Reading List
The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.
TinyPilot: Month 27
New here?
Hi, I’m Michael. I’m a software developer and the founder of TinyPilot, an independent computer hardware company. I started the company in 2020, and it now earns $60-80k/month in revenue and employs six other people.
Every month, I publish a retrospective like this one to share how things are going with my business and in my professional life overall.
Highlights
- I’m doing a thought exercise about whether TinyPilot could function without a physical office.
- Thinking about outsourcing forces me to recognize inefficiencies in our current workflows.
- The Playwright end-to-end testing tool has won me over.
Goal grades
At the start of each month, I declare what I’d like to accomplish. Here’s how I did against those goals:
Should I Invest in iBonds?
In a recent Hacker News thread about preparing financially for a possible recession, a commenter suggested investing in iBonds.
iBonds are one of those investments I’ve seen in passing every time I read a personal finance book, but I’ve never paid much attention to them.
When I saw that iBonds are currently paying 9.62% interest, I decided to give them a closer look.
What are iBonds?
iBonds are the colloquial name for Series I Treasury savings bonds. They’re a savings bond whose rate of return is based on the current rate of inflation.
TinyPilot: Month 26
New here?
Hi, I’m Michael. I’m a software developer, and the founder of TinyPilot, an independent computer hardware company. I started the company in 2020, and it now earns $60-80k/month in revenue and employs six other people.
Every month, I publish a retrospective like this one to share how things are going with my business and in my professional life overall.
Highlights
- TinyPilot had its all-time best month, reaching nearly $80k in revenue and exceeding its previous record by 15%.
- The response rate to my job posting was 8x higher than when I listed the same job six months ago.
- I have lots of thoughts about hiring people.
Goal grades
At the start of each month, I declare what I’d like to accomplish. Here’s how I did against those goals:
A Survey of Applicant Tracking Systems for Bootstrapped Businesses
I’m a bootstrapped founder of a six-person company, and I spent this week testing different tools for hiring candidates.
This post summarizes my experience with the applicant tracking systems (ATS) I found and how well they serve small, bootstrapped businesses.
Why use an applicant tracking system (ATS)?
The last time I hired for a role, I posted the job on WeWorkRemotely and directed candidates to email me. I ended up receiving 221 applications, so managing them in email became messy. I came up with a folder labeling system that worked okay, but this time around, I want a purpose-built tool for tracking applications.
Fixing Memory Exhaustion Bugs in My Golang Web App
Earlier this year, I created an open-source app called PicoShare. It’s a simple Golang web app for sharing files. I use it to send files that are too large to be email attachments, but I don’t want the recipient to deal with Dropbox or Google Drive.
A few months ago, I started seeing my PicoShare server die every few days. When I checked the logs, I saw an out of memory error: