K EUR for me alone, and I’ve reached a point where I’ve almost exhausted my financial resources, forcing me to react. It’s a very important source of stress in my life at the moment, which is why I wanted to discuss it a bit with you here. People share success stories all the time, but for each success, there are a thousand failures. It may be sad, but it’s the reality. Everything has to be right for a project to succeed. The right idea, outstanding execution, the right people, the right timing, and luck. And even then, it may very well fail anyway. But whatever happens with this particular project, I know that I didn’t just “lose” my time. I’ve learned a ton along the way, both about technology and about myself. On a personal level, I’ve learned that I’m strong enough to work day after day after day, relentlessly towards my goals. I’ve learned that yes, I can really build a full-blown product from scratch, taking care of everything from product design, UI & UX aspects down to the low-level infrastructure and security details, all while catering for dependency management, code quality, deployments, automation, CI, project management, and then some more. And don’t misinterpret this. I’m not bragging; no one cares except me. I’m just proud of myself, even if the project ultimately fails. I’m proud because I know that I did my best, and that’s what matters. The project may fail, but I haven’t, and I won’t. Also, the things that I’ve learned along the way (technical or otherwise) will fuel my writing for quite some time, and I’ll make sure to share as much as I can with you all. Anyways, I still have (nearly) infinite patience, a ton of willpower and countless ideas. So whatever happens next, I know that I won’t get bored ;-)

Dev Concepts is an important project for me. I have a passion for IT and software development and want to share it with as many people as I can. I strongly believe that these books are valuable, but people need to know that they exist before they can decide for themselves. So please go ahead and help me to let people know that it exists:

It won’t cost you much time, and it’s invaluable to me.