Hacker Residency: Day #3

Hey everyone,

I have so much to share with you today!!

I had an incredible surprise when I woke up: we got our first subscriber on Writizzy, our first MRR 🥳!! It gave me a huuuge motivation boost and made me jump out of bed!

Off to the hotel gym this morning 😍

Then breakfast, and off we go! Heading to the villa.

I had a super productive morning and was able to finalize the last preparations for the Uneed Community launch tomorrow. The launch is a bit special because this community probably won't reveal its potential until the long term, but I'm still really excited to see how it goes!

I got another piece of good news in the morning: I'm going to be interviewed by Indie Hackers 😊! I don't know yet when the article will come out, but I'll keep you posted.

I'm going to split the rest of the article into two parts: the first on some personal reflections about the Hacker Residency and how I'm experiencing it, and another on what happened there today (demos of participants' projects, talk on storytelling…)

Personal Reflections

I'm generally quite introverted: even though I don't consider myself shy, I have many personality traits that mean I'm usually not the most comfortable person in a huge group of people. For example, it's silly, but when 20 people are talking in small groups of 3-4 at the same time in a room, it's very complicated 😅. I try to listen to all the conversations, I have trouble concentrating, I don't know where to look, I don't know how to behave with the person talking to me, etc.

But generally, I manage to integrate pretty well anyway, probably because I make a lot of jokes, gags, and puns!

But here's the thing: in English, I can't do it.

My English isn't at an incredible level, but I didn't expect almost everyone in the group to speak it much better than me 😅. In fact, I realized something: I think I'm the only person in the group who, normally, doesn't travel.

Most of the Hacker Residency participants are digital nomads, work from everywhere, have a scattered schedule, adapt to all situations, are young, don't have family life, etc. Me, I wake up at the same time every day, I've visited less than 5 different countries, I never speak English, I always go to the same bar with my friends, I cycle every day, I have a lot of habits...

Look, I even have a dog!! 😂

This observation isn't negative, on the contrary: I needed this change, and the Hacker Residency is ideal for that. Everyone is very open, has a great mindset, and the vibe is incredible. It's a golden opportunity to learn, practice, and evolve 😊.

Hacker Residency

Tonight at 6pm, everyone came to do a demo of what they were working on for 2 minutes. A bit stressful to go in front of everyone of course, but very interesting!

Lots of different projects were presented: AI-based SaaS, a mental health community, a dance app, an ephemeral photos app, a food app, etc. And even a launch platform 😎!

In the coming days, I'm going to try to tell you about all these projects by going to chat with the other entrepreneurs. Who knows, it might create some opportunities 👀?

After these demos, Edmund gave us a talk on storytelling. Short, impactful, with lots of concrete examples: it was really interesting. It gave me tons of ideas 🤩!

In fact, this Hacker Residency is a humbling experience. I'm surrounded by people smarter than me, who often know more than me about my own job lol, whereas usually nobody around me understands what I do 🥹.

Well, the downside: I'm super tired at the end of these days, I went back to the hotel right after all that, at 8 pm 😬.

Tomorrow, the schedule is huge:

👉🏻 Uneed Community launch
👉🏻 Live Stream organized during the Hacker Residency

It's going to be another big day, no time to get bored 😎.

PS: Comments are coming soon to Writizzy and, therefore to my blog, but if in the meantime you have questions for me or topics you want me to cover, feel free to ping me on Twitter.

See you tomorrow 👋🏻

Thomas