Oh wow. This reply came at a great time as I've been at the beginning stages of grappling with the benefits of having a publicly available personal blog. I've always had starts and fits but never really gave it the time of day it deserved. I think I'll want to commit to it at this point. Best way I can think of achieving that (via Atomic Habits) is just to commit to writing the same time of day, everyday. Never even thought of the whole "It could help your employment prospects" angle.

I try to make something for my blog every week. This week is a dry week for the blog because I was working on my RustConf talk! I have an unused version of the talk that I'm probably gonna adapt into a blogpost. Keep an eye out :)

I had this experience a couple of months ago when I noticed a gap in the shopify app ecosystem. I saw some comments discussing this need, found nothing in the store, and had a friend starting a shop that could potentially use it as well.

Worked on the app for 2-3 months, polishing, coding, learning tailwind and a bit of formal UI design in the process. Kept thinking "It's not ready yet. Just needs this hook into the UI. Needs React. Needs a Rails backend. Needs built in email support"... As you can guess, I never shipped.

Fast forward 7 months later and I found myself browsing the store again, and yep, found TWO applications in the store that solved the same issue I was attempting to solve months earlier. With installs, and reviews! Got pretty down on myself for a couple of days with the author's same sense of happiness, doubt, sadness..

I'm working on another application where the same 'hesitate to ship' tendencies started rearing their ugly heads. I've started experimenting with just setting deadlines for shipping, feature complete, etc.

I'm submitting the app to Shopify today. And no, I don't consider it anywhere near 'ready'.

The most affirming thing in the world is making something and then selling it.

The second most affirming thing in the world is watching someone make the exact thing you thought of and then selling it.

Why is selling it affirming? I never got a huge amount of satisfaction from selling things. Giving things away always brought me more satisfaction.

In fact, putting a price tag on something I was giving away always seemed like step 1 towards no longer caring about it.

On the other hand, be pleased the thing you wanted was implemented and you have no hassle supporting it.

You could still ship your first app, even if you've now got competitors.

Always focus on your advantages. When they launch earlier, of course they can enjoy early users.

As a late comer in the market, you can observe what they miss and compensate their weaknesses. You save yourself time because you can study from them