Welcome to the Back of my Head's 12th issue.

First of all, I missed sending BomH for the first time last week. Sorry for that. And thanks, if you care.

Today, we're starting with a short note on how most people take the wrong approach when making digital products. From my experience. 

* * *

January 2021. After 2 years of freelancing (for fun), I had just landed my biggest client. A guy with the username nilsvb from Chile was paying me $100 to set up his WordPress blog and write a bunch of articles promoting a tool he had made.

But the weird thing was this: the tool did just one thing. It added a border around images and texts of all shapes. And so it was named Borderize. How do you write blog posts about such a tool?

Coming up with the first two post ideas was easy. One on "how to add a border around an image" and another on "how to add a border around a text." The third blog post idea was hard to find.

So here's how I thought: Who'd want to find a border add-er tool? What problems can you solve with such a tool? That led me to find the blog post ideas I needed like "How to create a WhatsApp/Telegram sticker". Because those stickers usually contain weirdly shaped images with borders.

Anyways, the point is what that guy did was that he made a tool because he knew how to make it not because it solved a problem. And that's probably the worst way to build things.

I know because a lot of the "failed" projects I worked on had this problem: Some of them didn't solve any problem. Some solved a problem that actually wasn't a problem. But I'm still glad I made them.

About 6 months before that freelance gig, I had set out to build NewsletterDb, which I described as, "IMDb for Newsletters." It was a tool that listed out newsletters the way Play Store lists out apps. You could see what the newsletter was about, how many subscribers it had, top issues etc. It wasn't solving a problem. And so it quickly died.

Before that, I had started a tech newsletter with two great friends (Aarzoo & Mudit), we called it Wire Weekly and later, PointBrief. It summarised all the tech news we could find, in a single email. (If you're curious, here are the first 9 issues, later issues weren't archived.)

The problem with this was the same. We weren't solving a problem. We just thought we could make something cool like Morning Brew for tech geeks. Without realising that Morning Brew is not only cool and fun to read, it also solves a problem: that a lot of people need to read business news because their career demands it but it's just too boring.

As I’m working on Tastey (more about it on the last issue of BomH), I realise I actually am solving a problem. That running a curation newsletter is unnecessarily technical and difficult right now. It can be made a whole lot easier and simpler without losing any of its current value. If you run a curation newsletter, Tastey can potentially save you equivalent to a whole day’s work (~10hrs) every month.

You're reading Back of my Head, a newsletter with links to the most interesting things I've found.  Over 100 curious people love it. If someone forwarded this to you, subscribe here.

Buy me a Book (₹75/$1)

1. Zero to Sold by Arvid Kahl

This book is about stories and lessons from Arvid Kahl learnt as he built, bootstrapped and sold a software business.

He talks about the four stages of building a business: preparation, survival, stability, and growth. And steps inside each of them.

2. Better Web Typography Course by Matej Latin

A free email course on web typography.

Typography is bigger than you'd think. Between the two lines of characters from a font, is a world where these seemingly small things make all the difference. I'm super obsessed about fonts but I never really learnt the technical things.

This short email course is for that. If you're a designer or developer, I think, the ability to choose great fonts is key to making good products.

3. How I managed to get Tim Ferriss to advise me, launch a product to a huge audience, and take over... by Nathan Kontny

The title is pretty self-explanatory.

This is a post about how a guy got Jason Fried (cofounder of Basecamp) to build a product together and how he got Tim Ferriss to advise him and promote that product on his podcast.

4. Minimalist Entrepreneur by Sahil Lavingia

"In the end, my failure to launch Gumroad into the stratosphere was the best thing that ever happened to me, because it taught me the very real consequences behind a “growth at all costs” mindset."

This is the introduction and first chapter from Gumroad's founder Sahil Lavingia's upcoming book, The Minimalist Entrepreneur.

He sent it to some of his followers on Twitter so you won't find it elsewhere but it's damn good. He started Gumroad with the vision of building a billion-dollar company and was frustrated when it couldn't become what he wanted. This is his story of how he realised Gumroad didn't need to be a unicorn, it was already profitable and customers loved it.

And that made all the difference.

(btw if you don't know, Gumroad is a website where you can sell your ebooks, courses, basically anything online.)

5. Startup Bus Count: 7 Myths of Entrepreneurship by Tim Ferriss

Tim Ferriss asked a few questions to Rob Mee, the founder of Pivotal Labs (now, VMware Tanzu Labs). It was an agile software development consulting firm from San Francisco.

In these answers, he breaks 7 popular myths about companies that make software. They include:

• Myth: Programmers need to work in quiet, without interruption.
• Myth: Developers should take ownership of their code.
• Myth: Specialization is essential.
• and more.

BACK OF HIS HEAD

Rahul Chowdhury

Hey, I’m Rahul. I’m a full-time software engineer. But, apart from writing code, I write a blog and a weekly newsletter on productivity and self-improvement called Hulry. You can give my newsletter a trial run by subscribing to it for free.

1. The Japanese philosophy of Wabi Sabi has left a profound mark on my life ever since I read a book on this topic. A must-know concept for all. Pro tip: Get the book in hardcover because the book is beautiful inside and out.

2. I was terrible with money. But it all changed when I started paying attention to my finances around 2 years ago. To help others get out of the poor financial situation I was in a couple of years ago, I wrote an article on how I manage my finances using money plans.

3. NextDNS is an encrypted DNS service that I use to protect my privacy while using the web. An encrypted DNS will prevent your ISP or public WiFi hacker from snooping in on your network and looking at your browsing traffic.

4. Money is the Megaphone of Identity is one of the best articles I’ve read on how money affects our life. Although it’s a long read, the illustrations make it fun to read.

5. If you like shortcuts, Osara will be perfect for you. On macOS, Osara will present you with a searchable list of actions of the app you’re currently using. A true pro-tool.

6. Making a bad habit less appealing is certainly a way to get rid of it. But, it’s only a bandaid on a burning skin. To truly eliminate a bad habit, you need to understand what pushes you towards that habit. Khe Hy talks about this in detail in this article.

Most clicked links from Back of my Head #11.

Other interesting things I found this week.

How many links did you find interesting?

10+  •  5-10  •  1-5  • None