Highlights

• TinyPilot has its first official office space.
• I tried a marketing experiment that flopped.
• Designing IT infrastructure for a new office is fun.

Goal grades

At the start of each month, I declare what I’d like to accomplish. Here’s how I did against those goals:

Increase TinyPilot revenue to $30k

• Result: Increased revenue by 46% to $29k
• Grade: A-

I didn’t quite hit my $30k goal, but I came close. It’s a relief to end the downward sales trend that began in February.

Here’s a riddle. My web app keeps all of its data in a SQL database. I can spontaneously tear it down, deploy the code to a different hosting platform, and the app will still serve all the same data. Running my app in production costs $0.03 per month.

How is this possible?

That’s easy. You have a separate database server running somewhere that stores all of your app’s state.

No, my app never talks to a remote database server.

Highlights

• I plan to open TinyPilot’s first real office next month.
• TinyPilot’s revenues continue to plummet, but I’m learning to accept it.
• I’m inching ever closer to the freedom to take short vacations.

Goal grades

At the start of each month, I declare what I’d like to accomplish. Here’s how I did against those goals:

Hire two local part-time employees to begin taking over order fulfillment

• Result: Received applications from two promising candidates.
• Grade: D

I slacked a bit here and didn’t get the ball rolling until late into the month. I’ve got interviews scheduled, but I haven’t hired anyone yet.

I bought this book hoping for lessons to apply to my business, manufacturing and selling physical products. I didn’t find many business insights, but it was still an engaging and funny story.

I’ve been hiring software developers and other freelancers for the past seven years. Even though I write most code myself, hiring other developers is a tremendous force multiplier that frees up time for other parts of my business.

Freelancers work well if you manage the relationship properly, but there are hundreds of ways it can go wrong. The best way to start things off is by reaching a shared understanding of your freelancer-client relationship.