March 14, 2022 ยท 4 min read

Assessing the current state of my projects

Morning is an excellent time to drink tea and plan the day. After a long pause, I return to working on my projects, and I want to formalize a short-term plan on what I need to do.

I won’t focus on long-term goals like the profits and numbers of customers I need to achieve financial freedom. I will focus only on short-term goals I have control over.

I have 3 projects right now:

  1. FollowRoad.One - a Twitter tool to help me understand what’s happening there.
  2. ScreenshotOne.com - a screenshot API that is in the development stage.
  3. ScalableDeveloper.com is a blog about development that I want to continue working on.

They are at a different stage, and some have small successes. The project has at least one returning user, not me.

By Project

FollowRoad.One

Current state

I created a simple project to track unfollowers and play with Twitter API. I did not have plans initially to monetize it and even open-sourced, but then closed the source code.

I plan to solve more problems and share the project with the community.

In the long term, the project must be monetized and be self-sustainable. Otherwise, it won’t grow, and it won’t have the impact I want it to have.

Pulse on FollowRoad.One

Since I switched to building the screenshot API, the project is on a short pause now. But I have a massive roadmap for this little Twitter tool and many problems I want to solve with the project.

Short-term goals and plans

Solve the minimum set of problems for me with growing on Twitter. And if it works and helps me. If I want to use the tool myself and it has value for me, then try to monetize it. Try to find at least one paying customer for whom there is value in the product.

How am I going to do it at a high level?

  • Grow on Twitter by sharing and helping others.
  • Automate my interactions to help and engage faster.
  • Sell the automation. If it helps me, it can help others.

On the low level:

  • Define and write the problems I encounter while engaging on Twitter.
  • Find the best possible way to solve it.
  • Write a post about it.
  • Automate the problem.
  • Share the solution. Mini launch of the problem.

I do not need to create a lot of features. But I need to create the minimum set that makes Twitter communication more effective without spending hours on it.

So, the plan for the upcoming weeks is to define and solve three problems with the highest ROI on Twitter growth and then try to monetize the project.

Action items:

  1. Write down the top three problems I encounter while working with Twitter.
  2. Solve them and automate the solution.
  3. Share solved problems.
  4. Make a simple landing page that sells.
  5. Add a payments option and try to ask for payments.

ScreenshotOne.com

Current State

This project is a long-term project. I started from a screenshot API project because I have a lot of experience building APIs and backends. I thought it would be simple. The goal of this project was to establish a set of tools to help me prototype and build faster and make a buck for a living. I chose the idea mostly randomly.

How wrong I was. I do not have enough experience in HTML, CSS, and UI/UX design, so it takes time to build basic things. Eventually, I need to take a course on HTML, CSS, and UX/UI design, but I do not have a lot of time, so I tweak templates.

Google Search Console screenshot for ScreenshotOne.com

The exciting moment in this project is that I tried the SEO-first approach. Without actual coding, I started writing articles about the screenshot topic. So far, so good.

Goals and plans

The ultimate goal for this project is to accomplish it and find the first paying customer. It won’t be easy. But now I am going to do it:

  • Build a minimum set of features to provide value.
  • Deploy the project, including payments.
  • Write posts.
  • And buy paying ads to check if the project works.

Action items:

  1. Complete landing page.
  2. Write API documentation.
  3. Write scalable screenshot system.
  4. Build a subscription system.
  5. Build dashboard.
  6. Use CDN for screenshot caching.
  7. Deploy and buy ads.
  8. Try to find the first customer.

Seems to be easy? Not sure.

ScalableDeveloper.com

Current state

I wrote in my Scalable Developer blog mainly for fun and did not monetize it. But I see that project grows and has daily visits. So, people are interested in the posts I wrote.

Google Search Console screenshot for ScalableDeveloper.com

It is not a lot of visits, but if I can consistently deliver high-quality articles on development topics, I am sure that the project will grow.

Goals and plans

Besides writing articles, I do not see how I can monetize the project and grow.

So, the short-term plan is simple:

  1. Write at least three posts on the recent problems I encountered on development and how I solved them.

Time and energy distribution

I am in the indie hacking game for the long term, so I should focus on making money first. Otherwise, it won’t be sustainable since I won’t have the possibility to fund all the projects I am building.

Since I am consciously building the screenshot API to make money, it will be my top priority to launch it and find my first customers.

I plan to work 80% of my free time on screenshotone.com, and 20% of the time between FollowRoad.One and ScalableDeveloper.com.