Ask HN: What was your greatest accomplishment in 2018?
...and what did you learn in the process?
Even if I was painted as a villain when her vulture children descended on her for her assets, and even if no one will ever recognize it, I'm glad I did the right thing, regardless of the personal cost.
I had been struggling with depression in the first half of the year after quitting my job and deciding to try freelancing. I had very low motivation for anything, maybe I was trying too hard to keep myself busy by inventing problems for the sake of having something to try new web techs on (React, GraphQL, TypeScript, and more recently Rust).
One summer day I found out there's a lightsaber duelling club in my hometown, and I approached them to know more (being a Star Wars fan since an early age). Joining the club got me back into sports (it's not just waving a glowing stick, there's a lot of cardio, muscular reinforcement, and a bit of meditation involved), which started to help with the focus and motivation, and re-centering my priorities. It's also a lot of fun, and the members provided kind of a social replacement for the lack of colleagues that comes with going freelance.
Then I decided to build a lightsaber (as any Jedi wannabe with an engineering degree would), but not for me, for my sister for Christmas. It took me 6 months and a lot of money, mostly as investment in machinery (3D printer, and garage/workshop tools), but it was so worth it in the end. It allowed me to focus on one large project, that did not relate to a computer, and get something done as a result. It might seem like a pointless thing to do (it won't help save the world from climate change or solve the ever increasing issue of social divide), but it was something I think I needed.
Some photos:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/i3b35NUyJLrQrnPB8
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Gz3iPcdRvDx4JHWG8
https://photos.app.goo.gl/D8MbBCFd1ujtHbYZA
With this project I learned a few things:
- Taking a break from toxic things is a survival necessity sometimes (in my case it was work and social networks' engineered attention-seeking mechanisms).
- Sport always has more of a positive effect than we think it will have on us.
- Not keeping up with the latest web tech is OK, it can be an addiction too.
Merry Christmas everyone !
Merry Christmas to you too!
I learned that if I’m not happy, then nothing else in life will really matter to me, and that my own happiness and health are the most important things that I can have. I always knew this on some abstract intellectual level, but it wasn’t until after I had actually gotten better that I truly, deeply understood it.
Take care of yourselves out there. You’re the most important thing you’ve got.
Would you mind sharing how you overcame it?
I've also came to really appreciate the efforts done by endurance athletes. It's so much more than just training, it's nutrition, sleep, rest, preventing injuries, so it can be mentally exhausting. Recently I remember reading the headline of an article stating that too much sport is as bad as too little on the mind, there is truth in it I think. The (relative) difficulty of this kind of endeavour is well summed up by Kipchoge: motivation + discipline = consistency.
Within a month, the practice pad felt limiting and I bought some V-Drums to rebuild my chops on a full kit. I soon subscribed to some excellent drum channels on YouTube and incorporated many of the lessons into my playing. Soon I was getting faster and more accurate in many areas and playing 6-8 hours a week became totally feasible. Anyone who's become disciplined at doing anything has discovered that feeling of loss when you miss a day.
A year later, I am working towards starting a band, as playing drums is one of the few consistent joys I have in life. Initially, this was not my goal, but now feels attainable. I (re)learned a lesson I must have forgotten, which is to make time in your schedule for something you've decided to master or greatly improve upon. It's amazing where fifteen minutes a day can take you.
For me i think the greatest accomplishment in 2018 is that i took my diploma in computer things, now i'm working on a project using Laravel && Vue as freelance project i'm working on it all days, i learn a lot of thing every day, sometimes i get depressed but it's normal i get up one more time and try to keep working.
I learned that I should try to be a better me instead of emulating somebody else's success story.
Now in 2018, we were accepted as the first global startup in the most competitive corporate incubator.
The highlight of 2018, was being accepted into a global expansion program which gave us corporating backing to explore the Chinese market. Two weeks ago, my founding Korean employee and I spent 2 days in Beijing introducing my company to TusStar Accelerator, and Tsinghua University and 3 days meeting business partners in Shanghai.
As someone who just turned 26, this is a tremendous accomplishment that shattered my personal goals for 2018.
In the process, I realized how naive I am to think China would be easy. I also it will not be impossible, and I very, very excited for 2019.
I learned how insanely important initiative in life is. Being the guy who not only comes up with idea but also says "I'll do it" has immense value. I started leading a small team while being underqualified for the job and there were two things that greatly helped me understand the value of initiative. First was showing my boss a CI/CD pipeline that I implemented that everyone was talking about. That made my boss believe that I can do what I was talking about and consequently I have a free reign in implementing new changes (it helps that we're small software house). Second thing was talking with developers. A lot of them have ideas what they would like to see changed that would help them in their daily work but they also claim that they do not have time to make those changes (which is sometimes fair point). So we're sitting at a lot of great ideas that need 'just' implementing.
Second thing I learned is the value of discipline and having a rhythm to your day. Wake up, eat breakfast, run your morning routine, go to work, go to gym, do evening stuff, run your before bed routine. Basically have a plan for your day. Like they say 'Failing to plan is planning to fail'.
The net gain has been extreme automation. My shipping team's output has doubled.
I've learned that whilst we talk about premature optimisation, there is also lagging optimisation too!
OTOH, the old saying stands "if you aren't embarrassed to show your product to your mother, you waited too late to launch". And I would probably be embarrassed to show this stuff to my mom right now. I'd be embarrassed to do a Show HN for sure.
Anyway, if we sneak that in before midnight on 12/31/2018, I'll call that my accomplishment. If not, I'll fall back to saying my biggest accomplishment of 2018 was going through the Startup School program.
What did I learn? Wow.. so much. I'd probably have to write a book. Or at least a few blog posts. Offhand though, I'd say two of the biggest things I learned were just reaffirmations of things I'd at least heard - if not internalized - before:
1. The toughest part of being a founder is managing your own internal mental/emotional state. I forget who originally said that, maybe pg, or pmarca or somebody of that ilk. But it's very true. My morale has sunk pretty low a few times over the last 12 months and I've spent moments here and there in a real funk. But I've managed to keep reminding myself to shut down the negative self-chatter, keep working, and push through the tough times. It's important to remember that things usually get better, and that being negative and depressed doesn't help. So when I start questioning myself, I try to redirect my thoughts to "how does all this negativity help? What if I just STFU and keep working and see what tomorrow brings?" And as it happens, usually by the next day the moment has passed and I'm back in the saddle.
2. Startup School really reminded me of the importance of focusing on the problem you're solving, and the idea of doing the smallest subset of what you're trying to build, and then putting that "out there". In a talk, pg (or one of the speakers, but I think it was pg) referred to finding the "minimum quantum of utility" of your idea.
So having that thinking beat into my head repeatedly throughout SS was valuable. As pg said (paraphrased) "As a developer you can sit in a coffee shop or cafe and write code and work on your 'vision' forever. You need to actually get your thing out in front of the people you want to sell it to, preferably sooner than later".
Once you're done with the development don't make the mistake of focusing more energy on your coding or product features but rather give everything to market.
Focus on SEO, content marketing, list building and forums (the niche the better). If you are able to show it this year then spend all 2019 promoting and building traffic. Then you really have a chance at making it.
I wish you all the best. Merry Christmas! :)
Yeah, that's pretty much the plan. "2018: ship. 2019: accelerate". That's been the mantra here. Of course in the strictest sense, the 2018 deadline isn't essential. If we ship on January 4th, or January 15th, or whatever, it doesn't change the overall plan. But I like having a milestone target to shoot for.
Merry Christmas!
- I started learning Chinese.
- I tried my hand at DevOps, Rust and Machine Learning.
What I learned?
- Countries and cultures are very different. Environments can affect you in a big deal. The city, the people, the weather, the system, etc...
- Travelling is hard. But rewarding.
- Learning Chinese with Anki seems like it increases your brain capabilities. I'm not certain about that but suggests you try it and see for yourself.
- Rust is Hard. It is eloquent and right. But it is hard.
- Rust is unfinished business if you are looking to ship software. Many things are not ready yet or mass-tested/used.
- Machine Learning is a huge topic.
Used Rust Lambda runtime for CPU intensive tasks.
Using Go for the rest of the Lambdas.
I love Go and Rust and optimizing just one Lambda at a time brought back the programme joy in my life
Used Apex+Terrform to manage whole infra for the ad network.
We managed to deploy Lambda in all AWS regions ensuring minium latency for the ad viewers.
The thing which took over 50 (tech side only) person team, now takes 10 people to run the whole ad network.
Network is doing 20M profit per year.
It's my greatest achievement so far because we made it from scratch without any investor money.
But one the other side, we'll have to shrink our team size next year as growth opportunity is limited and we want to optimize efficiency further.