Day 423: brain dump!!11!!

it’s time 2 dump da brain onto my little corner of da interwebz

• i’m officially moved into my vegas house with 4 others (last person is coming in two weeks)

• this house is so big

  

• the hilarious part is that the houses in this neighborhood are all like twice as big which makes this house look small despite it being massive by normal standards

• the area surrounding the house is a complete wasteland. like the sidewalk suddenly disappears while you’re walking and oh look at that deserted building in the middle of an empty lot kind of wasteland. didn’t come here for the scenery but wow jogging outside makes me feel like i’m in a post-apocalyptic desert

  

• excited to spend time with the crew here! it definitely doesn’t feel as warm or as tight-knit as the santa cruz house from last year, but then again, i’ve barely spent any time with a few of them before moving in together so hopefully it’s just a matter of time. people are pretty into their work which will be helpful for getting into the zone myself. after all, that was a big part of why i left the sanctuary that was taiwan

• one of things i want to do more of this year (in the spirit of following my fear) is taking the lead on more things. i’m happy to have done more of that for this house by being the one to find and book the place, coordinate with the host, and initiate house discussions around things like our covid risk tolerances and safety protocols, etc. i quite admired the way that stedman just took care of everything when we were in the santa cruz house and i want to embody more of that kind of resourcefulness and leadership

• when i started working on browserflow, i remember feeling like i was discovering a new browser automation tool / platform every week. (almost certainly the baader-meinhof phenomenon.) in the past week or so, two of the tools that i’d seen in the space launched on hacker news (automatio, axiom) and here are my thoughts:

  • sometimes i wonder if building a general tool that handles a whole bunch of use cases rather than a specialized one that solves one was an unwise approach, but at least i know there are other people who feel this has a ton of promise. either that or we’re all barking up the wrong tree
  • a friend asked me how seeing these competitors makes me feel and to be honest, it’s been totally chill. usually there’s some prickle of fear or zero-sum thinking, but i’ve felt completely relaxed. i think part of it has to do with the fact that i’ve known about them for a while so it’s not coming as a surprise, and i’m extremely confident in browserflow as a product. i’ve tried dozens of tools in this space, and while there’s still a ton of room for improvement, browserflow is one of the strongest products out there. don’t mind me while i chug my own kool-aid
  • that said, many solutions (including automatio and axiom) offer running automations in the cloud in addition to their no-code editors, which browserflow currently lacks. long-term, i want to support running these flows automatically and scheduling them, but for now, i think validating the utility of a tool like this on the client-side before sinking many more months into building the cloud version makes sense
  • shiva and i talked about where to take browserflow and one of the guiding questions we used was “what kind of user do you want?” i don’t have a good answer yet, but we discussed how the niche i start off with will influence the product roadmap in major ways so it matters what use case i choose (e.g. lead generation, knowledge management, customer support) to focus on
  • if i take tina’s advice and ask myself “will this make me money?” it still seems most promising to go after the lead generation or customer support routes. not sure if there will be enough people who are willing to pay to use browserflow as a productivity tool. from a business standpoint, having a few high-paying customers (other businesses) seems more desirable compared to having many low-paying customers (enthusiasts, consumers). i keep waffling back and forth between going B2B and B2C

• shiva and i also talked about what we want to focus on during our two months here, and the two biggest ones for me are work (browserflow) and fitness. i want to set fitness goals for the first time in forever, cut weight, and make progress towards the calisthenics skills i’ve been interested in for years now (handstand, planche, muscle up, lever, etc.). i started tracking calories for the first time in like 6 years and hopefully this will help me curb binge-eating like a madman

  • i also brought my guitar here and it’s been fun playing and singing again! i want to work on music as well, but i feel like i’m going to spread myself too thin. better to focus on one or two things and make substantial progress rather than too many and get nowhere

• in summary, i don’t know what i’m doing with my work or hobbies but that’s perfectly okay

  • natasja asked me if i ever doubt my decision to work on my own thing vs. be gainfully employed at google or somewhere else and i realized that despite the amount of uncertainty about my current work direction, i have zero worries about having chosen this path. i think this is largely due to me having enough savings and not feeling immense time pressure, but i’m also having a ton of fun and really enjoy being able to spend my time however i want
  • speaking of which, shiva and i left to go on a walk which ended up being a 3 hour adventure where we went grocery shopping at target and this korean supermarket and it was like a little taste of socal and i got vegan jjajjangmyun and rice cakes and i am a happy boi
  • life is gud