Weekly Update #9

Sorry about missing last week! I meant to post an update, got busy on Friday, then was excited about things that were happening and just... well, didn't.

And then this week took me by a storm.

So here we are!

Thank you for your support as I continue on this journey. As always, you can respond to this email and reach out to me.

My goal for quarter one (January-March) has been stability. To get past the stinking feeling of "Oh god, I quit my job, and now I'm not making money."

Last week that felt impossible.

This week, I feel like I might have too much work.

Life is wild, y'all.

YouTube

• I hit 100 YouTube subscribers over the weekend! And then... it just kept growing. I'm now at 147!
• As I feed the "algorithm," YouTube does an amazing job of figuring out which people will actually benefit from my videos. And these people watch them! And comment!
• It's such a distinct feeling from the rage tweeting and bullshit hot takes on Twitter. It genuinely feels like I am helping people on YouTube.
• I haven't "engaged" on Twitter in a few weeks. My growth hasn't changed much as I tweet occasionally and mostly about the content I am creating for YouTube.

Freelancing

• After I lost the job on Upwork (that AWS ID/Secret are still public, and the credentials have not been rotated... so whoever they hired is not good), I went and applied for a bunch more jobs. And something crazy happened! I got zero interview requests.
• Ah, yes, the sucky part of having no reputation on a platform.
• I signed up for Upwork "Plus" so I can apply for more jobs. Not exactly glamorous, but you gotta do the grind, right?
• OR, hear me out – I have amazing friends who set up connections for me.
• I chatted with the CEO of a small startup who was looking for additional engineering talent. After two conversations (Wednesday + Thursday this week), we're looking to move ahead and work together.
• This could be a full-time gig. It sounds like they certainly have the work available, and I'd be doing full-stack development and helping in several areas, marketing through to product.
• The CEO was also very sharp and great to talk to. He had some great insight into what I was trying to accomplish, and I think I can learn a lot from him. I'm excited to get this gig off the ground! And who knows what it could turn into. Startups are fun.
• Last week I also revised an SOW with my old company and re-proposed it. It sounds like the revised scope is much better, so they're looking to move forward as well.
• Suddenly, I have gone from zero to two jobs, and that's... a lot of work on my plate.
• I haven't locked these down yet, so who knows what will happen. But next week might be crazy.
• I also have two other early inquiries I'm working on.

SaaS

• I didn't do any internal SaaS work this week, although I am slowly evolving my idea from "solo engineer" to something larger and more inclusive.

I also bought a new M2 Macbook Pro this week. I've been doing all my work on a 2016 Macbook Pro that's slowly running out of space and dying. I'm very excited about my modern machine. And it's a write-off!

That's all for this week!