Hi, this is Grace. Each month, I talk about what I've tried and stumbled upon as a creator. I share exciting findings and honest learning along the way.
It has been 2 MONTHS since my last update because I always found things to do that seem to have more priority over my newsletter. I think that's one problem when you have too many products out there.
I feel bad that I did not commit to the original monthly cadence for this newsletter. I started this newsletter more for myself, to keep records of what I did and what I achieved. However, recently, more people on the internet have found this newsletter and even tweeted about it. I feel guilty about not writing one. I hope I can do better next time with the cadence. Still can't promise.
Mindset Shifts
It has been a year since I left Big Tech. In the "honeymoon" phase of being an entirely independent contributor to society, sometimes I found myself still controlled by the mindset of a full-time employee (a thought slave).
What does it look like? Fear of what other people say or think about my opinions. Because of this fear, I behaved like my old self, overthinking everything I said on the internet and editing it to something that was more politically and socially correct.
In the corporate world, of course, we do this all the time because our performance and promotions are all based on what others think about us, through manager reviews and peer reviews.
As I entered my second year of being independent, I wanted to change. Screw all that!
Here are the two main mindset shifts I had:
No One Really Cares
I stumbled upon a video of Vinh Giang, where he said:
"People are so afraid of what other people think that they will do what other people want. And those people don’t care about you, and they will forget about you anyway. Speak the truth. Be yourself. This is power."
This line changed me completely.
I remember when I was working at Twitter, then-CEO Jack Dorsey once said, "Unfollow is easy." I’ve decided to keep speaking my mind and building whatever I want until you unfollow me.
The interesting thing that happened after I changed my mindset was that my follower count grew faster than before 🤣.
Successes are Random; Results are Non-linear
If you expect your results to be definite and linear like all the perfect stories you've seen on Twitter, you might give up or feel miserable most of the time.
I salute all the solo entrepreneurs who consistently crush their monthly recurring revenue (MRR) growth. At the same time, I know I'm in a different life phase where I'm pursuing different life goals. I'm happy when my book sales suddenly jump like the example below. And I'm still content when nothing happens, remaining curious and optimistic enough to keep trying.
What these two mindset changes did to me was not about others, but about freeing myself.
August and September Earnings
Here are my earnings for this year, with August and September updated.
For my own reasons, I redacted the numbers, but not the sources, using the macOS app that I created, RedacApp.
Product Updates
Since there have been two months since the last update, I have quite a lot to update. Bear with me.
ResizeGenius (App)
I built a new macOS app to optimize the time for processing images. I use this product every day when I'm working on my niche websites.
I also launched it on Product Hunt.
Fun fact: I tweeted about why I launched ResizeGenius on Product Hunt, and the founder of Product Hunt commented and quote-tweeted my tweet, instantly giving ResizeGenius more exposure.
What does that tell you? Each tweet is your opportunity. You should try your luck every day. You don't need a product to try your luck; you can use your tweets too. Shoot your shot!
(The same thing happened last night as well. One of my favorite finance book authors retweeted my reply, and I had to shut my laptop to keep my composure!😅)
You can download ResizeGenius in App Store.
Nail A Coding Interview, 2nd Edition (Book)
I updated one of my books, “Nail A Coding Interview”, by including cognitive explanations of why this framework works in a high-stress environment like coding interviews, as well as adding more examples.
In the past year, as my daughter has been doing competitive gymnastics, we had to overcome many mental challenges. Skills account for 50%, and mental resilience is another 50%. I conducted extensive research on this topic, and the findings can apply to many high-pressure activities, including coding interviews.
You can get the book Nail A Coding Interview from Amazon and Gumroad.
TallyCoin (App)
TallyCoin is a free iOS app I developed last year for my kids to track chores. At the same time, I use it as a way to teach them financial responsibility and investing.
Many of my parent friends love it, but it reached a point where I had no motivation to maintain it because it cost me to maintain, and I received nothing in return. Recently, I decided to experiment by incorporating mobile ads into this free app.
I can control the quality and categories of ads served on the backend, which is awesome. I can ensure that only appropriate ads are served.
You can get TallyCoin in App Store.
A Travel Site (Niche Website)
I've finally started another niche website in the travel domain as my second niche website.
My first website is doing well, but I've found that it's too niche.
How do I know it's too niche? I ask myself, is it a niche that my friends will ever search for on Google? Like shoes, travel, or stocks? Yes. But for the first niche topic, no. Only I, out of all my friends, love this topic.
The word “niche” in the term “niche website” doesn't mean it's a narrow topic that very few people are interested in. It should mean a narrow topic that a lot of people need to know about at some point.
This is why I started a new travel site. It's competitive but can be very lucrative if executed correctly. I'm still exploring and will report back.
By the way, wondering why I don't disclose the URLs of my niche websites? Here is the perfect answer to that:
🚨A New Book about Personal Finance (Coming soon!)
I have a few essays about personal finance that were very well received, and I'm turning them into a book. It will be my first book about finance after writing a few tech books.
I thought I could just put them together, and it could become a book, but I found many context gaps that I needed to fill before I felt good enough to publish.
This book will cover the most valuable insights, more than any other books I've written. For this reason, I don't plan to give this book away for free, not even to my friends. Why? Because people often don't read free books; they just collect dust. If it's priced at $1 during the early release, you'll have to pay for it! 😊
I'm currently 80% done. If you're interested in receiving an early copy, please let me know, and I'll make sure you get it during the early release!
That's a wrap! Any replies are welcome (you can simply reply to the email).
Once again, God willing, talk you in the next issue. Peace out!