Jack Sng

Bootstrapped entrepreneur, educator, and designer.

[Jack Sng @jacksng]

Crafting Good Books That Build People. Here's our second trailer :) https://t.co/GWICE9P1kK

[Jack Sng @jacksng]

@averycode this is not failure Avery! You are doing great!!

[Jack Sng @jacksng]

@averycode Wah! Go go go!

[Jack Sng @jacksng]

@averycode Launched 4 books this year. And maybe, JUST MAYBE, launch a full digital product if i survive 42 haha

[Jack Sng @jacksng]

@averycode Lol you appeared on my feed! So cool to see you are indiehacking!

[Jon Yongfook @yongfook]

Indiehacking has lost the plot.

There's too many people stuck in a loop of endlessly vibe-coding features, talking about some vague future launch date, wasting time pandering to one single potential customer sending them on a wild goose chase, then grumbling about how it's so easy for Pieter Levels because he has "distribution".

Let me make this simple.

Your goal is to get to $1k MRR.

It's not "to launch" it's not "validation" (too vague), it's to get to $1k MRR. Everything you do should service this goal. Charge $50 a month or more, put a Stripe link on it, and (hard part) get people excited about your product.

You aren't going to win any customers if you're not excited about your own product.

You can't AI-blog-post your way to $1k MRR, you can't "weekly update to the build in public channel" way to $1k MRR. Where is the excitement, the thing that makes people take notice?

Getting from 0 to $1k takes "escape velocity". It's hard.

Random list of suggestions:

- be genuinely excited, if you aren't, work on something else
- use your unique experience to write blog posts that nobody else can, don't use AI
- add free tools to your site that give people a reason to share
- have a gimmick that people talk about or remember you for (remember my moto meter?) who cares if it's stupid, just make it memorable

And stop thinking that launching or adding features or "getting a customer" is the goal.

The goal is $1k MRR.

And then $10k, and then $50k, and so on.

[Jack Sng @jacksng]

@yongfook You have been an inspiration since back in the day man. Seeing you ship products was one of the reasons I learn coding. Hopefully, I'm not too late into the game haha

[Jack Sng @jacksng]

@imgyf I don't think this stress will ever leave you. It comes with your freedom as a founder.

[Jack Sng @jacksng]

@imbktan your work area looks awesome!

[Naval @naval]

The mystic sees the parts and feels the whole.

The artist feels the parts and creates the whole.

The engineer assembles the parts and crafts the whole.

The scientist measures the parts and explains the whole.

All search for the hidden likeness within things.

[Jack Sng @jacksng]

The book business is like that as well.

[Jon Yongfook @yongfook]

The greatest thing about SaaS is that my customer acquisition is decoupled from my effort.

I’ve basically been off Twitter, Out of Office for the last two weeks, but business is ticking along like usual, acquisition rate unchanged.

Doesn’t work like that forever of course, but it’s a great comfort to know that you can take your foot off the gas pedal now and then, and it makes no difference.

[Balaji @balajis]

AMERICA 2.0

A quick response to @ramahluwalia and @Noahpinion’s posts.

First, it’s not “fashionable” to predict the decline of the US. It’s both (a) extremely non-consensus and (b) tragic for everyone that remembers the functional version of an incredible country.

Second, it’s not really a prediction, but an observation. We could paste graph after graph of the declines in life expectancy, manufacturing dominance, internal cohesion, or share of global trade. But the long term trend is down.

Third, it’s sadly not the “United States”, it’s the Disunited States. Just like “Korean” became North Korean and South Korean, so too is “American” becoming Blue American and Red American. Look at the graphs; the 70+ year trendline of rising political polarization only ends in something like American Partition.

Fourth, to see the decline you just need to walk around America’s blue cities and compare them to Asia’s. The public sector has failed in a way that’s not immediately visible in stock prices, until CVS and Starbucks must exit blue governance.

Fifth, US banks are on death row. They have trillions in unrealized bond losses and exist at the sufferance of the Fed. Fitch wants to downgrade even JPMC.

Sixth, yeah, tech is a bright spot but it’s not in control of the state — only the network. The state belongs to blue America, and it is fighting tech in every possible way, from AI to self-driving to crypto.

Seventh, all this has nothing to do with what one wants. In my view, what’s ascending are the Internet, India, and China. What’s descending is DC. I’m happy that the Internet and India are ascending. I’m happy for the Chinese people but concerned about the ascendance of the CCP. And I’m concerned for the American people and worried about the very visible decline of DC.

I do think that after decades of Iraq and Syria, financial crisis and coronavirus, inflation and deindustrialization, that the DC regime has lost the Mandate of Heaven. They inherited a hyperpower in 1991 and squandered perhaps the largest advantage in human history in just 30 years.

The final blow is yet to be seen, whether it’s delivered by the bond market or warfare or political conflict or something else. But like Dalio, I think a Soviet-style collapse is coming. It could be gradual, but these days things have a way of coming in sudden spurts.

Fortunately, the Internet may give us a way to reboot after the fall. Not through “Western Values” (which have been too deconstructed and compromised by this regime) but through Internet Values.

On that basis one could rebuild an America 2.0…

[@levelsio @levelsio]

That it doesn't matter how much experience you get

Your odds of success stay the same due to basic principles of economics

It's all some mix of power law and Pareto and most things that you try will fail regardless if you're a newbie or Sergey Brin

Multiple hits = very special

[Jack Sng @jacksng]

I am a Singaporean and, right now I'm learning how to code at 42 Singapore - It is completely free and totally awesome. Singaporeans are always bashing and complaining about their government and education system. It takes a foreigner to be appreciative of what we have.

[@levelsio @levelsio]

Singapore politicans actually understand tech because their education system is highly tech focused

Every country gov should be like this to survive the AI wave I think

[Jack Sng @jacksng]

I got distracted while working on my Minitalk project. #day130 of #100daysofcodechallenge #100dayofcode

[Jack Sng @jacksng]

I am restarting #100daysofcode again as of today. I have been accepted into 42SG @sutdsg , and I want to make it a personal commitment to commit codes daily and to document my journey. Right now, I am trying to create my own printf() in C. #Day00

[Jack Sng @jacksng]

@42born2code working on my minitalk project on #day129 #100daysofcodechallenge #100dayofcode

[Balaji @balajis]

Hardware is hard.

That’s why Elon is by far the greatest founder of all time.

Remember — countless startups die just while trying to put stationary beige boxes on desktops. Very smart people get crushed by supply chain disruptions, or China tariffs, or lockdowns, or shipping interruptions, or regulatory delays.

Not Elon. He didn’t just survive financial crisis and coronavirus. He managed to build physical things in America while fighting the state and the laws of nature at the same time.

Somehow he managed to simultaneously build not just a car company but a rocket company. Those don’t just have “moving parts”, they are a moving whole.

The difficulty level here is insane. Hardware is completely different from software. One recall, just one serious bug, can destroy your company. If you are charging $50 for something that costs $40, and you need to recall and replace a million units, you’re usually dead.

So just one of these companies — just Tesla, or just SpaceX — would be an incredible accomplishment for anyone. Even a very intelligent and hardworking person would have to live an incredibly boring, disciplined, focused life to possibly maintain the extremely low error rate needed to profitably ship such complex products.

Not Elon. He did SpaceX and Tesla while having N children by K women. While also cofounding OpenAI and Neuralink and Boring Company. While fighting and defeating countless journalists, politicians, haters, and short sellers. And of course while buying Twitter, posting all the time, and building a following larger than almost any politician.

The better you are, the better you understand how much better Elon is. If you’re good at math you appreciate Ramanujan’s greatness. If you’re good at basketball you respect how amazing Michael Jordan was. Elon is like that, for tech. Everyone in tech understands the sport we’re playing, and he really is the greatest of all time.