It’s that time of the year again when I look back to all the mess I’ve created the previous year. This year was a bit different, a lot of things changed this year. It was like a drop on water that created ripple, and I’ll be experiencing this ripple in the time to come, and I don’t know yet if it’s a good or bad
Anyways, here’re some highlights from 2022:
📈 I didn’t know I could start a business and grow it to $1,400+ MRR
In the start of 2022, I started Pika, an app to quickly create images and mockups. It started as an app for my own needs but it quickly started getting traction. So I kept adding features to it and also added subscriptions to it in February, 2022 to see if I can make it a hobby that makes money
✨ my smol design tool https://t.co/6mVzNMEGMU has finally crossed INR 84K/$1,000 in MRR this week
— rishi 🌔 (@thelifeofrishi) November 12, 2022
I bootstrapped Pika in February to effortlessly design better screenshots, it's been growing slowly & steadily and finally has 100+ paid users
A lot is done, lot more to do 😇 pic.twitter.com/dfaB4Vhzg7
Now Pika is making over $1,400 a month in revenue. Considering I worked on Pika only in my free time and along with my full time-job, I think it grew pretty well. Talking about job reminds me of my next highlight of the year
👨💻 Switched job from BigBinary → Borg
I remember that March night in Goa. I was sitting at the table in my Airbnb in warm dim lights. I wrote an email with subject “Thank you for everything!” and stared at it for hours till midnight. It was a resignation email. I had been working at BigBinary for 6 years, it was my comfortable zone for a long long time. I was unsure if I should hit the send button, but I did
Career update ✨
— rishi 🌔 (@thelifeofrishi) December 2, 2022
Excited to share I’ve joined @hivedotone team to build a new way to explore Twitter pic.twitter.com/a31wQh26H8
One month later after resigning from BigBinary, I started working with Borg team on hive.one on contract. It’s a Berlin based startup working on building more meaningful way of browsing Twitter data. I liked the work the team was doing and the direction the product was heading in, and so I decided to join the team full-time this month
Can definitely say I’m not in my comfort zone anymore and I need to learn a lot of new things to be able to do my job well, which was also a reason why I joined Borg
🛫 Travelled a bit, but not as much as I wanted to
Early this year, I did a 3 month long trip travelling different cities in India, which I’ve shared about in my blog Airport diaries
I wanted to travel more this year, but I couldn’t. For some reason I don’t feel the same about travelling anymore. It feels like I’ve seen it all and there’s nothing new to be discovered or explored. I’ve also lost interest I had in photography which I feel really sad about. My camera is sitting on my desk catching dust since I don’t know how many months now. It seems to me my new interest in building SaaS products has overtaken some hobbies I had before, which I don’t really like
There’s so less time to fit a full-time job, side-projects, travelling and exploration, and still be able to spend time with family. It’s just hard to manage. This is something I want to do better in 2023, and put more time in travelling and pursuing interests out of laptop and internet world
😅 Still clueless about where I am heading
I don’t know where I am heading but I’m on my way, I don’t know who wrote this line but it has been my state of mind throughout this year, or the one before that. I am doing more things without expectations in my mind or with a sense of a goal or achievement, and mostly fearlessly. I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but the sense of belonging and end goal is definitely missing. And the worst part, I don’t even know how to fix that
🐥 More activity on Twitter
This year I’ve spend a significant time scrolling on Twitter. Sometime mid of this year, I had removed Instagram since I was wasting a bit too much time watching people ruining good songs in reels. So all that time shifted to scrolling on Twitter, but it was a good change
Twitter wasn’t a time waste for me since I was building a SaaS in public and Twitter was my primary marketing channel for it. I wouldn’t be wrong if I say I got a lot of paid users through Twitter. And I also got to connect with a lot of new folks and learnt all kinds of new stuff
I feel since Twitter is primarily text based social platform, and that you can follow anyone around the world, it makes it really easy to learn from people. You just follow the right people and you get a chance to learn their mind
—
There’s a lot more. I can recall some good fun days in Goa and Gurgaon, wandering in Hauz Khas, napping at a train station, cancelling plans, not calling back, working at 4am, making new friends, friendships fading, the food in Amritsar, meeting my newphew for the first time and what not
Some moments from this year would stay, for a long time
Happy new year!
कर लूंगा जमा दौलत ए ज़ार, उसके बाद क्या?
ले लूंगा शानदार सा घर, उसके बाद क्या?
मैं की तलब जो होगी तो बन जाऊंगा मैं रिंद,
कर लूंगा मैकदों का सफ़र, उसके बाद क्या?
होगा जो शौक़ हुस्न से राज़ो नियाज़ का,
कर लूंगा गेसुओ में सहर, उसके बाद क्या?
शेर - ओ - सुखन की ख़ूब सजाऊंगा महफिलें,
दुनिया में होगा नाम मगर, उसके बाद क्या?
मौज आएगी, सारे जहां की करूंगा सैर,
वापस वही पुराना नगर, उसके बाद क्या?
इक रोज़ मौत जीस्त का दर खटखटाएगी ,
बुझ जाएगा चराग़ - ए - क़मर, उसके बाद क्या?
उठी थी ख़ाक, ख़ाक से मिल जाएगी वहीं,
फ़िर उसके बाद किसको ख़बर उसके बाद क्या?