Shifting from Perfection to Getting Things Done

While diving into the world of business through podcasts, my outlook on side projects and products changed. Just a few months ago, I was all about doing everything myself and learning from the experience. For instance, my capstone project aimed to create a search tool similar to Google Search using basic Kubernetes, with minimal help. But after listening to business and startup podcasts, I felt an urgency to get things done efficiently instead of focusing on doing them the “right way” or purely for learning. This led me to use fully managed services, especially serverless ones, to speed up my projects. I switched my entire plan to serverless solutions to finish tasks faster. I realized I could use existing services like PlanetScale, Cloudflare Workers, and Algolia, instead of creating everything from scratch. This shift made me focus more on achieving my goals and less on the technical details. Thinking more along this chain of thought, I also realized that building a search engine wasn’t useful, as I could simply use the Google Search API for better results. This realization made me feel somewhat dissatisfied, as if I was doing it just for the sake of doing it, with the hope of learning something from the process.

Exploring Online Businesses to Buy

Although I can’t afford to buy a significant business right now, it didn’t stop me from browsing Acquire.com for good listings. I wanted a business with at least $100k revenue and steady growth. However, the available options didn’t impress me with their ideas or features, especially considering their price tags. I felt I could recreate the same features with just $5k worth of my time. I don’t mean to say that I’ll take all their customers by investing $5k of my time, but rather that it’s feasible to get 95% of it right and attract SOME of their customers. If they’re generating $100k in yearly revenue, my aim would be to capture 5 to 10% of that market share.

Finding the Right Path

My dissatisfaction with building a pointless search engine and my reluctance to buy something I could create myself led me to consider building my own useful products. The fact that those listed businesses were generating revenue indicated that there was a market for them. Since the market demand is already there, my focus would be on building and marketing the product. So, I decided to borrow the idea of a recently funded startup and create it using fully managed serverless solutions. My plan is to build one project every month, hoping that one of them becomes successful and generates revenue.

Strengthening My Skills

My frontend development skills were limited, so improving them became a priority for creating complete products. I enrolled in several Udemy courses to bridge that gap, some of which also cover backend topics:

  • React Front to Back - Brad Traversy [Complete]
  • Next.js Dev to Development - Brad Traversy [Almost Complete]
  • Tailwind CSS from Scratch - Brad Traversy
  • Next.js and React - Maximilian Shwarzmuller
  • AWS and TypeScript Masterclass (CDK) - Alex Horea
  • AWS DynamoDB Complete Guide - Riyaz Sayyad
  • Complete Guide to Serverless Applications on AWS - Manoj Fernando
  • AWS Lambda and Serverless Architecture Bootcamp - Riyaz Sayyad
  • AWS Serverless Microservices with Patterns - Mehmet Ozkaya

I watch the courses at 2.5x to 3x speed, skipping parts I’m already familiar with. My focus is on grasping concepts rather than memorizing syntax. As the courses include projects, I set aside time to understand the code shared on GitHub. I mostly work through them during nights and weekends when I have some spare time.

To Be Read List

I haven’t had much time to read recently, but when I do, I plan to start with these books. I have a longer list, but these are my top choices:

  • From Impossible to Inevitable
  • The Lean Startup
  • Getting Acquired
  • The Sales Acceleration Formula
  • The $100 Startup
  • The Minimalist Entrepreneur
  • $100M Offers
  • The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
  • Zero to Sold

Podcast Finds

Currently, I’m mainly listening to My First Million, but I have other podcasts on my list. Sometimes I enjoy certain people so much that I’ll search for and download every episode they appear in. I’ve included their names in the list:

  • My First Million [220+ episodes in]
  • The SaaS Podcast
  • SaaStr Podcasts
  • The Sweaty Startup
  • Startup Therapy
  • Startups For The Rest of Us
  • Indie Hacker
  • Bootstrapped Founder
  • Andrew Gazdecki [Founder of Acquire.com]
  • Sam Parr [My First Million]
  • Shaan Puri [My First Million]
  • Andrew Wilkinson [Founder of Tiny]
  • Dharmesh Shah [HubSpot CTO & Founder]
  • Alex Hormozi

I consume a lot of content, but it’s all about finding time whenever I can. I listen and learn while working out, doing dishes, cooking, or just relaxing. My primary goal is to create products for an entire year and continue learning from content that supports my journey. I may not know exactly where I’m heading, but the direction feels right for now.