Last week, I have written a technical blog post last week about managing state with the built-in React Context only. It was a long time coming, but I wanted to get it done since this sounded so complex when I started out with React a few years ago. https://cindypotvin.com/managing-state-with-react-context/

I don’t mind pulling in an extra dependency, library or tool when required, and with a JavaScript project you’ll end up with many of them anyway, but each dependency still have an upgrade and maintenance costs. It’s also more complex to onboard new developers (even if it’s just a tiny bit of extra help) if there are lots of tools they need to learn.

When you get started and have a very small code base you can look at every piece of code, and throw in all the tools that will help you move faster and ship something.

But as the application it grows bigger you risk missing some changes to external tools and breaking the application: it’s time to start pulling back and keeping only what’s really necessary. The team for each of those dependencies can take different decisions that require refactoring on your side, break a feature, or can have a security issue.

Tests will help a lot, but no integration or end to end test can perfectly check for every use case and each pixel.

If on top of this you have vanilla JavaScript everything is allowed, you can carry around a parameter value that doesn’t do anything for a long time since it will be valid JavaScript, breaking your application in subtle or not so subtle ways.

TypeScript helps a lot there: even if you don’t use it much for your own things, it’s a lot easier to track down many types of upgrade problems such as deprecated/renamed parameters.

But it’s also the normal process of growing an application: quickly at first and them more careful since you now have users with existing data and features.

As developers we build a lot of cool toys for ourselves, but there is still so much more to do out there in the world. I’m digging more into hardware there days, and there are so many areas that would deserve better software.

Not every business has the budget to do a big industrial setup: there are a lot of small farms and manufacturing operations out there that will do anything from food to clothing.

With their small budgets, they’ll usually end up with some clunky desktop software and weird proprietary formats that was designed at the turn of the century and never really upgraded.

Thing you would think are solved problems are really painful, such as being able to collecting some temperature measurements and then analyze them. I bought a handful of cheap data loggers last year, and they all give out a bunch of weird PDF, or if you’re really lucky, a CSV with a weird format.

I also started doing some custom control circuits, which usually end up being activating some equipment according to time or sensor data with some Arduino code. Nothing earth-shattering, but that custom bit of logic is often a game changer.

I’m staying at the prototype level at the moment, but with modern prototyping platforms and tools it’s easier than it ever was, and a lot cheaper to go from an idea to a working solution that’s pretty robust.

I’d like to start teaching developers how to get started on hardware: many of us have some Arduinos and Raspberry Pi gathering dust, but it can be hard and intimidating to start working on physical projects. Are you in? Reply to this email if this is something you would be interested in.

It’s not easier to evaluate how long a project or a new feature will take without context. When I have a look at how much time a project will take, one of the most important thing to know is where the project is at.

You don’t need the same level of quality and robustness all the time, and it’s important to know where you are before you start coding, or if you’re the one purchasing software!

Here are some of the most common stages that will have an impact on the time it takes to complete a feature.

The prototype

When you’re building some throw-away project trying to figure out if something is possible, or need to demo a quick something to win a contract or some financing.

This doesn’t need all the fancy bells and whistle like automated testing and continuous integration since it’s going to be short-lived, and it may behave a bit weirdly in some spots. The main goal is to prove a point or get that money before moving on to the real thing.

It’s not the first step of every project, but if you’re doing something technically complex you’ll want to figure out if something is possible before it blows up in your face. No need to get all fancy before that.

You may also want to do a prototype of something in an existing project to check if a new feature idea is possible.

The MVP (minimum viable product)

A MVP is generally a real product, but at the smallest size possible to be able to release it to the market and see the reaction, show some progress to your stakeholders, or get the benefits of that application right away even if it’s not yet “done”.

It doesn’t need to be perfect yet, but since you’re planning to have real users you’ll need more plumbing code for features such as authentication, validations and security.

You’ll release that one into the world to morph into a real product at some point, but you’ll still be cutting some corners since money or time is generally tight there. A mistake is not very costly yet, and you can afford to work without a safety net in most cases.

The product

A product is something that has users and starting to have a product-market fit, so you know you’re going to keep working on it. You’re having real impact on users (or starting to), so you have to be a lot more careful about breaking things in production and migrating existing data and users.

Now that you know your app is sticking around, you’ll also need to start thinking about reusing existing code and component if your MVP was weak in this area.

Technical debt can compound quickly at that stage and you don’t want to slow down your development speed too much. Copy-pasting bits of code is cheap at first, but it can turn into a nightmare when you must start modifying all those copies.

You’ll also need to grow all the parts of a real product that you may be missing, such as testing, logging, monitoring and the like.

It’s possible to jump straight into the product, especially if you’re working for internal stakeholders: for example if you’re rewriting an old codebase or writing an application for a known business process that you’re automating, you may not need to jump throught all the previous hoops.

The legacy product

Some project are just at the end of their lifetime. It’s going to be rewriten, is not just a priority, or is pretty much mission-complete and everybody moved on to somewhere else.

This will look a lot like an MVP: since in many case the original developers are no longer there, or it’s pretty far back in their memory, it will get touched as little as possible, and a few corners are likely to be cut if a new feature is needed.

Even if it pretty much slowed down, it’s a good idea to keep allocating a bit of time to upgrading its dependancies from time to time so you don’t have a surprise security hole or have trouble deploying it someday because everything is just too old.

I’ve tried a few in the past, but at the moment I’ve been working on my wool sock making business for about a year (https://www.manibas.com if you want to take a peek), as a very very casual side business.

I also have another casual store that sells vegetable seeds. I put even less effort in that one: I update my stock once a year, sometime add a few varieties and package up the seeds when the orders come in. I would harvest seeds for myself anyway, so I don’t count any harvesting time here.

The marketing and sales requires the same kind of work, regardless of the price and effort it takes to create the product :

• Writing blog post.

• Writing product listings/sales pages.

• Posting to various social media platforms.

• Reaching out to other business for wholesale sales or other kinds of collaboration.

It’s not just eCommerce too: you need to do much of the same to market a SaaS, a digital product or even open a restaurant.

My current stores are both pretty low volume: I can see the way to grow, but the grind at the beginning is brutal and I really didn’t understand how much effort it would be.

That’s the main lesson right there: if you’re starting something for a brand new (to you) audience or niche, it takes forever to move the needle as a side project, unless you’ve really hit a nerve somwhere.

Most of us think about this linearly, but it’s more of an exponential thing, and the beginning is a lot longer that we like to plan for when we think about an exciting new project.

I’ve enjoy both those stores and will keep growing them slowly. I’m not expecting them to grow big and it scratches the itch of selling physical products. Also, both socks and seeds are never going to be replaced by some other tech!

On the other hand, since it’s always the same effort, but not the same return in product sold, the smart thing would be to focus the bulk of my efforts on just one audience that has more potential than 4$ seeds packets.

I strongly believe “small bets” approach and moving forward in small increments. but those bets should ideally be around the same general audience so all those marketing efforts are somewhat reusable.

So, in the future, I hope to be spending most of my efforts in one market that’s fun for me. I’ll always talk shop about my indie business in this newsletter for sure, but I’m still in the search of what’s my “thing”.

There is my micro SaaS that I want to ship for sure, but talking about pure software is a bit boring to me. I like a good discussion about architecture or tech in general, but the in-depth minutia of a language or framework was never my thing.

I’m considering teaching about hardware instead of only software, such as building project with Arduino, Raspberry Pi and other automation tech such as Home Assistant. I’ve always been a web developer, but I studied in electrical engineering and always liked tinkering with that stuff even if I never made a career out of it. It’s also more evergreen than the latest JS framework.

With the latest AI advances, it’s also never been more relevant to start thinking about the world beyond pure code.

I’m thinking about putting together a small Arduino workshop or course. Please reply if that is something that would be interesting to you, and what you would be hoping to learn!

You do get used to jumping in and working in small time chunks, and having experience doing this have been really useful to move this project forward.

Many developers want a “maker’s schedule” with huge blocks of more than 2 or 3 consecutive hours to work on something, but that’s rarely true in my life. It’s already hard enough for my work that pays the bills!

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I have not shipped yet, but here are a few bits of advice that helped me get going and work on tiny time chunks:

• Jot down all the tasks you need to do to complete the project. When you have the time to work is not the time to figure out what you should be doing. No long planning session required here especially if you’re alone: just throw things in a Trello board as you think of them.

• Break down your work in small part so you can still have the satisfaction of completing something. You can always split the tasks you have if they are too big.

• Use all that planning to keep your MVP as lean as possible. You can keep all your ambitious ideas in there, but you’ll throw everything that’s not top priority at the bottom of your backlog.

• Liberally add TODOs and other notes and documentation to your code. You can be interrupted at any time, so the context should be clear when you come back.

• It’s easier to get back in the flow if you leave a little something to complete when you finish up a work session. If you have one new huge feature starring you in the face it can be hard to start and you’ll waste time.

If your time is as limited as mine, you’re never going to be as fast as someone with no kids and few other obligations, but as long as we keep moving forward we can ship something.

Ways I can help you

• Get your cozy, handmade wool socks at https://manibas.com.

• For my Canadian friends preparing their garden, I have a nano business selling seeds from my garden at https://sentiersperdus.com/en. Sorry, due to various phytosanitary concerns, it’s hard to ship those outside Canada.

Also, don’t hesitate to reply to this email if you want to chat, or connect on Twitter.

I’ve started building the main UI bit where you can see the list of your markdown snippets and add new ones.

The thing I’ve found has the most impact on my development speed to date have been switching over to Material UI for feature work along with my usual yup + react-hook-form for validations.

I’m using https://makerkit.dev (affiliate link before I love it and want to keep plugging them). I still think it’s great and I agree with most of the built-in choices, but I’ve worked with that UI stack for almost two years know, and the habits and memory I have around it are too valuable to throw away since the goal is to ship quickly.

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I don’t mind too much having the bits from Makerkit build in ShadCN UI since they work and they are nice. I’ll make sure the colors and styles fit well enough together before I release and I’ll migrate them eventually if the app does well enough.

If I migrate, I’ll throw away TailwindCSS too since Material UI has a complete design system with default colors palettes, spacing and typography.

I think every maker looking to move quick should have one component kit they understand very well so they can build UIs from parts without fiddling too much with custom components.

In my previous job a few years ago, I was working on either old code or our own custom component library: even if I was doing frontend work, there was very little stuff I could reuse on my own projects. I find myself moving a lot faster now!

Ways I can help you

• Get your cozy, handmade wool socks at https://manibas.com.

• For my Canadian friends preparing their garden, I have a nano business selling seeds from my garden at https://sentiersperdus.com/en. Sorry, due to various phytosanitary concerns, it’s hard to ship those outside Canada.

Also, don’t hesitate to reply to this email if you want to chat, or connect on Twitter.

I was not looking for a huge idea, but I wanted a micro SaaS that I could get built and deployed quickly, and talk about it in public while I’m building it. Once I have at least one app done, I can try other ideas more easily and use it to test new technologies.

The idea came from an issue I had in a previous project. There were various text snippets in the app for things such as quick tips and announcement bars that changed frequently. The people editing them would be marketing and business people, so you can’t just have them poking in Git to edit the app and re-deploy it to production.

A headless blog is also overkill there: the only thing really needed there is to be able to organize those snippets and query them all, individually or with a list of tags. The app requesting the snippet can then style them to fit with the rest of the application.

So I’m building a tool to manage Markdown snippets with a good editor, and an API to query them in both JSON and HTML. I can then leverage this tool in my next projects if I want to include a very simple blogs or other marketing assets without coding an editor every time.

Would a tool like this be useful for you? Is there anything else you’d need to manage this kind of assets?

Ways I can help you

• Get your cozy, handmade wool socks at https://manibas.com.

• For my Canadian friends preparing their garden, I have a nano business selling seeds from my garden at https://sentiersperdus.com/en. Sorry, due to various phytosanitary concerns, it’s hard to ship those outside Canada.

Also, don’t hesitate to reply to this email if you want to chat, or connect on Twitter

You may remember than I previously tried to make an app that leveraged Etsy’s API. Given the state of that API (pretty unmaintained and hard to get approval), I nuked the idea before getting too far into it, but then everything fizzled out with the summer.

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For this project, I’m looking mostly to have shipped something, so I get over the hurdle of shipping a SaaS and can try out other, more complex ideas later on.

For me, this means that:

• It’ll have a few external bits of dependencies like emails and Stripe, but not built on top of another platform that time around.

• It will be a product for SaaS builders, for which I have more of an audience than Etsy sellers.

• I’ll go more with the pre-built tool from my starter kit instead of modify it too much.

I’m using another starter for this, this time https://makerkit.dev instead of DivJoy (referral link since I like them enough to keep plugging them!).

I tried to wrangle TypeScript into DivJoy but that was a bad idea and it slowed me too much. I was not a big TypeScript fan at first, but I now can’t live without it for refactoring.

The MakerKit starter is based on Next.js and Supabase. I didn’t really like my last Next.js experience, but I’m slowly warming up to it now that I have less TypeScript issues.

I already started doing feature work after an hour or two of poking around since I didn’t have to start from scratch and had some existing features to look at (and great documentation), so it’s a big win.

For moving fast, I do find it easier to have just one place where all code lives instead of separate projects and languages for backend and frontend. I still think separate is the way to go for a big project where you can hire for different expertise, but Next.js may just be the sweet spot to ship a solo project quickly.

Hang around for more content about building a SaaS as I dig into Makerkit some more!

Ways I can help you

• Get your cozy, handmade wool socks at https://manibas.com.

• For my Canadian friends preparing their garden, I have a nano business selling seeds from my garden at https://sentiersperdus.com/en. Sorry, due to various phytosanitary concerns, it’s hard to ship those outside Canada.

Also, don’t hesitate to reply to this email if you want to chat, or connect on Twitter

My husband wanted an automated garage door opener, but something harder to hack than the average remote control and that we could remove in the summer when we’re not using it.

It could be done with a few smart plugs, but it would have been a mess of wires. Also, like in our case, if you already have bare wires or are handling DC power it’s more convenient to just plug your wires in a terminal and put everything in a box.

The ESPHome platform already has all the necessary software elements to drive a board with a few relay, but no complete board with both an ESP8266 chip and the relay were available, so I created my own.

Read the rest of this post over at https://robotsbench.com/controlling-relays-with-home-assistant-and-esphome/

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Projects updates

Since I’ve been slimming down, I’ve worked mostly on my socks eCommerce store. I still have more products to add and it’s never totally done, but I’m happy with the recent tweaks. I also added a newsletter specific to that project for new models and colors announcements.

I’m also finishing up the last of a mobile engagement. I still have a big web contract, but I’m not totally happy with my current offerings (which is mostly being a code monkey). I’m considering building a few more focused offerings or some consultation/coaching, but nothing definitive yet.

Feeling of the week

Ways I can help you

• I’m a freelance web and mobile developer. I have a bit of availability for client work; don’t hesitate to reach out if you need help with an MVP or want a consultation!

• Get your cozy, made-to-fit wool socks at my new shop https://manibas.com.

• For my Canadian friends, I have a nano business selling seeds from my garden at https://sentiersperdus.net/en. Jerusalem artichokes tubers are available for the next few weeks! Sorry, due to various phytosanitary concerns, it’s hard to ship those outside Canada.

Also, don’t hesitate to reply to this email if you want to chat, or connect on Twitter.

In the last few months, I did not hold myself back and started many small experiments such as :

• Started this newsletter and wrote a few blogs posts.

• Made a few printables on Etsy (gardening related, so they went in my seed shop)

• Launched my sock shop on Etsy, and a WooCommerce store.

• Had an incomplete go at launching a micro SaaS.

• Took on a few extra freelancing contracts beside my main client with web and mobile.

• Finished up some electronics project that were clogging up my desk and that will have their own blog posts.

The biggest fail was unfortunately the micro SaaS. I had a good look at what was going around about the Etsy API, and I’m not going to spend any more time to get approved. I googled around after getting shadow refused, and they don’t seem to be working very well with their developer community (yes, I should have done that at the beginning). It could be a nice competitive advantage if I’m able to go through the red tape, but I don’t have the time and energy to manage that risk right now.

Building a SaaS is still pretty high on my bucket list of things I’d like to do with this business, but I’m having a lot more fun selling a few pairs of socks at the moment so I’d like to lean into this and get more marketing experience. The last few weeks have really brought home is that the most worthwhile is to get better at various forms of marketing and advertisement before trying to sell too many things at once.

So, I’m going to double down on what works for now:

• Freelancing: I enjoy working with client that appreciate my work and it’s my main income. I won’t really be looking for it during the summer, but you never know.

• Selling socks: A tiny thing, but I enjoyed making my first socks for clients and would like to do more. It will also be a good way to learn more about marketing. I don’t expect a lot of sale action over the summer since it’s wool socks but I can start preparing.

  If you do want socks, the turnaround is quick this time of year and they’re perfect in the summer too, I wore them all summer last year. 😘👌

• Blogging: I enjoy doing small electronics projects and documenting it on my RobotsBench blog. It’s also been bringing in a bit of affiliate income, so this one has already been proven to make money. I’d like to see it bring in more so I can justify more projects!

• This newsletter: I’ll keep writing this to share my updates, but you’ll probably hear more about gardening and food for a while.

So, are you looking to clean up a bit this spring too?

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Projects updates

I’ve been mostly knocking out small administrative tasks I’ve been piling up, completing income taxes and the like. I’m hoping that my Trello board will be a lot more sparse by the end of the week so I can focus on my main project.

I did push an update to my only published app, a calculator for weaving projects. This one is totally free, it’s just a small portfolio piece in React Native since it’s very niche. I do get to use it for my own projects and seems like a few people enjoy it too, I get a support email once every few months. Here are the links, but if you weave and read this newsletter I want to hear from you!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cindypotvin.weavingcalculator

https://apps.apple.com/br/app/weaving-project-calculator/id1605647678?l=en

Feeling of the week

I’m probably going to add as many as I close, but it’s the thought that counts.

Ways I can help you

• I’m a freelance web and mobile developer. I have a bit of availability for clients; don’t hesitate to reach out if you need some coding help on a small project!

• Get your cozy, made-to-fit wool socks at my Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/shop/manibassocks/.

• For my Canadian friends, I have a nano business selling seeds from my garden at https://sentiersperdus.net/en. It’s still the perfect time to start those tomato plants! Sorry, due to various phytosanitary concerns, it’s hard to ship those outside Canada.

Don’t hesitate to reply to this email if you want to chat, or connect on Twitter.

For a book written in 2010, it’s still pretty accurate. Sure, some tools and the examples are certainly dated, but the main message is still true.

My main takeway is to start only with a landing page and point paid ads to it to validate if people would “smash that buy button” (or sign up for a waiting list once they realize that the app is not done). That hit home pretty hard just before I was about to get started coding seriously.

If I’m not able to reach a single customer targeting places where they hang out with a decent budget, I don’t think it’s going to fix itself just because I spent more time coding.

When I originally read the book as an employee, I was hesitant to spend that kind of money for a side project. Now that I work for myself, 200$-500$ to validate if an idea has legs seems like a great deal over spending 50-100 hours coding something in the void instead of billing a client for that time.

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Projects updates

Before re-reading Rob’s book I was about to start seriously coding features, having done the work I wanted to complete on the tech stack. I did sign up for Etsy’s API; my request was pending for a while and then vanished from the dashboard. Was it rejected? A bug?

I’ll be reaching out to them just in case, but it’s not filling me with confidence about spending a lot of time building software that leverage their API…

Feeling of the week

Still feeling smug about that decently big bit of golang I wrote that compiled and worked the first time around.

Ways I can help you

• Get your cozy, made-to-fit wool socks at my brand new shop https://manibassocks.com

• For my Canadian friends, I have a nano business selling seeds from my garden at https://sentiersperdus.net/en. Sorry, due to various phytosanitary concerns, it’s hard to ship those outside Canada.

• Don’t hesitate to reply to this email if you want to chat about software development.

When you’re homesteading, you’re doing many things yourself that most people would instead buy, such as growing vegetables and making your own bread.

It may not be cost-effective at a glance, but when you’re homesteading, you’re investing your time to get a good return in various products for your household, instead of selling your time outside and buying products with after-tax dollars. It’s creating money like a business!

I’m in for the good food and for the fun of making, but having a baseline level of efficiency is important. It’s a way of life that can easily eat up all your spare time with all those small projects and various side quests, so might as well make the most of it.

Check out the rest of this post at https://cindypotvin.com/my-philosophy-for-life-business-and-homesteading/, it was getting pretty long!

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Projects updates

I just finished testing a small electronics project: it’s a board with two relay that can be plugged into Home Assistant using ESPHome. Each relay show up as a switch entity in Home Assistant.

It’s already available on my GitHub (https://github.com/CindyPotvin/WifiRelayESPHome), but I still need to fix an issue with the published schematic and PCB. I’m now using GPIO12 and GPIO13 instead of GPIO9 and GPIO10 in the currently published version since they were causing random resets. I’ll also write a longer article soon.

Feeling of the week

I planted my first seedlings of the year so I feel pretty good!

Ways I can help you

• Get your cozy, made-to-fit wool socks at my brand new shop https://manibassocks.com

• For my Canadian friends, I have a nano business selling seeds from my garden at https://sentiersperdus.net/en. Sorry, due to various phytosanitary concerns, it’s hard to ship those outside Canada.

• Don’t hesitate to reply to this email if you want to chat about software development, or show me seedling pictures.

  Thanks for reading Cindy’s Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Boundless by Paul Millerd

Q&A Mailbag | #207

December 11th, 2022: Greetings from Austin. Covid kicked my ass this week and nothing was done. I started feeling better today and wanted to get to write and ship some things I’ve had in backlog, namely a few questions people sent me that I said I’d respond to via email. I’m also hoping to ship some half-baked essays I’ve had sitting around all year in…

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3 years ago · 13 likes · 4 comments · Paul Millerd

My official move to part-time work is officially pretty recent since it was “maternity leave” with a bit of extra work on the side for almost a year, but I did not have any suspicion or doubt thrown at me.

Maybe it’s because I’m a woman? Even if I’m the main breadwinner, at a first glace I look like a stay-at-home mom. I guess I’m a part-time stay-at-home mom if I work half the time? In any case, the stereotypes are still strong and it’s easier to default to this instead of “makes decent money typing shit on a computer”.

Another thing is that a lot of my older woman friends also had to care for children when they were younger, so taking time off when babies are young was more of a rule than an exception. It’s recent in the big scheme of things to have both parents focusing on their career and full-time work while having young children.

I was even surprised at how little push back I had socially when I announced I was not coming back after my leave. Surprised, but glad. Everybody was very nice, and people understand that a new mom wants more time to care for her family and go off the traditional career path for a while.

It’s a shame that other endeavours don’t get the same understanding as building a family. There are many other legitimate projects and obligations, and nobody should be shamed for taking time to pursue something interesting.

I don’t regret working full-time for many years, but leaving corporate work behind does open your eyes to everything else that is out there. I’m curious to see what projects the next years will bring now that I’m seeing things differently!

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Projects updates

I finished up a fancier site for selling my socks at https://manibassocks.com, so I’ll be looking soon at pointing paid traffic to it and doing a few experiments. It’s a WordPress WooCommerce site: I’m pretty familiar with the platform so I was able to get it out fast. I also added it to my Cloudways account, so no extra cost!

I had help from ChatGPT for the About page and product description since they are pretty formulatic and I find it hard to praise my own things. It’s surprisingly good if you’re ready to do some editing to remove the parts that are too cringe, make it flow better and add personal anecdotes.

Feeling of the week

It’s true when they say that having a child changes you in ways you can’t predict.

Ways I can help you

• Get your cozy, made-to-fit wool socks at my brand new shop

  https://manibassocks.com.

• For my Canadian friends, I have a nano business selling seeds from my garden at https://sentiersperdus.net/en. Sorry, due to various phytosanitary concerns, it’s hard to ship those outside Canada

• Don’t hesitate to reply to this email if you want to chat about software development, or show me baby pictures.

  Thanks for reading Cindy’s Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

I do like the main promise of Next.js, which is SSR (Server-Side Rendering). I’ve worked a lot with web frameworks where SSR was the only way to work, and I always felt a bit bad about pushing all that JavaScript payload for rendering to the frontend in React.

Still, React is made to be rendered in the client first, so it’s an extra layer of complexity in the project. I had a few strange bugs here and there that were related to SSR, and it’s not a main concern of many JavaScript UI package that assume they’re running in a browser. For a project I’m looking to get out fast, those extra bugs are too much of a pain compared to the performance gains of SSR.

In a project that needs that level of performance I would certainly reach for it again, but for a tiny project with an uncertain future and that need low maintenance overhead it’s too painful.

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Projects updates

Despite messing with Next.js and related problem, I’m also ready to code the real SaaS features. I’ll be trying to migrate the Divjoy template to React 18 and then integrate Postmark for the newsletter since it’s pretty general. After that, I’ll start digging in the Etsy API!

I did a lot of work on my new eCommerce store for my socks too, it’s almost ready to show. I only need up to finish up a Contact and About page and wrap up payment integration before I can sending a bit of ad traffic to it.

Feeling of the week

Feeling good after deciding to get rid of a dependancy I don’t really need in my project!

Ways I can help you

• Get your cozy, made-to-fit wool socks at https://manibas.com.

• For my Canadian friends, I have a nano business selling seeds from my garden at https://sentiersperdus.net/en. Sorry, due to various phytosanitary concerns, it’s hard to ship those outside Canada

• Don’t hesitate to reply to this email if you want to chat about software development.

  Thanks for reading Cindy’s Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

I don’t have trouble with what would Daniel Vassallo call blue line income and maintaining that source of stable income, but I could never stick to just that and need the variety he describes. It would kill me inside to have nothing else going on (for fun or for hope of profit).

I do have to try and manage all of those projects, or I would always jump on new things and never get anything done. I’m also trying to keep each project small so I can release them.

For now, my main productivity system is my Trello board. I need to write those things down since it’s too distracting to keep it all in my head. I have too many columns, the most important ones being:

• In progress: The projects I’m actively working on for that month. I’m trying to stick to a maximum of 3 projects : enough to cater to my cravings to work on many things, but not too many that I’m hopelessly spread out.

  For now, I have my little Etsy SaaS, finishing up my mushroom incubator (and related article) and spinning up a fancier eCommerce site for my sock business so I can point paid traffic to it.

• Small tasks: Other things I have to do to make the business work like this newsletter, filling taxes, sending a quote, preparing seed orders and other small ongoing stuff.

• Idea backlog: Projects I’m likely to do or ideas for an ongoing project that’s too far off in the future. I’m probably never going to act on all on them, but many are going to start their life there.

• Freezer: Business ideas I’ve come across and I like or that I come back to regularly. Most of them are unlikely to ever see the light of day, but they can percolate there, you never know. Mostly used to empty my brain of them and for brainstorming purposes.

I can’t judge yet about the money since I didn’t have that much time to make that system work: with a full-time job, my budgeted time would go mostly to fun projects and a tiny bit of freelance programming on the side to keep the skills I couldn’t use at my job sharp.

Also, I’m considering those first few years as an experiment. I’m sure I’ll never have just one business, but once I know what I really like (beside coding, which I already know I like 😇) I can put more of it on my schedule.

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Projects updates

I had a big photo shot with my socks so I could make my Etsy listing a lot better. I’m far from perfect at product photography but it’s a lot better than it was.

I’m going to give them away to family next so I can take pictures of them on people’s feet. You can see the results here: https://manibassocks.etsy.com.

I’ve signed up for a Coursera course on Facebook ads and started working on a WooCommerce store for the socks so I can have a nicer place to point paid ads to, so I needed those pictures for the site and upcoming ads too.

I’ve also switched most of my sites over to the new Google Universal Analytics, I was tired of Google’s nagging and probably won’t have time to do it in the middle of the summer when the old one will be switched off.

Feeling of the week

I’ve been thinking about this one a lot while setting up my SaaS boilerplate. The more I learn, the more I’m surprised that whole internet thing works that smoothly.

Ways I can help you

• Get your cozy, made-to-fit wool socks at https://manibas.com.

• For my Canadian friends, I have a nano business selling seeds from my garden at https://sentiersperdus.net/en. Sorry, due to various phytosanitary concerns, it’s hard to ship those outside Canada

• Don’t hesitate to reply to this email if you want to chat about software development

  Thanks for reading Cindy’s Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Since it’s something I’m intending to reuse, I don’t mind spending a bit of extra time making sure it’s solid. For now, I’m adding in:

• TypeScript so it’s easier to upgrade dependencies and refactor.

• Prettier since I’ve corrected too much indentation by hand in my life but like the readability of a standard formatting.

I believe even small prototypes should be built with maintenance in mind. In fact, it’s even more important: if you don’t know yet where you’re going, the code base will evolve a lot and you want to make those changes as fast as possible.

In my opinion, maintainable code is code that does what it needs to do with no fluff so it stays understandable, and reuse the same patterns and components as much as possible so you don’t have to figure out the same problem multiple times.

I’ll also be particularly careful about commenting and keeping good documentation. Since it’s not a project I’ll be touching everyday once I’m done, I’ll be leaving myself comments when relevant so I don’t need to understand it all over again every time. 

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Projects updates

I mostly worked on the template for the micro SaaS, looking forward to starting on the project itself!

Feeling of the week

It’s Groundhog Day tomorrow, I’ll be checking out how much longer I’ll be hibernating.

Ways I can help you

• Get your cozy, made-to-fit wool socks at https://manibas.com.

• For my Canadian friends, I have a nano business selling seeds from my garden at https://sentiersperdus.net/en. Sorry, due to various phytosanitary concerns, it’s hard to ship those outside Canada

• Don’t hesitate to reply to this email if you want to chat about software development!

  Thanks for reading Cindy’s Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Looking at the big picture, I most likely won’t be able to make a living for a single application of that size. Also, I’m expecting than more than 10 apps would be too much mental space even if they are on the back burner; there is a minimum level of app maintenance/upgrading involved.

Realistically I’m probably going to have one or two big hits and many duds, but I can eventually get rid of the low performers.

Given that number of applications, if I want a portfolio that’s worth the effort to me, I need to be aiming for at least 500$-1000$ monthly revenue for each application.

With some quick math, here is how it could look like for one user (which would probably be one Etsy shop in my case):

• 2$ a month = 250 users for 500$, or 500 users for 1000$

• 5$ a month = 100 users for 500$, or 200 users for 1000$

I also had a quick look at applications for sale on MicroAcquire, and I think I could feasibly get 4000$-5000$ out of an app of that size if I have a few users and want to get it out of my portfolio. That’s not a plan to make a lot of money and I wouldn’t code just to sell, but this sounds decent.

Finally, I think I can get a first version out in a full-time week (so about 2 months or so at my speed 😅), which makes it a reasonable amount of time given my hourly rate and the expected profit. The whole thing seems doable and the napkin math works out, so let’s try that out!

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Projects updates

I’ve been doing some garden planning so I know how much seedlings I’ll need to start in the next few months. I’ve also been cleaning up some seeds I’ve saved; most of them were already done and it the shop, but I had a few that I did not intend to sell that were not yet done.

Programming-wise, I’ve been wrapping up a small Kotlin app contract I was working on. I’ll have more time for my micro SaaS app after this: I intend to keep my schedule lighter for a month or two except maybe a few writing contracts.

Feeling of the week

Still going strong according to the plan, I’ve not added any project in the last week!

Ways I can help you

• I can write blog articles for you on technical subjects around web development and mobile development. I can also write about hobby-level Arduino, 3D printing and home automation subjects.

• Get your cozy, made-to-fit wool socks at https://manibas.com!

• For my Canadian friends, I have a nano business selling seeds from my garden at https://sentiersperdus.net/en. Sorry, due to various phytosanitary concerns, it’s hard to ship those outside Canada

  Thanks for reading Cindy’s Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

I'm now working with small clients, but I was previously working on bigger enterprise projects where the concerns were different, and I'm missing a few tools in my (virtual) tool bag for the smaller, more nimble stuff. I also have ideas that I want to bring to life and I'm looking to build a set of technologies I can reuse across projects and get to the main features quicker.

Since this one is pretty long, you can read the rest on my blog at https://cindypotvin.com/coming-up-with-with-my-new-micro-saas-technological-stack/

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Projects updates

I’ve been soldering a bunch of new temperature/humidify sensors and adding some new wiring in the house for a wifi antenna so I can collect data farther from the house and potentially add some new automations to my Home Assistant setup. The new hardware itself will go out in the Spring, but I’m doing the setup I can indoor for now.

I’ve also done a bit of housekeeping on my blog so it’s now clearer that I’m a freelancer. It’s been a few months since it’s official and I gave my notice, but I was not done going through everything to advertise my new status better.

Feeling of the week

I’m in a cleaning mood and finishing up things, I hope it will hold!

Ways I can help you

• I can write blog articles for you on technical subjects around web development and mobile development. I can also write about hobby-level Arduino, 3D printing and home automation subjects.

• I’m now all setup to sell my handcranked wool socks on Etsy and my own site. Head to https://manibas.com for yours!

• For my Canadian friends, I have a nano business selling seeds from my garden at https://sentiersperdus.net/en. Sorry, due to various phytosanitary concerns, it’s hard to ship those outside Canada.

I had a WordPress blog in the very early days, when all blogs were personal blogs. It was a recipe blog in French, and looked nothing like the slick recipe blogs you see today. Phones didn’t even take pictures then, I had to take them with my cheap digital camera!

My cooking was nothing like it is today either; they were beginner recipes, but everybody was on a big recipe feed and people would drop by in the comment section from time to time. 

Today, if you write a post on a blog you have to know why you’re doing it, or you’ll be going nowhere fast with zero readers. There are two kinds of articles you can write:

• An article that will be searched for in search engines with the best SEO techniques you can, to bring the traffic in. In that case, you’re looking to funnel the traffic somewhere: a product, an affiliate link, some display ads…

• An article like in the good old days to display your thoughts or show off something cool you did, as a portfolio or to put it out there in the world and open yourself to serendipity.

I believe that the second kind of writing is the future, even we are in a brief interlude where SEO was king. You can still make lot of money cranking out average content (with better knowledge of SEO than I currently possess) but I’m having trouble believing it will stick forever.

The generic content can (and will) increasingly be written by AI, and if you want to fully participate in the Great Online Game and create opportunities for yourself, you need to have something to share and not just regurgitate what’s already on the first page of Google. 

So resurrect that old blog and newsletter and write about something fun!

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Side projects updates

Got completely side tracked and created two bundles of printables (downloadable PDFs) for my Etsy shop and published them. I’ve wanted to dip my toes into printables for a while, and since my shop is garden-related I needed to get them out now so they would be relevant for the upcoming gardening season. I did sell one already, so there!

I also started new batches of kombucha, tempeh and miso. I also sterilized grains to make more shiitake grain spawn. I will then make sawdust blocks from which the mushrooms will fruit.

Feeling of the week

I don’t what all those fungi mean, but…

Ways I can help you

• I can write blog articles for you on technical subjects around web development and mobile development. I can also write about hobby-level Arduino, 3D printing and home automation subjects.

• I’m now all setup to sell my handcranked wool socks on Etsy and my own site. Head to https://manibas.com for yours!

• For my Canadian friends, it’s time to start thinking about purchasing seeds for your garden. I have a nano business selling seeds from my garden at https://sentiersperdus.net/en. Sorry, due to various phytosanitary concerns, it’s hard to ship those outside Canada.

  Thanks for reading Cindy’s Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

I’ve been fascinated for a long time by the idea that a single machine can be an income stream and wanted to experiment more around this. I have many for my personal use, but the purchase of a 3D printer, a sewing machine or a laser cutter can be the start of a nice side business, or even something more.

These days, the number and variety of products you can plausibly build in your own home with is very impressive. I’ve not done the experiment yet, but I like looking at all the “commercial” machines available for a few thousands on AliExpress that can power a whole manufacturing operation. Who can saw no to their mini dumpling factory in the basement?

Since this one is pretty long, you can read the rest on my blog at https://cindypotvin.com/cranking-out-a-new-project-making-socks/

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Side projects updates

I’m still kicking the tires some tech to build my latest (micro) SaaS projects, while keeping the hosting cost-effective. I want to be able to spin out many new tiny projects as I want with minimal additional cost for each project. I’m leaning toward Vercal and Supabase for now, but I’ll share more in a blog post when I’ve reached a good starting point for the app and have all my tools.

I did a fun collaboration with my husband on my RobotsBench, where he blogged about modifications he did to our tractor’s snowblower chute. You can ready about it and see pictures of a tractor in the snow at https://robotsbench.com/snowblower-electric-chute-deflector-and-rotator-controls/.

Feeling of the week

Setting resolutions and projets like crazy, the new year is getting to me! I’m at least trying to keep them small…

Ways I can help you

• You can get the socks mentioned in the intro at http://manibas.com

• For my Canadian friends, now that the holidays are over, it’s time to start planning your garden! I have a nano business selling seeds from my garden at https://sentiersperdus.net/en. Sorry, due to various phytosanitary concerns, it’s hard to ship those outside Canada.