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40 weeks, 38 videos published

I am taking my time again to reflect on my journey as a software developer building a lifestyle business by productizing myself. All of this is happening directly at www.fwt.wtf. It was only yesterday that I intentionally decided to break my video streak for the 2nd time during this last 10-week cycle that I am reflecting on today. Let's dive into how my mindset has evolved since my last reflection.

Highlights

Let's start by outlining highlights:

Stats

I am also going to pull out some of the stats from my Creator Dashboard:

  • 44 project weeks since 31st of January when I wrote my first blog post to kick things off
  • 764 hours invested into the project so far (17h/week)
  • 135 single take video recording attempts (3/video)
  • 1417 kilometers traveled for nice unique sceneries for every topic of the video (35km/week)
  • 31 consecutive weeks as the longest streak for recording weekly videos

Ads experiment

I haven't said this anywhere publicly before today, but since the launch of my apps on the 1st of September on Product Hunt (#1, #2), I've been running 10 EUR campaigns per video with the hope of attracting more eyeballs. I spent approximately 100 EUR in total to run this. In my view, that would result in making more sales. At the same time, I would be able to accelerate the number of views and subscriber counts my channel was getting.

However, I think that this experiment has backfired on me. While my subscribers count has grown significantly during that period of time, the quality of my subscribers is now very low. At the same time, higher view counts did not generate any app sales. This is very unfortunate for me to conclude. Since the experiment ended, my videos had been getting between 10 and 38 views each as compared to hundreds or even 1 thousand plus.

What does this mean? Apparently, the algorithm cannot find an audience for my videos. I suspect that the main problem with my model is that I need to attract high volume of people. Content space is very competitive today, making this nearly impossible with my current content format which is about making single-take videos that are unscripted and authentic. This is probably not so interesting today as it sounds very boring when you compare my video to a highly-edited alternatives.

I was also hoping to receive more feedback during my ad experiment. Since it hasn't made any app sales, I received none. I remain being the only person who gives feedback on apps that I've made myself. To stop being so one-sided, positive thing is that I was able to iterate my apps further during this last period. In the end, I am using them daily so there are improvements that naturally come to my mind.

Tiny experiments

I did not make a video yesterday and it was intentional. Last week was the first one when free with tech stopped being my priority number one when it comes to distribution of my focus. I've began questioning my path again. There have been doubts along the way, but this time it feels different. I need to rethink my approach based on my 10-month progress.

Particularly, there was one key insight I received during my vacation in September directly from Yan Zoritchak (I also summarized lessons learned from the master of glass art in my previous article). The issue is me being very serious about all of this that I've been doing since the beginning of 2025. I made it to be very high stakes and you can probably feel it from my energy in the videos.

With all of this in mind, I've decided that it will be better for me to proceed in a way that ultimately let's me feel better. I needed to stretch it, but that stretch is now over. My new approach means that I will continue building free with tech as a side project. The shift is to perceive it as another set of tiny experiments as opposed to a single experiment that determines my existence.

I would like to end this article with a reference to what likely is my top 2025 book. It is literally called Tiny Experiments and is written by Anne-Laure Le Cunff. This book has definitely helped me make the mindset shift that I tried to describe in this blog post.

Challenges ahead

By building this, I've realized how hard it really is to communicate the vision, bootstrap a lifestyle business and productize myself. The transformation from digital slavery to freedom was key for me to live a more fulfilling life and the mission here remains the same. I think many more people could appreciate the benefits digital freedom provides. This is why I will keep building this. However, now I will take some distance to realign.