DeveloPassion's Newsletter - Focused

Hello everyone! I’m Sébastien Dubois, your host. You’re receiving this email because you signed up for DeveloPassion’s Newsletter or the Dev Concepts project. Thank you for being here with me ✨

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Another week, another newsletter! I hope that you all had a great one 🤩

This week, I’ve tried waking up more early to get back to writing Dev Concepts. Truth be told, I’ve failed miserably 😂. I’ll give it another shot next week. I felt too tired to get out of bed, and I probably procrastinate because I’m a bit scared about having a tough time getting back into the flow. But it’s okay, I’ll get to it soon ❤️.

I’ve finished reading The Minimalist Entrepreneur, and will soon be sharing my notes with paid subscribers. I’ve now started reading The Mom Test for the second time. This time around I’ll take deep notes.

On Saturday, I helped a friend get started with Figma. As a non-designer myself, it was pretty fun to play the design teacher. I’m actually tempted to record and share a YouTube video about this, it might be useful to the developers out there.

Alright, let’s goooooo! 🚀

This week, apart from my weekly explorations of Hacker News, I’ve read a few pieces about cryptocurrencies, NFTs, Blockchain, DAOs, dApps, etc. It’s been quite enlightening.

At this point, I’m pretty much sold on NFTs, especially after listening to this Indie Hackers podcast episode. There are interesting ideas to explore, and I’m going to think about this in the coming months!

Regarding DAOs, I must say that I’m really far from convinced. I’ve read an excellent article by Laurie Voss that rightfully went to the HN front page. In this article, Laurie discusses the good, the bad, and the ugly of crypto in general, and DAOs in particular. It’s a great read, so go check it out!

Finally, while I clearly see myself gambling (there’s no other valid word) a bit of money in crypto in the short term, I think that Warren Buffett is wiser than older regarding Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general. As Warren said, investing in crypto is “buying something because you expect that the pool of people who want to buy it because they want to sell it to somebody else will grow. It’s wonderful because it does create a rising price. Does create more buyers and people think: I gotta get in on this”.

And while he’s right, it’s also true that we should enjoy it while it lasts. And the funny thing is that while some cryptocurrencies might crash violently at some point, others will probably continue rising, and the game will continue elsewhere, with some of the same players, and new ones. Is it funny or sad, I don’t know. But it is what it is.

This week, I’ve joined a wonderful new community launched by no other than Rosie Sherry. I’ve rarely joined communities and remained active almost every single day (apart from my own 😂), but this one is an exception. I suppose that it’s Rosie’s magic touch ✨

The Indiependent community is a community for Indie founders. It’s not free, you have to pay for your entrance ticket. What makes it interesting is that you get booted after 30 days of inactivity. You can then come back, but you have to pay again.

Constraints like these are great to foster creativity. In this case, with these, Rosie has created a system where the ticket price is a great filter (i.e., only motivated people will join) and where people have an incentive to remain active. A real recipe for success! 🎉

Rosie has described the idea more in detail on the Indie Hackers forums.

If you’re motivated, then come join the fun!

This week I’ve added a ton more resources to my Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) Library. So far, I’ve now made 17 sales, which is fantastic 🎉. As I’ve switched to tiered pricing, the price will soon go up.

The library has grown substantially since I’ve launched it. There are now:

Thanks to Rosie Sherry, I’ve launched my first successful small and riskless bet of 2022. I’ve started experimenting with affiliate marketing. My goal is not to become a salesman, but I feel like affiliate marketing is a real opportunity to create win-win-win situations, and I ❤️ that.

If I make a sale as an affiliate, then I get money (first win), the creator that I support also gets money (second win), and the buyer gets something he/she will enjoy (third win).

To be clear, I don’t intend to try and sell you all sorts of junk; on the contrary. I intend to support projects of fellow indie makers that are building something of value, that I really believe more people should be aware of.

For instance, I’ve decided to join Rosie’s community, but also to help her grow it. Not (only) because there’s money at stake, but simply because it’s a win-win-win. I want more cool people to join that community.

I’ve published the list of projects/products that I support on my Website.

This week, André and I have chosen a name for our app: focusd.

More importantly, we’ve finally been able to record our showcase video. So, without further ado, here it is:

I’m sorry about the audio quality. I’m not quite ready yet to make millions on YouTube.. 😂

André and I have launched a Slack dedicated to productivity, which we hope will become a great rendezvous point for productivity nuts like us. If you want to discuss productivity, personal organization, or simply want to exchange ideas and remarks about focusd, then join us on Slack using this link.

👉 Join the waiting list: https://developassion.ck.page/focusd

No new articles this week! I really tried to write one this week, but my brain did not agree 😂

Let me make a promise; there will be one next week! 🙏

This week I want to share a book that I’ll start reading later this month:

Here are a few links that I found interesting this week: