I thought I’d take some time to expound on this decision because there are several reasons it could be a terrible idea:

• 👶🏼 Our first child was born 5 months ago
• 🚅 I still enjoyed my job at Railway
• 🌙 I swore I’d never build another “REST Client”
• 📈 Yaak is only at ~200 daily active users

So let’s start with the big.. uh.. small (?) one first. We had a baby 5 months ago!

👶🏼 Having a baby

Why quit a good, well-paying job when I have a new family to support?! This was the primary thought in my head when deciding to leave Railway.

Something huge changed in my thinking, however, after watching our newborn grow: the passage of time was now acutely obvious. Before the baby, it was easy to put things off; Dog walks, road trips, and woodworking projects would all still be there. But, as they say “they grow up so fast.” Her life was already flying by and I was missing it.

So I decided to take the leap and start investing in a life with more space for family, adventure, and projects.

It was time to quit.

🚅 Leaving a stable job

As someone familiar with self-employment, I know about the Income/Time Lever. If you can beat the odds and earn enough to cover required expenses, the lever appears. Depending on which way you tilt it, you can either:

• Work for more money
• Work for more time

Controlling of this time/money balance is the single biggest benefit to self-employment. A 9-5 will always be a 9-5, but working for yourself can look however you want. In my case, I plan work for time and have the life I want, also known as A Lifestyle Business.

Sure, there’s a high chance of failure, but the risk is worth it to me. Plus, I can always Cmd+z back to full-time (or even part-time) employment.

🌙 Building another REST client

I already wrote about why I’m building Yaak but all you need to know is that I built a very similar tool to Yaak in the past, called Insomnia.

Insomnia ended up being acquired (amazing at the time) but it’s now drifted in a direction that I no longer agree with—to put it lightly.

Once Insomnia no longer fit my needs, I needed new tool. So, I started working on Yaak as a side-project. Like the early days of Insomnia, people are resonating with it and it’s been growing in small bursts since releasing it 5 months ago.

📈 Betting on Yaak’s growth

Yaak is still very early with around 200 daily active users. However, the reception so far has been tremendous. People are actively sharing on social media, sharing feedback, and submitting lots of ideas to the Roadmap.

Strong user evangelism is something I witnessed while working on both Insomnia and Railway and the word-of-mouth flywheel it enables is huge. This, combined with the fact that I’ve done it before, is why I’m confident in this venture even at such an early stage.

So that’s the story about how starting a family drastically shifted my priorities and pushed me to go back to indie development!

The clock is ticking and I’m definitely scared, but I’m also excited at the opportunity to achieve the life I want.

As usual, I’ll be sharing as much of my journey as possible so follow @GregorySchier or subscribe to my newsletter below, for longer-form updates.

Fathom is the most popular of these new tools but others like Plausible, Umami, and Offen also exist. There’s one problem, though; these new offerings are extremely basic compared the behemoths like Google Analytics—only providing simple stats like views, popular pages, and screen sizes.

These limitations are fine for my personal projects, however, so I could have used one, but the simplicity got me wondering if I could just build it? Long story short, I spent a weekend making analytics.schier.co and pointed my website at it.

Architecting the data

The hardest part of writing analytics software is maintaining query performance at scale. Luckily, my website maxes out at ~1000 daily visitors so scale isn’t an issue. Raw page view events can simply be stored and queried from a regular Postgres table.

The simplest solution requires just a single page view table, but I created two more tables for user accounts and websites since I plan to add a login system later. In the meantime, it’s fine to manually create these records by logging into the database. 🤓

Here’s what the schema looks like:

The only thing left is to massage the data into a format usable by the front-end. Note that the following SQL queries are specific to Postgres, but MySQL has similar features with a slightly different syntax.

Sending the tracking data

Data gets into the page view table via HTTP request. Like most analytics tools, the tracked website embeds a snippet on every page that executes a script to generate and send the required parameters. Here’s an example of one of those requests.

If you’d like to inspect the snippet in detail, it can be viewed on GitHub. Now let’s get to the fun part: querying.

Querying chart data in buckets

Postgres is great at generating bucketed time series results which must be done in order to have a count for every point on the chart. The following SQL generates bucketed data by flooring created_at to the nearest hour and using it in a GROUP BY aggregation.

-- Count total and unique views, bucketed by hour
SELECT COUNT(id)              AS count_total,
       COUNT(DISTINCT sid)    AS count_unique,
       TO_TIMESTAMP(FLOOR((EXTRACT('epoch' FROM created_at) / 3600)) * 3600)
           AT TIME ZONE 'UTC' AS bucket
FROM analytics_pageviews
WHERE website_id = $1 
    AND created_at BETWEEN $2 AND $3
GROUP BY bucket;

-- Example Result:
-- 16, 13, 2021-07-21 06:00:00.000000
-- 21, 16, 2021-07-21 07:00:00.000000
-- 12, 11, 2021-07-21 08:00:00.000000
-- 11, 10, 2021-07-21 09:00:00.000000
-- ...

Querying popularity lists

Perhaps the most useful feature of a analytics tools is seeing the most popular pages, countries, and screen sizes. Here’s what the data looks like in the dashboard.

To limit the number of expensive queries sent to the database, popular pages, countries, and screen sizes can be combined into a single query using GROUPING SETS. Grouping Sets allow aggregation into multiple groups within a single query! That’s three queries in one! 👏

-- Aggregate popular screens, pages, countries
SELECT screen_size,
       path,
       host,
       country_code,
       COUNT(id)           AS count_total,
       COUNT(DISTINCT sid) AS count_unique
FROM analytics_pageviews
WHERE country_code != ''
    AND website_id = $1
    AND created_at BETWEEN $2 AND $3
GROUP BY GROUPING SETS (
    (screen_size),
    (country_code),
    (path, host),
    ()
)
ORDER BY count_unique DESC
LIMIT 50;

Querying live users

Finally, it’s time to tackle the “live” users query. Most analytics tools define a live user as someone who’s viewed a page recently. The following query does just that by counting distinct sessions IDs in the last 5 minutes.

-- Count unique session IDs from the past 5 minutes
SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT sid) FROM analytics_pageviews
WHERE website_id = $1 
    AND created_at > (NOW() - INTERVAL '5 minutes')
LIMIT 20;

Putting it all together

The only piece left to mention is the dashboard, which periodically fetches those three queries from a Go backend and displays the data using React, TailwindCSS, and visx charts.

It’s automatically deployed to Railway and can be found at analytics.schier.co.

Was this really worth it?

I’ve been using this solution for over a year now and yes, it was worth it. I love having only provides the necessary information and can be customized in any way imaginable! 💄

My DIY solution won’t last forever, though. A simple load test showed that a ~30x in views would start slowing down those complex aggregate queries. But, moving to something like TimescaleDB Continuous Aggregates should be a straightforward migration and would scale much further.

So, should you build your own analytics tool? Heck ya! It’s a small-scope project and a great way to learn about data visualization, advanced SQL, and real-time updates! Maybe don’t use it for your next VC-funded startup but it’s a great way to track all those side-projects.

Let me know if you have any questions! Oh, and the source can be found at github.com/gschier/analytics. 👋

Here are the some of the major highlights:

• 🏃 Completed my first ultramarathon!
• 🪵 Finished 10+ woodworking projects
• 🕺 Taught swing dance classes with Jess
• ✈️ Flew to Dubai with the Railway team
• ⛰️ Visited many new local spots
• 🔌 Started getting into electronics
• 💼 Learned to stress less about work
• 🎹 Started learning the piano
• 🦣 Joined Mastodon

First Ultramarathon (50k)

I’ve been wanting to run an ultramarathon for nearly a decade and finally committed! My plan was simple — keep signing up to longer and longer races until eventually reaching 50k. Here’s the race schedule I ended up with:

If you don’t know, an ultramarathon is any running event longer than a marathon (42km). They also usually take place over mountainous terrain — something I completely underestimated. The Freeky Creeky 50k had over 2000m of climbing and took 9 grueling hours to complete!

I was so wrecked by the end that I came within spitting distance of a black bear and couldn’t do anything but hobble along exactly how I was. Walking was impossible the next day and my legs were sore for a week. 🤕

I actually enjoyed the suffering, though. 😈

The scenery of each event was breathtaking and it felt amazing to achieve something so difficult, but I don’t think i’ll do it again. The time commitment — maxing out at 5+ hours per week — is simply too high. I’ll likely still be zipping through the trails in 2023 but with the mechanical advantage of two wheels. 🚴‍♂️

Making Stuff, In Real Life

From running in the woods to the wood shop, I also completed over a dozen woodworking and 3D-printing projects. 🪵 Some highlights include:

A cutting board and whiteboard eraser for Christmas gifts:

And a triangulated plywood floor for Jess’ art studio:

My passion has always been building things, which is why I originally pursued mechanical engineering. But the space and financial requirements for physical creation were out out reach so, after being introduced to software in first-year, I latched on and didn’t look back. 🤓

Things are much different 15 years later. I’m fortunate to now have the space and financial budget to explore physical creation again, and am looking forward to making many more things in the future.

Creativity in 2023

If you’ve been following my story for a while, you’ll know that I’ve been struggling to enjoy work. While that’s partly because I miss the freedom of self-employment, I’m starting to think that the root cause is technology itself.

It’s a strange dichotomy; I find I’m happier with less technology in my life, yet my career is focused on bringing more technology to people. I still feel joy building software products that positively impact people, but I foresee a career change in the next 1-2 years that is grounded in the physical world and demotes programming to a supporting role. So what does that mean for 2023?

My plan for 2023 is to continue down the path I started down in 2022 — being physically active and building physical things. I’m proud of everything I created in 2022 but want to be much more ambitious! I’d also like to document and share these projects, so keep an eye out for that as well. I’ll see you soon! 👋

When trying to replicate an entire photo at once, you often end up with a disproportionate mess that looks very displeasing next to the original. While it’s possible to overcome this with years of practice, my fifth-grade teacher taught me how to cheat instead—by dividing the problem into smaller, more manageable steps.

You can try this at home right now. Draw a 1-inch grid over a reference photo and duplicate the same grid into your sketchbook at a slightly larger size. Then, start drawing each square one-by-one. You’ll be astounded at how much better the result is when you’re done.

Accomplish way more than you think

My favorite thing about this technique is that, after stepping back to view a finished piece, I can never believe it came from me. 🤯 Sure, I’m a good enough artist to reproduce a 1-inch square, but I just cannot comprehend the entire task. And this doesn’t only apply to drawing; pick any large task that seems unachievable now, and start breaking it down.

Starting a business, getting in shape, building a house, starting a family; Figure out the smallest next problem standing in the way of the finish and solve it. Like hiking a mountain in the fog, if you continually put one foot in front of the other in the general direction of up, you’ll eventually get to the top. 🏔

Productivity is Cyclical

Most of my struggles with work result from the guilt of not producing quality output on a 9-5 schedule. I think this comes from being self-employed where effort and income are closely correlated. Having a salaried job feels more like I’m being paid for time rather than output, leaving me stuck on a downward spiral thinking:

1. I have to work a consistent 8-hour day, every day 😬
2. I feel guilty when I’m not productive every day 😥
3. I have to work even when not productive 😫
4. I wish I could be doing other things instead 😠
5. I resent work because it’s wasting my valuable time 😡

The weird thing is that this guilt is actually fabricated by my own subconscious. No one is actually telling me to be productive every hour of every day. In fact, it’s almost the opposite. The asynchronous nature of my work means that it can be done any time, as long as it gets done. So I stopped working when I felt unproductive.

Unproductive work is not worth it

Once I understood that the only thing that mattered is output, I realized that if I only work when productive I can actually work less, conserve energy, increase happiness, and accomplish more as a result. 🤯

Now when feeling unproductive I try to do something else like go for a run or hike, or even simply end the day early if it’s a real dud. The key is to realize that 2 hours of extreme productivity is more valuable than 8 hours of unproductive work.

I’m still getting used to the fact that it’s okay to act and feel this way, but talking about it more as a team has definitely helped.

Communication is key

A large part of my general anxiety stems from projecting my own thoughts onto others. If I’m critical of my work output, I believe that others are too. And, while I’m not exactly sure how to resolve this behavior, I think it ultimately comes down to communication.

One routine we started at work is to share how we feel at the end of every day. This quickly illuminated the fact that I wasn’t the only one who felt bad about productivity, and that made a huge difference. This increased vulnerability also made other discussions easier as well. It turns out honesty and openness can solve most problems.

I don’t want to jinx it, but I’m happy to finally feel like I can remove the “unemployable” badge that I was wearing. I still have some work to do, but I think it generally comes down to figuring out what works for me and being confident that it’s good enough.

Here are the major highlights.

• 🖨 Learned 3D printing
• 🪵 Got into woodworking
• 🪴 Grew a garden for the first time
• 💪🏻 Setup a space to workout and exercise
• 📚 Finished 12 books (a new record!)
• ☕️ Quit consuming caffeine
• 😴 Failed to become a morning person
• 🧃 Brewed many batches of kombucha
• 📓 Made journalling a semi-regular habit
• 💼 Joined the team at Railway

The Work Struggle

I began 2021 self-employed with no income and the goal of launching projects that would eventually sustain myself. In March Jake, the founder of Railway, reached out to note that we were building very similar things. This actually got me quite excited and, after some back-and-forth, I applied to join!

It wasn’t that easy though. Part of the reason I tried so many new things in 2021 was because work wasn’t doing it for me. I got into 3D printing, woodworking, kombucha, and other things. I even gave up caffeine—which actually cured my anxiety! Unfortunately, none of that changed how I felt. I figured I just had some leftover resentment towards “working a real job” that I had to get over. I was able to bring this up with Jake and we made some changes that helped a lot, but I was still visited by waves of resentment every couple months.

It took until late December to realize that my feelings towards work were caused by abandoning my self-employment goal. The main goal I started the year with was being blocked by my job, and the full-time hours and resentment left no energy for my own projects. Luckily, now knowing that, I’ve been able to make some changes for the better.

Reprioritizing Goals

When I began writing this post in December I realized that I wasn’t working towards anything, so I formalized a goal. A big one. This year I’m going grow to my side-project portfolio enough to return to self-employment! 🙌

I spent a week improving my app Kabook! and am already excited about the future. But this shift in priorities had another, surprising effect. My resentment toward work is gone and I’m able to enjoy it again. I now see my job as an enabler for my goal because having a stable income affords more creativity by making revenue less urgent.

And that’s why I’m finishing this post a month late. I couldn’t bear to publish it without having a 2022 goal and, while I don’t know if I’ll be able to achieve it this year, that’s not the point. I’m super excited to have something to work towards and I know I’ll get there eventually.

See you on the other side 👋

The story of this year is best told a month at a time, so let’s head all the way back to January. And, if you missed it, here’s a link to my 2019 Review.

January 🏃‍♂️👋🏻✍️
I was running more than ever, making new friends at meet-ups in Montreal, and writing one blog post per week! This combination of exercise and writing felt amazing but eventually waned as the easy topics dried up.

February 🤕🔥
I got injured and stopped running for the rest of the year. I also stopped writing. At the time, I didn’t see this as causation but it definitely seems like it now. Shortly after, I explored Flutter by building a note-taking app, which sparked a desire I hadn’t felt in a long time—the desire to go back to indie development. ✨

March ✈️❤️❄️
I flew to Arizona for a work retreat. It was awesome to see my team face to face, some of whom I hadn’t even met yet! Right after, my partner and I visited her parents up north for a few weeks and ended up hiding out for 6 months, waiting for the pandemic to blow over. That never happened, but living in a temporary place with only one pair of pants caused me to reconsider some things. 🤔

April / May 🚣🏼‍♂️🏔
I mostly lived in the moment, trying to make the best of our situation. Living without my own space for months without an end date was really hard. Solo kayak trips and hikes helped gain back some of the control I’d lost.

June 😬
I explored some new personal projects and launched will-you-please. I also spent too much time stressing about whether or not to leave my job. I was half-way through a 2-year acquisition agreement so leaving early meant giving up a huge financial opportunity.

July ⛅️💨
I made the decision to quit and return to indie development, saying goodbye to the project I’d spent the last 6 years of my life on. The pandemic forced me to realize that the future isn’t guaranteed so I left while the opportunity still existed.

August 🗺🤗
My partner and I visited my parents before embarking on a month-long road-trip in a rented SUV, looking for a new town to call home; it turned out we didn’t miss the city life and after meeting the warm and friendly people in every small town we visited, we knew it was the right choice.

September 🏡🚀
We bought our first home—log construction, with a horse barn, a field, and a workshop—in the small town of 100 Mile House. Real-estate was cheap and the place was perfect, so we went for it! It was the first place we looked at in person. I also launched codesalad.dev as a place to publish my programming-related thoughts.

October 🚗🏠❄️
We bought our first car, moved into our home, and inherited 8 chickens and a rooster! Then, winter came and the chores began. It felt good to move my body again. Shoveling snow, chopping wood, and cooking every day provided a certain satisfaction that the city couldn’t. For the first time in my life I lived somewhere that truly felt like home.

November / December 📚🐶🎄
I launched a new app ReadRally, we got a dog and finally met our neighbors. It turns out having a dog eats up a lot of time so not much happened in December. We stayed home for Christmas and I dug into a few of the books we’ve been snagging at the local new/used bookstore.

And that was my 2020 in a nutshell. I spent the entire year turning my life upside down to get to a new starting point. I’m excited to develop new habits and patterns in 2021, and there are three main things I want to focus on:

• reach $5k MRR on indie projects,
• start physical hobbies like woodworking and gardening,
• and be more active outdoors.

These focuses are generic and easy, and that’s the point. I’m leaving lots of room for exploration and while I settle into a new rhythm, and I’m super excited to get started.

See you on the other side 👋🏻

When the acquisition closed last year, I knew I’d want to start something new eventually, but didn’t expect it to happen this soon.

My goal when joining Kong was to get Insomnia back on its feet; I was burnt out, overworked, and uninspired. I needed help, and Kong was the perfect company to provide it.

The plan was to offload all business-related tasks so I could get back to doing what I loved—writing code and building product. If I could do that, perhaps my passion would return and I’d enjoy work again. Well, my passion did return, just not for Insomnia.

So… what happened? 🤔

On paper, I had the ideal job—great team, successful product, relaxed schedule, and hefty paycheck—but I wasn’t happy, and it took a long time to realize that none of those were actually good reasons to stay. 🤯 After six years working on the same thing, I just couldn’t access the same levels of creativity, challenge, and risk that motivated me during Insomnia’s early days, so I’m making a change.

I’ve decided to leave Insomnia in Kong’s capable hands and return to indie development to find my next project. I don’t have a starting point yet, and that’s intentional. Every great opportunity in my life until now has come by accident, so I’ll be trying out as many ideas as possible to allow the chance of finding something completely different.

Not knowing where you’re going is the best way to get somewhere you’ve never been.
– J. Peterman (Seinfeld)

Maybe I’ll end up working on another developer tool like Insomnia, or maybe I’ll start a deck-building business. 🤣 All kidding aside, I honestly have no idea what I’ll find, and that’s exactly what I’m looking for.

As usual, I’ll be writing about every step of my journey. If you want to follow along, join me on Twitter @GregorySchier or my Newsletter.

See you on the other side 👋🏻

Perhaps it was the time I quit competitive soccer to go back to the league with my friends; the time I was switched university degrees to pursue an interest in software; or the time I told my roommate—after our landlords kicked us out to sell our apartment—that I wanted to look for a place on my own.

Quitting is always difficult but it’s a necessary part of life. When done for the right reasons, it acts as a transition, taking us from where we are to somewhere better. It plays a huge role in helping us get to the best version of ourselves. 🦾

My Dream Job

In 2015, I’d been at my day-job for two years. Having joined as one of the first employees, I had a huge hand in growing the company from a scrappy startup to a 20-person team. In the beginning, work was extremely challenging and rewarding. I learned so much about business—from both technical and non-technical perspectives—and was able to meet a lot of amazing people from the industry. It was my dream job.

But things had changed a lot in those two years. Growth wasn’t nearly as fast, our technology stack stabilized, and unexpected problems weren’t nearly as dire. That would have been great on its own—I could have used a break—but there was a new problem to contend with.

Being a VC-funded startup forced us to move quickly, prioritizing features over quality; our technical debt was piling up fast. And, since I was the most senior, it was natural for me to take on the responsibility of paying off the debt. Eventually, and without realizing it, that became my entire job.

Deciding to Leave

In my weekly one-on-one meetings with one of the co-founders, I expressed my unhappiness like a broken record. Every week, we’d come up with new ways to dig me out of the rut, but nothing seemed to stick. When problems inevitably surfaced—like when the servers suddenly stopped working—I would jump in and just fix the damn thing myself.

I was too attached to the company to sit back and watch someone else fix the problem, knowing it could be resolved sooner if I did it. It was a self-destructive habit that became harder and harder to escape.

To make matters worse, I was also using my free time to work a side-project Insomnia, which had amassed a few thousand users in its first year. So, not only was I draining myself at work, I was also working hard in my spare time—burning the candle at both ends. Because Insomnia was doing well, I made less of an effort at work, and started fantasizing about leaving to pursue self-employment.

I’ll tell you what, I’ve never gone back-and-fourth on something for so long. The game of mental tug-of-war continued for six months before I seriously considered quitting. Quitting felt like an admission of defeat—that I wasn’t tough enough to handle the job. I didn’t want be that person; I didn’t want take the easy way out and force everyone else to carry the load.

Eventually, a trip was approaching that my partner and I had planned together. We were heading up north to visit family and take a break from everything. I had to make up my mind right then; either I quit and enjoy the trip, or push it off again and waste a month-long vacation dreading the return to work.

So I quit. But not because I was giving up (even though that was part of it) but because I wanted to get somewhere better. I was finally going to start my own company.

Leaving with Confidence

I couldn’t just leave without a plan, however. It would have been humiliating to take such a risk on quitting, only to fall on my face and have to come crawling back to the workforce. So I did a few things to reduce the risk of failure as much as possible.

Here’s what I left with:

• Two years of living expenses ($35k)
• A side-project with 5000 users
• The skills required to build a great product
• A supportive partner ❤️

Those things would ensure I good starting point, but there was still a big question weighing on my mind: would it actually be possible to turn Insomnia into a profitable business?

To find out, I did a ton of market research and analyzed countless pricing models. Could I charge money for what I already had? Should it be paid up-front, or a monthly subscription? What new features should I add?

I decided it would be safest to model Insomnia’s business after its main competitor, Postman.

Postman had roughly 20 employees at the time so I concluded that, if I adopted a similar business model, Insomnia’s user-base would only need to grow to 1/20th the size in order to be financially sustainable. It seemed simple enough. I already had a popular product that was growing quickly, so it seemed like a safe bet.

Hindsight is 2020

It’s been four years since then and I’m happy to report that the plan worked! I can definitely say that quitting was the right choice.

And, six months ago, I actually quit Insomnia too, accepting an acquisition offer to sell the company. I’m still working on it as an employee but I’ve offloaded a lot of the day-to-day responsibilities, setting myself up for a smoother transition later. Even though I don’t know when I’ll quit next, it feels good to already be planning for it. I’m now able to look at quitting in a positive light, instead of simply dreading the experience.

And that’s the biggest thing I learned from all this, which is to focus on the positive parts quitting, instead of dwelling on the negatives. Doing that would have made my self-employment transition easier for everyone involved; I would have been in a better mood, had more energy to help the company prepare, and been able to celebrate with my coworkers instead of isolating myself in guilt.

Transitions are always hard, especially when they involve people we care about, but they’re usually quick. So, do your best to focus the goal, even though it’s hard, to work towards becoming the best version of yourself.

I remember every contour of that backyard. At the center was a small grassy hill, no taller than ten feet high; both the back and right sides were surrounded by impenetrable trees and shrubbery; and the garage blocked half the left side, exposing a gradual runway past the house and down to the gravel driveway below.

I don’t think it’s possible for my memory to be accurate, but that day is still so clear in my mind. I remember being excited but having no idea what was about to happen. I was free of doubt, fear, and anxiety. Of course I was; I hadn’t yet learned how to feel those emotions. I was just there, on my new bike, at the top of the hill, waiting for Dad to push.

It’s like riding a bike

It was 1993 and we had just moved to Crescent Valley—a middle-of-nowhere town in the heart of Slocan Valley, British Columbia. I had just turned three, and my parents figured it was the perfect time for me to learn to ride a bike.

So, Dad took me to the top of that grassy hill in the yard, held the bike while I put my feet on the pedals, and pushed. Down the hill I went, past the garage, and out onto the driveway safe and sound.

And that was it. In five minutes I transformed from a toddler to a biker, and my parents couldn’t pry me off for the next fifteen years.

Effort is the key ingredient

After some research, it seems that three years old is the lower limit for learning to ride a bike. Whatever the case, it didn’t matter, Dad seemed to think it was fine; he always had full confidence in my ability to adapt and learn, regardless of societal norms. They both did.

Throughout my entire life, my parents have always supported my crazy ideas. Whether it was digging up the back field to make jumps, getting back up after bad injuries, or dropping out of university to pursue a startup (I later graduated). Their unconditional encouragement and support provided me with a safe space to fail, learn, and improve, convincing me that anything was possible with enough effort.

The challenge continues

And it all started back at the top of that hill in 1993. From that point forward, I’ve always believed in my own potential. Whether it was trying a hundred times to land a kick-flip, beating all the levels of Super Mario Bros 3, or studying countless hours for my Calculus 200 final (which I failed miserably). 🤭

The ability to go into something, anything, with full confidence is something that can’t be understated. Heck, it’s why I’m sitting here now, typing this post, trying my darndest to become a better writer. Sure, there’s a long road ahead—I’m sure almost no one will read this very sentence—but I’m confident that my feet (and fingers) will get me where I want to go.

So I’d like to take a moment to thank my parents—because I know they’re reading this—for all they’ve done for me over the past thirty years. I’d be nowhere (literally) without them, and it makes me excited to think that’s one day I might be able to have a similar impact on someone else.

♥️ Thanks Mom and Dad.

I recently sat down with Sean Washington to chat tech, side projects, and taking self-care. My appearance on the show has been a long time coming since Sean and I have been friends for a while now. It felt really good to put some things out in the open that have been on my mind for a while.

If you give it a listen and have questions, feel free to send me a DM on Twitter!

// Old way
const http = require('http')

// New way
import http from 'http'

It’s a simple conversion, but there were hundreds of imports and I knew there would be bugs if I edited them by hand. So, I came up with a clever set of find-and-replace macros to reduce the amount of manual edits, then got to work.

After a few hours of keyboard kung fu I was done, and I felt so productive! I started with a difficult problem, came up with a creative solution, and finished in less time than expected. Amazing! ✨😃

Procrastination in Disguise

Don’t get me wrong, sometimes it’s nice to sprinkle an easy task here or there for the sake of enjoyment, but that’s not what was happening; this was a pattern I’d been repeating for months before realizing it. And, once I did, the course-correction quickly backfired.

Instead of replacing the easy tasks with more meaningful ones, I simply switched to a different kind of procrastination—an unproductive kind—distracting myself with Twitter, Google Analytics, and Stripe. I was no longer getting anything done. My subconscious was doing everything in its power to prevent me from moving forward.

So why was it so hard? Why wasn’t I able to stop procrastinating and focus on the big picture items? It was because my fear of failure was more powerful than my motivation to succeed. 🤯

You see, growing a company is about placing the right bets at the right time. Most of them don’t work out, but eventually some do, resulting in positive growth. The problem with placing so many bets, however, is that most of them end in failure. And, while failure is manageable the first few times, it really takes a toll if it keeps happening.

So, after trying many different things to grow the company, it seemed like there was nothing left that I could try. I started believing the problem was with me—that I was the failure—and that maybe I just didn’t have the skills to succeed.

Finding Productivity Again

After a few months of struggling to motivate myself, I decided to take a break. Hoping to gain some new perspective, I started drawing again, developed an exercise routine, and even tried recording a podcast. And you know what? That simple shift changed everything.

I didn’t end up sticking with any of those hobbies in the long run, but they gave me something else to care about. My identity was no longer tied to the company, allowing me to rise above the emotional fog and see the big picture.

After nearly a year of cycling between productivity and procrastination, I was able to get back on my feet. It turns out that the problem wasn’t me, after all. The problem was perspective.

Building a company is just hard and there’s no silver bullet to help get through it—mistakes and failure are guaranteed. However, I have come up with a few tips and tricks along the way.

So, if you’re ever struggling like I was, give some of these a try:

• Don’t associate your project with your identity or you’ll go down with the ship
• Break down ideas into smaller parts so you can fail (learn) faster
• Read business memoirs like Shoe Dog or Chaos Monkeys to realize that it’s just as hard for everyone
• Realize that it’s okay to feel demotivated, sad, or inadequate sometimes
• Start going to therapy (there are some good online ones)
• Keep a journal to reflect on the past and plan for the future
• Ask for help from your friends and family and be open about your struggles

And my final tip is to try not to care so much. ❤️

At the end of the day we’re just typing keys on a keyboard. Keep learning new things, enjoy the people around you, be grateful for when and where you were born, and keep moving forward. Personal growth is a long journey that has no end, so try to enjoy every step along the way.

My good friend Nick is getting ready to launch 30hourjobs, which got me thinking about the topic. Actually, dreading is a better word.

Every time I’m about to launch something into the world, I get terrified. After launching dozens of apps and projects I can honestly say, it never gets easier. If anything, the tremendous virality of social media makes it scarier than ever.

Imagine, your hard work, exposed to millions of people, within minutes. You’d be traumatized for life once the world realized it sucked.

Eventually, you get over it. You muscle-up enough courage to put your creation out there. To be used, criticized, broken, copied, stolen, or worse. Forgotten.

Even though it doesn’t get easier, there are a few strategies I’ve come up with to help convince myself—and others, occasionally—to launch, and I’m excited to share them with you.

There will always be a better time

Let’s use Nick’s project as an example. He’s launching tomorrow – Monday, January 6th. Is that really the best day to launch? What about the remaining tasks on his to-do list? Besides, people are probably still on holiday vacation and won’t be near a computer. And, everyone knows that Monday is one of the lowest-traffic days of the week. Right?

Those are are all understandable concerns. Wouldn’t you want to pick the day that ensures the best odds for success? Surprisingly, the answer is no.

Sure, there are a few days of the year that should be avoided—weekends and holidays are the most common—but the difference between Monday and Tuesday? Forget about it.

There are so many variables that could make one day better than another. It’s impossible to predict what will happen, and those small differences won’t matter in the long run. Just pick a day that seems good and go for it. The sooner the better.

That brings met to the next point.

No one will remember anyway

Launch day feels extremely important. The most important day of your life, perhaps. But it’s simply not true.

It only feels important because you’ve put in so much effort, leaving you feeling like it’ll be all for nothing if the launch goes poorly. Also, not true.

Think for a second. Can you remember any company launches, period? Probably not. I can’t even remember my own. 😆

A “successful” launch day may give a nice boost in traffic, but the truth is that only about 1% of people who see the news will convert to long-lasting users. Places like Hacker News, Reddit, and Product Hunt give great exposure and can definitely boost your ego, but just realize that they likely don’t overlap much with your target audience. Results from these communities should be taken with a grain of salt.

Any amount of feedback is a success

Working on a product prior to launching is like painting with the lights off; you have no way of knowing if it looks good. So… turn on the damn lights! 💡

There’s no better way to get feedback than from real people who actually use your creation, especially if you’re charging money—there’s something about asking people to pay for things that brings out their inner critic.

Feedback is essential for success because it’s the only way to figure out how to improve. Even if a single person gives you feedback on launch day, it’s a win, and it’s yet another reason to launch sooner rather than later. Take any feedback you get, use it to make adjustments, and keep pushing forward. Small improvements over time are what make a product successful, not marketing.

And finally, I’ve saved the worst for last. Buckle up for this one.

Haters aren’t necessarily a bad thing

Dealing with negative criticism is the worst part of sharing online. The internet is full of people who simply want to complain or put others down. Unfortunately, avoiding this is out of your control, so focus on something you can control: your reaction.

It sounds a bit silly to say but even the most negative feedback can be useful, but it might take some creative reasoning to find the meaning.

Here’s a comment someone left on Reddit recently regarding a blog post of mine. It’s not that bad but it’s the only example I could remember.

Why in Earth do you need to have a local server running to edit a static site? I thought a static site just meant editing plain old HTML files. Do you not have a text editor on your computer or something?

– Angry Redditor

A few years ago, reading this would have really affected me. It would have made me feel stupid for publishing the post and less likely to share in the future. But now, after learning to view things through a filter I think huh, they’re right, I should clarify what I meant.

Everyone makes mistakes, and there’s always room for improvement. Do your best to find value in all types of feedback and keep improving. There’s no better way to shove it in an angry commentor’s face than to thank them kindly and continue towards success. ❤️

So, I decided to pursue some creative hobbies¹, started going to physio, and accepted an acquisition offer to sell my company². Now that I have some time to reflect, I feel so grateful to have gotten out of that place.

It’s strange how life can slip away like that. It happened so slowly, over years; I took on too much work, stopped prioritizing health, neglected relationships, and ignored the (literal) chronic pain in my ass. Before I knew it, I was waist deep in quicksand and couldn’t escape. But I got out, eventually.

There is a great book called The Power of Habit, which introduces the idea of “keystone habits”—habits that have a positive ripple effect in all areas of life. For me, this was running.

Running made me feel accomplished which caused me to care more about myself. I felt motivated to eat better, dress better, and plan for the future. Apparently exercise is a common keystone habit, so I recommend giving it a try if you’re looking for some motivation. ❤️

So what actually happened this year? Well, here are some of the biggest highlights:

• 🏥 Made it through some serious burnout
• 🏥 Physio to resolve chronic pelvic floor pain
• 💪🏻 Worked on strength, flexibility, and eating better
• 💪🏻 Finished a 10k run (training for 2020 marathon)
• 💸 Transitioned from Sole Proprietorship to Corporation
• 💸 Hit $20k MRR as a solo maker
• 💸 Sold my company
• 🥰 Finally making friends in Montreal
• 🥰 Connected with many new people online
• 🥰 Going to therapy regularly
• 👨🏼‍💻 Revamped my personal website and started writing again
• 👨🏼‍💻 Set up a home office
• 👨🏼‍💻 Grew to 2700 Twitter followers (up from 900)

I now feel extremely well-positioned to continue progressing on my goals—self care, health, and personal growth—and can’t wait to get started.

I guess that’s why they call 2020 the year of hindsight. 🤭😆

🚪🚶🏼‍♂️

It was 2016, I had just quit my job to start Insomnia, and was second-guessing myself. I knew I had the skills to build a great product but doubted whether or not I could compete with real companies who’d been around for years.

Eventually, I asked myself the question: Is there anything that I have that big companies don’t? Luckily, yes, there is! Along the way I’ve discovered many advantages that being an independent founder brings with it and I’m excited to share them here.

🔍 Find success in a niche market

Let’s get right to it. What’s the one thing big companies need most? Money💰. What’s something you can’t get from a niche market? $1,000,000,000 ARR. Pick a niche that has a passionate and active community and serve there needs like no one else can. Remember, you only need 500 customers paying $30/month to sustain yourself.¹

Picking a niche market not only puts distance between you and other companies, it also gives you a more specific target audience to hit. It’s impossible to please everyone, so the more narrow the audience, the better.

🏄‍♀️ Adapt at super speed

As an indie you likely don’t have investors, and you definitely don’t have a boss. If a radical change needs to happen to better suite your customers, do it! Large companies have to deal with bureaucracy, enterprise needs, and massive complexity, so aren’t able to make changes as quickly as you can. Run circles around the giant ships in your tiny speedboat. 🚤

One of the turning points for Insomnia was deciding to release the code as open-source.² This was a huge decision and was something I’d been debating since the beginning. Then, one day, I just woke up and decided it made sense. A few hours later I flipped the switch and it was done, no need to ask permission from anyone.

❤️ Connect more deeply with customers

Some companies do a great job presenting a friendly face to the world, but don’t be fooled, cracks in this facade are bound to show eventually. Just got locked out of your account? Concerned about a recent product change? Have a feature request? Just want to chat with someone who cares? Good luck finding someone who really understands.

It’s not the fault of the employees either, they just simply aren’t close enough to the business to deliver the compassion, care, and knowledge that a solo founder can. Providing amazing customer support and detailed documentation is one of the best ways to get ahead. 🚀

In Insomnia’s early days, I received a couple 1000+ word emails from passionate early adopters. This information was invaluable during the early stages of product development. There’s no way the same thing would have happened if those customers thought they were talking to a faceless corporate entity.

🙌 Showcase passion and care

No one is as passionate about a product as you, the person who created it. Take advantage of this and share as much as you can with the world, in an honest manner. This will give your audience a real person to associate the product with, leading to deeper interaction, evangelism, and patience.

Here are a few things to try:

• Share your struggles, not just your wins
• Treat customer support as if you’re talking to a friend
• Write in detail about intricate design decisions
• Go overboard with small details that delight the user
• Use lots of emoji 🙌🏻🚀🌟 (big companies hate ‘em)

Similar to meeting the chef at a local restaurant, learning about the person behind the creation helps provide context and create a lasting impression.

💰 Charge money more easily

Even at $5/month—the price of a fancy coffee—people don’t like paying for software. Improving the conversion rate would be a huge advantage, wouldn’t it? Sticking with our theme, if users know that their money is going directly to the creator, they can be much more willing to give up the dough.

While it’s difficult to know the exact proportion, I’ve heard from dozens of users on Insomnia’s $5/month Plus plan who say they subscribed simply to support the product. Insomnia has also received numerous donations from individual users of $100 or more.

💌 Get help from other indies

The indie community is an amazing and welcoming place—probably because it’s depressing to walk the path alone. Take advantage of this and make an effort to reach out, share your stories, or ask for help. I’ve met so many awesome people through Twitter and Indie Hackers and have even had the pleasure of connecting with some of them in real life.

A great example is Micha, solo creator of an app called Paw, which directly competes with Insomnia. He reached out very early on to run some ideas by me and we’ve kept in touch since. There’s enough food at the table for everyone to eat, regardless of competition. 🍔🌯

Learning to embrace the identity of a solo maker was a long process. I’ve wasted a lot of time over the years trying to present a more professional, corporate identity. Things like saying “we” instead of “I” were commonplace. But now that I’ve discovered just how many advantages there are to showcasing my true self, I’m never looking back.

I hope some of these things can be applied to your journey too. If you can think of anything I missed, let me know on Twitter so I can add it (with credit to you, of course)!

Unfortunately, Simple Blog didn’t last long. I remember it working well but, just a year later, I came across a hot new method for building websites: Static Generation. 🎈☀️ I was immediately convinced that a static site was the best option for me, so I switched. I built and released yet another open-source blogging engine to generate static sites and called it Balloon.

Unlike their dynamic counterparts, static sites don’t require a web server or database. This is because the site is simply a folder of generated HTML (CSS, …) files, allowing them to be hosted on any generic CDN like Surge or Netlify, for free. 🤯

Seriously, how can it get any better than that—a website that requires no maintenance, is extremely fast, and can be hosted for free? Well, like all things that seem too good to be true, there are unforeseen trade-offs lurking in the shadows.

The Pain of Static Sites

Here’s the thing. In the six years of using a static site, I’ve written fewer posts than I did in the single year of using a dynamic site. Why? Because updating static sites is a pain. 🤕 Having to run a local server to preview content makes it difficult to publish updates quickly (especially from mobile devices) and even the slightest change requires re-deployment, resulting in wasted time.

Since then, many technologies have arisen to help ease this pain but none have done an amazing job. Believe me, I’ve tried them all: Hugo, Gatsby, external editors, headless CMSs, GitHub Pages, and Netlify. Some solutions are better than others but they all end up feeling like a huge pile of hacks put together to accomplish what a regular blogging engine provides out of the box—a friction-free and integrated publishing experience. ✨

So I made the decision to ditch my static site (was on Hugo since 2016) and rewrote everything from scratch, one more time. Inspired by the good ol’ days of 2013 I built something very similar to Simple Blog. It’s not open-source this time, as it’s extremely tailored to my needs, but it gets the job done in a similar way.

Allow me to emphasize that point last point: This site is tailored to my needs, which are likely different than someone else’s. If you’re thinking of building something similar, keep that in mind. 💚

Creating the New Site

The new site is a traditional Web 2.0 app. A Go back-end stores blog posts and other content in a Postgres database, and a simple user login system keeps the administrative functions are protected. The whole thing is hosted on DigitalOcean using Dokku and sits behind Cloudflare for DNS and caching, and costs around $10/month—not free, but cheap enough to easily justify.

So what’s it made of?

Here’s an overview of the database schema.

And, here’s the full list of tech involved.

• Go programming language
• blackfriday Go Markdown library
• pongo2 Go library to render HTML pages
• CodeMirror to act as a Markdown editor
• TailwindCSS for styling web pages
• Railway for server and and database hosting
• MailJet for newsletter emails
• Cloudflare for DNS and image storage

Some of these choices may seem strange or overkill, but they’re the technologies I’m most interested and productive in and that’s all that matters.

In total, it took about a week of evening hacking to get the initial released launched and I’ve already released several updates and improvements in the short time since then. One such update was an email newsletter which, again, is possible with a static site using something like Netlify Functions, but it’s just not the same.

Playing with tech wasn’t the goal of the rewrite, though. The goal was to make writing easier and more enjoyable. The tech doesn’t matter if it didn’t help accomplish the goal. So… did the rewrite actually help get there? 🤔

Crafting a Better Experience

As mentioned, I wanted a more integrated writing and publishing experience, so that’s exactly what I built. At the heart of it all is a side-by-side blog post editor. A CodeMirror instance on the left provides the ability to edit Markdown, while an iFrame on the right displays a live preview of the content. Having the preview is essential because it ensures that whatever gets published won’t contain any unexpected surprises.

It feels weird to praise a feature that’s been possible for decades but, if you think about it, the same real-time editing experience for a static site would be a monumental achievement. Gatsby is trying to do this with Preview but at what cost? How many hoops do you have to jump through to achieve something so basic?

Here’s an example of what I mean. The other day I was browsing a recently-published post on my phone. I spotted a small grammatical error, clicked “edit”, fixed it, and published an update all within seconds. This is an experience that a static site just can’t provide.

Previously, I would have had to go to my computer or log into GitHub on my phone, locate the necessary Markdown file, update it, commit it, then wait for a deploy. This overhead was such a hassle that I would skip these small tweaks altogether.

The rest of the content on the site is also editable. For example, the Projects I’m working on are stored in the database and can be updated via the Prisma Admin interface.

Prisma Admin provides a generic GraphQL Admin UI for the entire database, acting as a great editor for more content that’s not updated often enough to justify creating a custom editor.

A Solid Foundation

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether your website is WordPress, static HTML, or a custom server like the one I’ve described. The only thing that really matters is that it gets out of your way and allows you to focus on the task at hand.

My website provides a living home for the content I produce, whether it’s sharing ideas, talking about new projects, or linking to my favorite books. It’s so rewarding to finally have something I’m proud to work on; something I can continually improve over time and use to showcase the best version of myself. 👨🏼‍💻💄

I’m extremely happy with the current state of things. Before, it felt like I was living in a rundown house, uncomfortable and cold, embarrassed to have friends over. Now, my house is newly-renovated, feels safe and warm, and is something I can see myself working on over time and growing old in.

Thanks for visiting, and happy publishing ✍🏻

• Should I launch my side project?
• I never finish my side projects.
• Should I charge for my side project?
• I don’t have time for side projects.

Unfortunately, it’s not easy to respond because the term “side project” is too generic. Why are you making the side project? What is your goal? It is important to communicate this intent before moving forward.

But how? Well, I’ve come up with a simple solution, which is to stop using the term “side project” and replace it with a more descriptive set of project categories. Categories that encapsulate the intent within them.

Categorizing Side Projects

The following five categories can be applied to any side project to convey intent.

🎢 Amusement: To entertain yourself. Perhaps a small game or a coding challenge. Projects don’t always need a goal. Not having one can reduce stress and increase enjoyment!

🎓 Study: To expand your knowledge. Perhaps to try a new programming language, design pattern, or skill. The best way to learn is by doing, so these are a great way to sharpen your skills!

🧪 Experiment: To prove something or answer a specific question. Perhaps to see if a photo carousel can be made in pure CSS. These make really awesome evening projects.

🧸 Product: To release something publicly and get real-world feedback. Perhaps an open-source library to scratch your own itch.

💰 Business: To provide value to customers and provide income. Perhaps a SaaS service to monitor website up-time. These are multi-year commitments that often evolve from the other project categories.

Observe the Results

Now that we have new vocabulary, let’s go ahead and rephrase the questions from earlier to demonstrate what happens.

Should I launch my Product?
YES! The sooner the better. I know it’s hard but it’s important to start getting feedback as soon as possible.

I never finish my Study Projects.
Maybe you have. If the goal was to learn something and you’ve done that, you don’t need to go any further.

Should I charge for my Business?
Of course! Let’s talk more about where you can provide value and talk about ways you can work with users to figure that out.

I don’t have time for a Business.
That’s totally understandable. Maybe you could lessen the scope and tackle an experiment or small product?

See how much easier it is to discuss side projects once the intent is clear? This simple name change forces you to set a goal describing why you’re doing the project in the first place, which not only helps when asking for feedback but also guides project decisions going forward. For example, choosing a technology stack for an experiment will be much different than for a business.

So, the next time you start a side project, label it with one of these categories. You’ll be surprised to see what happens! 🤗

Ever since discovering programming in 2008, I’ve been interested in the indie developer lifestyle. People like Marco Arment showcase that it’s possible to achieve indie success and programs like 30x500 give a proven method for getting there. But, even though I knew it was what I wanted, I’m not a risk taker, so I waited.

I needed time to develop the skills, knowledge, and confidence to ensure the best odds possible and, in seven years, I was finally ready. With $30,000 in the bank, a growing side-project, and a solid monetization plan, I quit.

While I wish I could share the entire story here, that’s a topic for another post. This post is about the end of the journey, one of the most challenging parts – agreeing to sell the company and everything I’d built.

In just three years, I was able to grow my small side-project Insomnia to $20k 🇨🇦 monthly recurring revenue, rocketing past my initial goal of $3k. I feel an extreme sense of luck and privilege whenever I take the time to reflect.

So why sell? Why give up the success, money, and growth? The full truth is quite complicated and involves many variables, but I want to experience a radical change and launch into the next stage of my life. I want to grow.

Don’t get me wrong, Insomnia was a great company to run and it was doing extremely well, but even though I was living the dream as an indie, I somehow ended up back where I was at my last job – burnt out, tired, and in need of a change. It wasn’t easy, but I decided that selling would be better for both myself and Insomnia.

The acquiring company Kong is a great fit for the project. Aghi, one of the co-founders, sponsored Insomnia in its infancy so I knew his intentions were good. Kong’s goal is to keep Insomnia moving forward, dedicate more resources to it, and relieve me from day-to-day stresses of running the company.

The acquisition closed a few months ago and I’m happy to report that Insomnia is now enjoyable to work on again, my co-workers are amazing, and I have more personal time to get back to the things I’m passionate about. It’s such a relief to know I made the right choice.

I feel like it’s inevitable that I’ll return to indie life one day, but first I need a couple years to recover, have to come up with a new plan, and want to figure out how to do it in a healthier, more sustainable way.

Until then, I’m looking forward to using my free time to launch some new side projects, write more posts like this, and give back to the indie community. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions. I’m always around to chat 🤗

P.S. I recently shared more of the Insomnia story on the The Entrepreneurial Coder Podcast and also have an Indie Hackers Interview from 2017

I recently sat down with Ryan Chenkie to chat about my journey from indie to acquisition of Insomnia. We go over a bunch of interesting topics like fear of starting, burnout, and the decision to sell the company after three long years of hard work.

If you give it a listen and have questions, feel free to send me a DM on Twitter!

Here’s what currently needs to happen to publish a post:

1. Write a post in Markdown format
2. Generate/add frontmatter (URL, title, date, tags, etc) to top of file
3. Add the file to my Blog’s GitHub Repository
4. Wait for Netlify to pick up GitHub change and redeploy the website

This entire flow is actually possible on the iPad using an app called Working Copy but its built-in text editor is not ideal for writing. In a perfect world, publishing new posts could be done from my favorite note-taking app, Bear. Bear already has the ability to export Markdown, so I spent some time to see if it might be possible. The good news? I came up with a workflow that I’m happy with. The bad news? There are a couple pitfalls.

Bear + Shortcuts + Netlify = Publishing

In iOS 12, Apple released a new app called Shortcuts which allows the user to automate tasks by linking together things called “actions”. To my surprise, Shortcuts provides an action for sending data to a web URL. Perfect!

After learning a bit about Shortcuts, I came up with a plan:

1. Create Netlify function (URL) to accept a file and published it to GitHub
2. Create a shortcut to send blog post contents to Netlify function
3. Make shortcut visible in iOS Share Sheet so it could be accessed from within Bear

This solution makes it possible to share a note directly from Bear to the shortcut. The shortcut then passes it along to the Netlify function to do the publishing, taking less than a minute to complete from start to finish!

So how does it work exactly?

Writing the Netlify Function

Netlify supports the ability to write one-off JavaScript functions that can be called via a specific web address. Because of the complexity of the task at hand, this was the best place to perform the logic of generating the post metadata and publishing it to GitHub.

Here’s a simplified version of the JavaScript code inside the Netlify function:

const octokit = require('@octokit/rest')();

// This will be called when the Netlify function is invoked
exports.handler = async function (event, context) {
  // Generate and prepend metadata to Markdown
	const {text, slug, year, month} = generatePost(event.body);

  // Authenticate with GitHub API 
  octokit.authenticate({
    type: 'basic',
    username: event.headers['gh_user'],
    password: event.headers['gh_pass']
  });
  
  // Add blog post to correct folder in GitHub Repository
  const result = await octokit.repos.createFile({
    owner: 'gschier',
    repo: 'schier.co',
    path: `site/content/blog/${year}/${month}/${slug}.md`,
    message: `Auto-Publish of ${slug}.md`,
    content: Buffer.from(text, 'utf8').toString('base64'),
  });
  
  // Respond with HTTP Success code
  return { statusCode: 200 };
};

As you can see from the code above, the solution only requires a few steps and is fairly simple.

Note, I omitted the generatePost() method, which extracts the title from the Markdown, generates the metadata, and prepends it to the post.

Creating the Shortcut

The iOS shortcut used for this task is fairly simple but I’ve included a importable copy if you want to take a look. It consists of just three steps

1. Prompt for GitHub username and store it in a variable
2. Prompt for GitHub password and store it in a variable
3. Use the “Get Contents of URL” action to send the username, password, and shortcut input (Bear note) to the Netlify function

These three actions, along with enabling the setting to have the shortcut appear in the iOS Share Sheet, were the only things needed to send a Bear note to the JavaScript code 😊

Pitfalls and Future Improvements

There are a couple problem that still remain. Currently, any resources, including images, within a Bear note are not exported. This seems like an oversight from the Bear team and hopefully it will be improved later. However, there is a way to do it. It just requires a bit more work.

Along with Markdown, Bear also has the ability to share notes in the .bearnote format. After examination, it seems that this format is essentially a zip archive that contains both the text of the note and resources. So, in order to add image support to the workflow, I’ll need to write some code to handle this new format and save any resources to GitHub that may be included.

Another problem is that the current workflow does not yet support updating posts, only creating them. Adding support for this should only require a small amount more JavaScript logic, though.

Wrap-Up

This was my first experience using iOS shortcuts and I must say, they are a lot more powerful than I expected! I look forward to seeing what other task they can handle and I also look forward to publishing many more posts now that the experience is so much nicer. 🎈