Mesut KILINCASLAN

Senior Engineer |
Solopreneur | IndieDev | building @podwistapp & @commt_co in public

📍İstanbul | Vilnius 🇹🇷 🇱🇹

[Mesut KILINCASLAN @mesutas_dev]

An adventurous entrepreneur who shares his works, flow process, results and breaking points in a place where there are so many mentors and know-it-alls! 🤠

[Mesut KILINCASLAN @mesutas_dev]

@MicroLaunchHQ @podwistapp Thanks! 😌 took time to decide, thx to my wife :)

[Mesut KILINCASLAN @mesutas_dev]

@Sathibuilds Great idea!
Thanks for sharing man!

[Mesut KILINCASLAN @mesutas_dev]

Build it in silence, announce it loudly.

#buildinpublic

[Podwist: AI Podcast @podwistapp]

The loudest person in the room is documenting progress.
The quietest one is making it.

[Mesut KILINCASLAN @mesutas_dev]

Is this how social media works??
Like scroll, see some post, evaluate in 2 sec if you put attention on it or scroll to next one!

I am feeling that we are in this loop in any platform.

[Podwist: AI Podcast @podwistapp]

Your feed trains one skill: evaluate in 2 seconds, abandon, move on.
Thousands of reps a day.
Then you sit down with something long and wonder why it feels impossible.
It is not a discipline problem. It is training.

[Podwist: AI Podcast @podwistapp]

𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗰𝗮𝗻'𝘁 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗮 𝗴𝗼𝗮𝗹 𝗶𝘁 𝗰𝗮𝗻'𝘁 𝘀𝗲𝗲.

One of the most valuable lessons from Think and Grow Rich is to 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗴𝗼𝗮𝗹𝘀 𝗱𝗼𝘄𝗻.
The moment you put a goal on paper, it becomes more than a wish.
It becomes a target. Your mind starts looking for opportunities, solutions and actions that move you closer to it.
Thinking inspires. Writing commits. Action delivers results.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 #𝟭 𝗴𝗼𝗮𝗹 𝘆𝗼𝘂'𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗱𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆? 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗹𝘆 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲. 👇

#GoalSetting #Mindset #SuccessHabits

[Mesut KILINCASLAN @mesutas_dev]

Basically a sprint retro, but for six months instead of two weeks.
Running mine tonight instead of postponing it again.

[Podwist: AI Podcast @podwistapp]

Halfway through the year.
Pull every habit-tracking spread since January and sort it into four piles:
✔️ highlights,
✔️ achievements,
✔️ challenges,
✔️ learnings.

One question per pile turns it into a plan for the second half.

#midyearreflection #habittracking #selfreflection #journaling

[Mesut KILINCASLAN @mesutas_dev]

You recall things easier when you're in the same state you learned them in.
Same logic behind cache warm-up in software. Environment isn't a preference, it's part of storage.

[Podwist: AI Podcast @podwistapp]

Why does one person focus best in silence and another needs to be moving?
Neither is wrong. Walking raises creative output almost 60% (Stanford, 2014).
The right learning environment isn't universal.
It's the one that holds attention.

#productivity #deepwork #focus

[Mesut KILINCASLAN @mesutas_dev]

AI has made building a startup easier than ever in 2026.
Writing code, launching an MVP and shipping products are no longer the biggest challenges for founders.
The real challenge is distribution.

Getting your first 100 customers now takes more than simply launching.
Founders need strong customer acquisition, content, SEO, social media, partnerships and community to stand out in a crowded market.

The founders who win won't just build better products but build better distribution.
In 2026, distribution is the competitive advantage.

#distribution #buildinpublic #newcustomers

[Mesut KILINCASLAN @mesutas_dev]

@Sathibuilds Dude making your app perfect is not a mistake, I completely support you on this. If your app has had any bottlenecks even you could have 100-500 users but not paid because of the bottlenecks!

But agree working project + paid users > perfect project + no paid users!

[Mesut KILINCASLAN @mesutas_dev]

Cut 3 side projects this year. All went away.
That taught me something; I built 2 mini-projects that made running my main project easier.
Which they replaced 2 paid subscriptions and 1 spreadsheet I had lived inside.

Publishing the full case study this weekend as article and on my blog.

#buildinpublic

[Mesut KILINCASLAN @mesutas_dev]

Shipped the multilingual feature last week.

A user in Sao Paulo converted a 9000+ word English economics paper to a Portuguese podcast and listened on her/his commute.
Couple of weeks back, that was not possible.
The build was 1 week. The first listen felt like 6 minutes.
It's a proud moment!

#buildinpublic

[Mesut KILINCASLAN @mesutas_dev]

Founders: stop assuming your customers think in English.
The market is bigger than the one you write in.
Translation is not a feature.
It is the difference between reaching 100 million people and 2 billion.

https://t.co/ekX7Zc3qpS

[Podwist: AI Podcast @podwistapp]

The most expensive language barrier is not between countries.
It is between the language an idea was published in and the one your brain actually thinks in.
Read the source. Listen in your language. Skip the translation tax.

#multilingual #knowledgework

[Mesut KILINCASLAN @mesutas_dev]

Last month I shared 6 episodes with my fellas.
I remember each one of them.
The ones I texted to friends group. The ones I talked about on Sunday cafe meetup.
Sharing turns audio into memory. Sharing is the receipt.
The good ones travel.

https://t.co/O23OLHmJZj

[Podwist: AI Podcast @podwistapp]

You know an idea actually landed when you forward it.
The episode you finished, walks with you to dinner, to the group chat, to Sunday calls.
This is how knowledge keeps moving.
Share what you finished. The good ones travel.

#share #smartlearning

[Mesut KILINCASLAN @mesutas_dev]

Did this exact audit in Q2 and here is the result.
Started with 10 productivity/AI apps installed. Ended with 4.
The 4 that survived are the ones that do their job the moment I need them.
No difficultly. No complexity. No extra clicks.
They give me the result I came for.

The 4: Claude Code, NotebookLM, Obsidian,
@podwistapp

[Podwist: AI Podcast @podwistapp]

The most underrated productivity move in 2026 is NOT a new AI tool.
It is being the kind of indie founder whose morning starts with a walk and a podcast instead of pile of unread tabs.
The stack that ships is the one you stop replacing

#productivity #aitools #indiehackers

[Mesut KILINCASLAN @mesutas_dev]

Picked Ruby for the next side-hustle.
I have shipped in Python, Go, TS, Swift. Ruby sat in my someday folder since 2022.
In 2026 the question stopped being which language I know best.
It is which one ships fastest with AI riding shotgun.
Rails + Claude > Python solo.

#indiehackers #buildinpublic

[Mesut KILINCASLAN @mesutas_dev]

We tested this with 3 of us this month.
One podcast per week, all on it before Monday.
What surprised me was not the time saved.
It was the quality of disagreement. Same source. Different conclusions. Way better huddle.

#smallteam

https://t.co/wzC2vm9fz2

[Podwist: AI Podcast @podwistapp]

The 10 minute recap at the start of every standup?
That is the cost of everyone reading different stuff the night before.
Two cofounders, one shared podcast on the commute, zero recap needed.
The math works at 2 people. Scales at 5.

#standup #cofounder #smallteam

[Mesut KILINCASLAN @mesutas_dev]

This explained my last 6 weeks better than the productivity podcasts did.

I started protecting the 7-10am block.
Calendar locked, phone in another room.
The 4pm shift stopped feeling like collapse.

It feels like the back half of a workday now.

#peakhours #buildinpublic

[Podwist: AI Podcast @podwistapp]

The 4pm crash is not laziness.
It is the cost of context switching, distractions, lost of focus; the morning calendar never warned you about.
Each interruption costs min 23-25 minutes of recovery. Your brain gets tired before your body. The math finishes by 2pm.

#peakhours #knowledgework #productivity

[Mesut KILINCASLAN @mesutas_dev]

The hardest thing about indie hacking is not the building.
It is the day-to-day decision to keep choosing the small bet over the dopamine of the big bet.
Every Mon I want to add three new features. Every Wed I am glad I shipped the one.

#indiehackers #buildinpublic