newsletter

DeveloPassion's Newsletter #171 - Not the future you want

Edition 171 of my newsletter, discussing Knowledge Management, Knowledge Work, Zen Productivity, Personal Organization, and more!

Sebastien Dubois

Jul 2, 2024 — 33 min read

Welcome

Another week, another newsletter! I hope that you all had a great one 🤩

This week has been TOUGH for me. We all face challenges. But sometimes, the weight feels like it's all just too much. Mine was like that. I'll tell you more in the Business section...

Apart from that, life is good. The sun is back, school is over, and vacations are just around the corner (we're leaving to France in about a week). I'll use that time to relax, recharge, and think about the most impactful next steps I can take.

Alright, let's gooooo 🚀

Business

As I said, this has been a TOUGH week...

It all started with an "unexpected" invoice from my accountant. Knowing that my company has ~6K left in the bank, you can imagine how receiving a $3K invoice feels. Especially having paid 7.5K€ of taxes (company) and ~7K€ on a personal level. In an instant I realized that I had half the money left I thought I had. I already felt heavily under pressure to finally "succeed", but now I just feel like Joe Biden during his recent debate against Donald Trump. I feel like it's almost over, and I have little hope of being able to do anything about it.

Being a solopreneur is a lonely journey.

I did my best, and I'm proud of that, but it just wasn't enough so far... I will try to continue, but there's not much time left, that's for sure. I'm hesitating to invest some of my savings to keep going for a tad longer, but I feel like it's a really bad idea. The opportunity cost is already huge (over 30K€ of potential savings per year), so I probably should just call it a day, accept that my business has failed, and go back to work fulltime as an employee, even though it's clearly not what I want. As the popular song goes "You can't always get what you want". I'm not sure what to do next, and I have no one to turn to. It's a lonely path...

My journey so far as an entrepreneur

I need to write this to remind myself that I did all I could, based on what I knew at the time. I started without any help, without any funding. Zero, nada. I just knew I wanted to live a different life, expand my horizons, and learn new things. And on that level, I succeeded, and had a blast for the last five years.

Here's a small recap of my journey so far...

In 2018, I kept thinking about starting a business, working on a startup project, becoming a consultant, etc. I'm no risk taker, but I knew it's what I really wanted to do next. I had enough money set aside, and felt safe enough. I didn't know much about entrepreneurship, but I knew I'd find the answers. I've always been a problem solver and fast learner.

I took a year off, launched my company in early 2019, and started consulting right away. I negotiated a contract with a small Belgian startup then worked for different clients. I was making 15-20K€/month, so that was good. But after a while, I realized that it just wasn't for me. I did not enjoy it much. I wanted to work on my own projects and dreams, not merely realize those of others.

Meanwhile, I wrote and published an 800-pages book about the TypeScript programming language that was well received:

I then worked for two years on a startup project that crashed and burned. We failed to go to market. I wrote about that story here:

Moreover, my company almost went bankrupt during Covid. I had no consulting clients, and almost no money left in the bank. My company was saved by the government that was spraying money to keep companies alive. It was a traumatic experience, and it took me a long while to get back on my feet. Meanwhile, I had to go back to work half-time as an employee, which made me feel even worse.

I continued writing, and published 3 more books about Software Development. I wanted to share my passion about the field. I had a grand vision of publishing a series of 12 books. I knew that many people were looking for something to help them get a more holistic view of IT and software development. It didn't exist on the market, and I wanted to make it happen. I ended up realizing that my project was too ambitious and would require many more months of work. I had no runway to continue and needed to try something else... I only sold a handful of copies, then decided to pivot. I still want to continue working on those books, but they'll have to wait...

I've been blogging for many years. And over the last couple of years, I published hundreds of articles and newsletters, sharing my knowledge and ideas. I love writing, sharing ideas, teaching, and most importantly, helping others grow. At some point I pivoted to writing about Knowledge Management, realizing that there was a gap in the market, and way too few creators focusing on that. I wrote many articles on that topic, and also shared thousands of notes. And I'm not kidding, I have published more than six thousand notes:

A closer look:

Once I fully recovered from my failed startup, I wanted to build a new product, focusing on Personal Knowledge Management. I started doing tons of research... Interestingly, the end result was not a startup (even though I had concrete plans), but what remains the largest collection of resources on the topic:

I then met a like-minded entrepreneur, and we started building focusd, a product that we both wanted/needed. Our idea was to mix time blocking, routines, and note-taking, with a strong calendar integration. I still believe such a tool would be valuable for many, but we ended up parting ways after creating the first design prototype. The timing was not right...

While creating that prototype, I learned a lot about Figma, which was both interesting, and fun. The landing page and wait list are still up, but the project is dormant. I still plan on building it someday...

I've kept the community around, because I enjoy discussing about sane productivity habits:

Ultimately, after selling 200+ copies of the PKM Library, I realized that instead of building a startup, I could first focus on making small and riskless bets, creating tiny products like this, and building a community around my work. I was heavily influenced by Arvid Kahl's book: "The Embedded Entrepreneur" and by Daniel Vassalo's work.

Meanwhile, I continued working as an IT consultant until the end of 2023. Not because I wanted to, but because I needed to keep my business going. This put a strict limit on the time I could actually invest in my own projects.

At the time, I was already using Obsidian, and realized that my system could actually be valuable to others. Thus, I created the Obsidian Starter Kit, a complete solution mimicking my own approach. I knew it worked great, since I was (and still am) using it every single day:

I sold 750+ copies, and the feedback, ratings & reviews have been great. People REALLY enjoy it:

Reading reviews like those motivated me to keep going in that direction. I started creating video content, launched a YouTube channel that I kept neglecting, and learned more and more about video editing, audio recording, etc. This enabled me to create a few intro videos for my products, videos for friends & family, but more importantly, to record and launch my first video course:

I focused more and more on community and small bets, and created flywheels to slowly build a sales funnel. I continued blogging, cross-posted my articles to Medium, DEV.to, HashNode, and more recently to Substack. I also created a Medium publication called the PKM Journal:

I also created a Slack community, and a sub-reddit dedicated to PKM, a Twitter account dedicated to PKM. And various other things. I've also rebooted this newsletter, focusing on Knowledge Management, and revamped my Website.

Then I launched a PKM coaching offering, and had many interesting and entertaining sessions with people diving into Knowledge Management. I don't want to do that full-time, but I enjoy each and every opportunity to share my knowledge.

I also wanted to work on a product for Community Knowledge Management. I created Knowii and started building it. I still believe that communities lack proper tools to manage their knowledge. Most community tools are focused on conversations, but completely ignore the knowledge part. IMHO, there's still a lot to be done on that front. It's hard to identify the experts, the most valuable content, etc. Unfortunately, I had to put that project aside due to time and budget constraints. It's still a project that I strongly believe in though...

My focus is now entirely on Knowledge Work and Knowledge Management. That's what I want to help people with. My software development skills still serve me a lot, but I've put those in the background. It's a weird feeling, after having dedicated so much of my life to tech... Now I see things differently. I loved tech. Now I love helping others grow, with or without tech. Tech is just a means to an end, not a goal in itself.

Over time, I launched different landing pages, learned more and more about SEO, marketing, sales, email automation, and much more. As a lifelong learner, entrepreneurship is like a drug. There's a never-ending list of skills to acquire, and new things to learn. And it's not passive learning. You learn things so that you can make progress, not just for the sake of learning.

Recently, I thought more and more about the relationship between Knowledge Work, Knowledge Management, Personal Organization and Productivity. Those are closely related, and properly combining solid systems leads to stellar results. And I know for a fact that most people:

Don't know anything about Knowledge Management
Aren't organized (they don't have a solid system)
Lack clarity and vision in their life
Miss tons of opportunities in life

A while after joining Daniel Vassalo's wonderful Small Bets community, the idea struck me. I could take inspiration from his project to build a similar one, but focusing on Knowledge Work. The idea was to create a private community, provide them with A TON of knowledge, guidance, processes, tools, checklists, resources, but also to organize events, workshops, seminars, and more. The Knowledge Worker Kit was born:

I started writing the sales copy, and thought about the content I wanted to deliver. This provided me with a clear roadmap:

The main topics that the Knowledge Worker Kit explores

These are all areas in which I have acquired a deep level of expertise, and that is knowledge that I want to share. I have started delivering different pieces of the puzzle, and am now focusing on the Personal Knowledge Management part through the creation of a new video course:

As I've announced recently, that course, along with my other ones will all be part of the Knowledge Worker Kit.

There you have it. That's a short summary of what I focused on in the last five years. I have gone in various directions, probably spread myself too thin, and failed to find ONE thing to focus on. But the path is now clearer. Moving forward, the Knowledge Worker Kit is the core offer I want to focus on. I want to put all my energy into it, deliver a ton of value, and help people solve their organization, productivity, and knowledge management problems. As Alex Hormozi puts it, I want to create an offer "so good that people would feel stupid refusing it".

I believe that what I have created in this space is valuable for the community. Unfortunately, so far, I have failed to generate enough revenue for this activity to be sustainable. Everything put together yields ~1K€/month, which is not enough to cover all my expenses, and I'm not even paying myself. Each month, I leave money on the table, and it doesn't contribute to my personal finances at all.

So where do I go from here? Well, I'm still thinking about the next steps. But I know it's a path I truly enjoy. I love the freedom, I love taking responsibility, and I'm confident in my skills. I'm passionate about this work, and I could keep going forever if the lack of money was not stopping me. It's the life I want to live, and it's much more aligned with who I am, and how I want to help others.

The open questions are if and how to keep my business alive (short-term), and how to make it grow past the point where I still need to work as an employee (long-term). The challenge is that my "runway" is very limited... It's time to be bold.

BTW, the best way to support my work is to become a paid subscriber:

Some of my lessons learned after five years of solopreneurship

I've made a TON of mistakes in the last five years. Here are my lessons learned:

Don't mistake of believing that help will come your way. Nobody really cares aside from you
Find what sparks joy. It's not only about money. Ditch the rest, life is way too short to be unhappy or bored
Fight against perfectionism. It's a disease. Simplify, and cut everything you can
Focus on ONE thing for a really long time, even if you don't get a return on investment right away. Success doesn't happen overnight. It happens gradually, and then suddenly
Avoid embarking on projects with the wrong people. Listen to your gut feeling, and don't hesitate to say no/stop
Don't fall for the sunk cost fallacy. It's deadly. Go to market FASTER, and don't be sentimental. Kill your darlings...
Don't compete on price. Make your offer unique. Increase the value to price discrepancy as much as possible
Focus on a very specific niche (I'm still struggling with this one)
Don't build an audience, build a community
Give away as much as you can for free. Focus on building trust, genuinely helping, and count on eventual reciprocity
Build a default-alive business
Build a personal brand
Build flywheels. Their effects compound over time. Connect everything with (almost) everything else you have
Promote promote promote. I really underestimated the level of effort required to keep your work on top of mind for other people
Measure more
Automate what can be, especially emails. I saw a massive impact when I started building e-mail automation, and don't do it nearly enough yet
Make sure you find a great accountant. You need one that is active, and keeps you informed regularly
Be strategic. Have a clear vision of where you want to end up

There's actually a lot more to say, but I'll keep that for another time...

The lab 🧪

Given the situation I'm in, most of my attention goes to making the right decisions to keep the business alive. I have a really hard time focusing on anything else right now...

I have updated the price of all my products, and since the Knowledge Worker Kit is now my core offer, I've decided to include all my other Knowledge Management products as free bonuses:

People who buy the Knowledge Worker Kit will have free access to all the above, and more over time 🚀

I have also decided to increase the price of that offer after every 10 sales I make. We'll see how that goes. I'm following advice from Alex Hormozi's "$100M Offers" book (a great read BTW).

Aside from that, I've given paid ads another try, but without success. I spent $160 on Google Ads and didn't even make a single sale. My CAC is far from ideal to say the least 😂. In an ideal world I'd hire an expert to help me, but I just can't right now...

I've also spent time integrating Gumroad, Google Analytics and Google Ads to try and better understand what works and what doesn't on the product/landing pages.

New articles

I've published two new articles. In the first one, I've described how I organize my work as a solo founder. It's a description of the system I rely on daily, combining periodic reviews, journaling, PKM, Zen productivity practices, time blocking, backlogs, habits and routines:

In the second one, I've given an overview of my own Knowledge Management system. It doesn't go into all the implementation details, but provides a clear understanding of how "knowledge" flows. Hopefully, it should give you some ideas about how to think about designing such a system:

Note of the week

https://notes.dsebastien.net/30+Areas/32+Literature+notes/32.02+Content/Work+on+your+list+of+why's

Dataview Serializer plugin for Obsidian

My Dataview Serializer plugin for Obsidian is now available in the official list of community plugins 🎉

As its name indicates, this plugin serializes Dataview queries. Duh?! Usually, Dataview queries display live results, but those do not create actual links within your knowledge base. By serializing Dataview query results to Markdown, this plugin creates actual links that enrich your knowledge graph. Here's an example:

<!-- QueryToSerialize: LIST FROM #time_blocking WHERE public_note = true SORT file.name ASC -->

After adding above line to a note, the plugin automatically executes the query using Dataview, converts the results to Markdown, and replaces the line with this:

The cool part is that the output is refreshed whenever you modify a file containing a query. It's also possible to trigger a refresh of all the queries in your vault.

Note that since those are Dataview queries, you can do tons of cool things. In this case, I only included notes marked as public in my vault.

As I mentioned, this enhances the knowledge graph:

Serialized queries create actual Markdown links, enhancing the Knowledge Graph

I personally use it for Maps of Content (MoCs), people/contact notes, and periodic notes. But I have a few more use cases in mind.

Another benefit is that it makes Dataview queries compatible with Obsidian Publish 🎉

To learn more about it, check the documentation here:

The source code is on GitHub.

PS: I’ve included this plugin in the latest version of the Obsidian Starter Kit.

Quotes of the week

Freedom is the ability to live life in a prison of your own making, rather than someone else's
The benefit of PARA is the homogeneity of the system across platforms and apps. That is, having a single mental model for everything

Your habits and routines make you

The Must-Have Obsidian plugins for 2025

How to define and revisit your career goals

Career choices - A Story about Alignment and Cohesion