Highlights

• A change to Zestful’s website boosted it to the front page of Google results within days.
• I’m going to try to make a better version of a decades’ old application for managing machine shops.
• I’m doing lots of coding to avoid talking to customers.

Goal grades

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

Publish a new blog post about eliminating distractions from email and social media

• Result: I published “Eliminating Distractions from Social Media, Email, and StackOverflow”
• Grade: A

I published this post as planned but was surprised how little a response it generated. I’ve had a string of posts that I knew were too narrowly-focused to get widespread attention, but I thought a blog post about focus in the age of social media would attract more interest.

You open Gmail to write a note to your friend. Before you begin, you notice that you’ve received six new messages. It pains you to leave emails unopened, so you read them immediately. Two hours later, you realize that you never wrote that note to your friend.

This happened to me constantly, and it wasn’t just Gmail. I’d look at my phone to check the time and find myself mindlessly checking 10 notifications. I’d open Facebook to look up someone’s birthday and fall into a zombie state scrolling through my News Feed.

Highlights

• I sold my first meal plan on Is It Keto.
• I then tried five different experiments for increasing sales.
• Is It Keto’s revenue dropped for the month as I redirected resources toward its failing meal plans.

Goal grades

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

Earn $100 in revenue from sales of keto meal plans

• Result: Earned only $23.87 from keto meal plan sales.
• Grade: D+

It turns out it’s really hard to get people to spend money on things that other sites offer for free. Despite my best efforts, I only managed to sell two meal plans, far lower than the volume I expected.

Overview

This past weekend, PyGotham invited me to speak at their annual conference in Manhattan. In an effort to maximize the benefit I get from the event, I’ve prepared notes that capture what I learned by attending. I’m sharing them in hopes that it might be interesting or useful to others.

Ratings and reviews

Quality of talks

I was a bit disappointed with the overall quality of the talks this year. There were a few I enjoyed (see below), but lots of the talks underwhelmed me.

Highlights

• After six months of consistent gains of ~30% in revenue and traffic, Is It Keto’s growth finally flattened out.
• I’m preparing to sell premium meal plans on Is It Keto.
• I’m ready to make bigger bets on my businesses.

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 a writer for Is It Keto

• Result: I hired a writer who’s able to write well in the style I want.
• Grade: A

In September, I received 25 new applications from freelance writers. I did paid trials with two of them and made one permanent hire.