GL #0 - The month that changed my life ⛺🛵
How a month of travelling to the US & Thailand gave me the tools to ship stuff fast & set new standards.
At the end of 2023, after releasing my first SaaS app which took months to build, I went to the US for the first time with a goal in mind:
Learn how to build SaaS apps faster.
I could’ve chosen to go to one of the coasts as any good tourist would, but I chose to go to a ranch in the middle of Georgia, and I’m glad I did.
The ranch I went to is a bit special, its owner Ryan is a guy who sold a startup and now hosts a coding bootcamp a few times a year called Camp, so I didn’t go there to hang out with the animals, I went there to build stuff.
I was part of a small group of people who came to this place to level up their coding chops for 2 weeks.
⛺ 2 weeks at Camp
During the bootcamp, I got to ask questions and learn from people with more than a decade of experience over me in building web apps, and since I’m self taught it was really useful to level up quickly!
I started building a SaaS that analyzes YouTube video’s sponsors using AI, and since it had to scrape a lot of information & analyze it, it took quite some time to make everything work properly, but it was worth it.
After building a first prototype of the app, it felt like I made 6 months of progress in only 2 weeks of coding non-stop. I had finally become able to ship apps fast, and even made some great friends along the way.
The lessons I got from this experience are:
Don’t be shy when it comes to investing in your skills and relationships.
To make progress fast, spend time with people who already accomplished what you want.
Coding is not as hard as most people think.
Right after this trip to the US, I went to Thailand for the first time, with a new goal in mind:
Build a SaaS app, fast.
🛵 2 weeks in Thailand
It was my first time going to Southeast Asia, and I got invited by the founder of the company I work at SchoolMaker to DCBKK, an event where you get to meet different online business owners all working in different industries. (Thank you Stan!)
During the event, I realized that almost everyone was more successful than me, which in a way made me feel like I didn’t do much in my life yet, but also was inspiring!
It was really interesting to see how these people became successful — I got to ask them questions on how they grew their businesses, what changed in their lives thanks to this success, and what are their goals now.
It also made me more ambitious, because I know that I’m as capable as the people I’ve met.
After the event, like most people attending the DCBKK, I then went to Chiang Mai, in the north of Thailand.
In Chiang Mai, I met new people, and became friends with Rayan & Tony, who make videos about AI on YouTube. (It’s a french YouTube channel)
Talking with them gave me an idea for a challenge: what if we would try to build an app prototype that uses AI in 4 hours, and make a video about it.
We all were excited about the idea, so we each started building an app during a morning:
I had built a little app that allows you to analyze YouTube video comments using AI to get sentiment analysis about your content (And later on added the summary of the video based on the video captions)
And after 4 hours of work I had finally finished a prototype of an app, which felt unreal, I was really surprised that I had managed to build a functional SaaS so quickly!
Lessons learned in Thailand:
Comparaison really is the thief of joy, I used to be more jealous of other’s success before, and just being happy for others is more enjoyable and healthy.
Speed is good.
Cold plunges suck.
🥐 Back to Paris & what’s next
I’m now back to my old environment, but still kept good habits that I developed like learning Korean, exercising more often, and I now code way more regularly.
I’m glad that I went on those trips, even if they were pretty expensive for me.
Overall, I think that changing our environment & being surrounded with people who already do what we want and are successful at it is a very solid way to reset habits and improve them.
Sam seems to agree:
Since I came back to Paris, I improved the little app I created Video Mood and got around 80 free users, but I won’t be focusing on it for now because it was more of an experiment to see if I could build something quickly.
So how does my software portfolio look like now ?
My YouTube job board grew to 600 users and got its first customer! The app is functional, but the job board can be improved and its pricing could be better. So I’ll improve it in the next few weeks.
I might end up trying to sell Video Mood since I’m not doing anything with it.
I’m working on finishing my app that analyzes YouTube sponsors, and I think that it can be pretty helpful, we’ll see how the market reacts to it.
Also, note that I still have my full-time CEO job at SchoolMaker, which takes most of my time.
This means that I’m only making progress during nights and weekends. It’s not easy, but it’s doable I think.
I don’t know if I’ll end up shipping 1 startup a month like Levels or Marc Lou, but I’ll try to build software products quickly and grow the portfolio in the next few weeks.
🎁 Also, this weekend I built a little SaaS boilerplate list to help you create your next app quicker, enjoy!
Ok let’s get back to work, see you soon!
Sandu