Weekly Check-in: 10/11

Last Week's Update

Hello everyone! Welcome to another Weekly Update. It's a good one.

ListNote - I've been iterating the ListNote promise for the past week (see the update here - and I'm on to something interesting. A daily journaling app that helps you focus on what's important every day. I've had a number of people I've talk to ask to try it out now that I've explained it that way, and so now I have to build a bit more to deliver on the promise.

I've also officially open sourced it: Github link

Polyglot - I haven't made as much progress on this, but I've talked to three people who seem very interested in trying it out. People are trying and dissatisfied with tools like Cypress and I think there's a good opportunity here. It's just tough to get the motivation to get this project off the ground.

Community - I've joined a group that's part of Faith Driven Entrepreur, which is meeting weekly in my neighborhood. I've also been able to connect with a number of current founders, who have given me great feedback on both the big picture of what I'm doing and the smaller picture. I now have a good problem to have, which is possibly too many people who want to chat. Now to find the right balance.

Wins of the Week

• Fixed a few bugs on Tandem. It's still going strong, I talked to someone who's team uses it every day for the past three years, and it feels great that we didn't sell and shut it down. I'm proud of Akash and Billy in how they've been able to keep things going strong.

• I have renewed clarity on ListNote, which makes me super excited to take it to the next level. I might have to change the name though to reflect the new value prop, but one thing at a time 😀

• Zoe is sleeping longer at night! I feel a bit more energized every day.

Learnings of the Week

As linked above, I summarized the past three months of learnings on Listnote.

Talking to a friend, we discussed how the hardest period in startup life is when you as a founder don't have clarity on what to do. He called it "losing the scent". It's incredibly hard to motivate your team (and even be motivated yourself) during those moments.

On reflection, it's quite normal to not know what to do, but we can over-rely on our vision-casting ability to lead others (and ourselves), where at times we need to trust in a process that at times can be quite maze-like - to believe that when we do the right fundamentals (good culture, thinking clearly, fast cycles, iterating in market), good things will come eventually.

As I work alone and process honest feedback when things aren't on the right track, this is something I need to take to heart regularly.

Quarter Goals

New Quarter, new goals!

• Polyglot - released with 3 active users - this seems reasonable to do over the next few months given I am at the concept stage currently

• Listnote - daily planner app released with 10 active users - trying not to be too ambitious here as I want to spend more of my time on Polyglot.

• Ride 270 miles - an average of 3 miles per day over the next 3 months.

Onwards and upwards 📈

-Tim