i built a $2.5M ARR in 18 months with: - $213 in my bank account (broke) - no VC, 100% bootstrapped - based in Hong Kong, knows no one here's a part of my coming Youtube video where I shared everything i know on how to build a $1m app i hope everyone can become successful

does anyone know someone whos working for gcp customer support that can help?? or anyone has resolved similar issues that can help? 😭

idk if @cursor_ai supports this but I've been doing this extensively in my swift-kotlin codebase rn: 1. git stage some swift file changes 2. git diff --staged -- "*.swift" > “./staged_diff.txt" 3. reference the staged_diff.txt and prompt to translate to kotlin 4. repeat

Menu.background(.ultraThinMaterial)

Best things about shadcn is that you can start building your fancy customisable ui components without worrying about accessibility, performance and react shit. The react-scan result is clean af

bro monte carlo tree search on rizzing girls 😭😭😭😭😭

Refining Rise onboarding. How would you prompt these UI?

How to become a software engineer in 12 weeks (my own story) 2024 was when I transitioned to a full-time software engineer. And it is the best decision I’ve made. It took me about 3 months to make the transition from a product designer to a software engineer at a Series A AI startup. Here's how I did it: --- Week 1️⃣-3️⃣: Learn coding using @Codecademy Coding was very intimidating for me. So having a guided path makes starting so much easier. Plus, the course very bit-sized and interactive. So you see your code works instantly. ---- Week 4️⃣-5️⃣: Turn something you already made into an app As a designer, I have many Figma designs lying around. So I just chose 1 and made it real. But it can be anything. Automate a workflow u do it manually, make a web version of a slide deck, whatever. Just make it real with code. --- Week 6️⃣-7️⃣: Go to hackathons/build sth in 24 hours with people Two emphasis here: build something from scratch quickly, and do it with others. Building something from scratch helps me learn all the things needed for a piece of software Building with people pushes me to build and learn something I don’t know, and from people who know those things Go to lu.ma/ or cerebralvalley.ai/events to find hackathons to go to --- Week 9️⃣ - 1️⃣2️⃣: Get a job/contract in coding I didn’t have prior internship/experience before joining my current AI company. I just have some personal and hackathon projects. I just faked it till I made it, saying that I can do those things, and then learn how to do those things before the interview, and then work really hard to catch up at work. Start with looking for contractor roles in startups, and then work your way up. --- Week 1️⃣2️⃣ : Take on a variety of coding work Building a system from scratch, making animations, refactoring code, writing tests, just do it all. I made a mistake by pigeonholing myself to frontend work, and it limited my skills and imagination of what I can build. Now, I am actively seeking projects that are different from my previous ones to learn and figure out what kind of coding I like.

To all founders feeling like a failure in 2024, hear me out, If you spent the entire 2024 indie hacking the same project but still under $500 MRR, consider pivoting. We went from $0 to $100k in 1 year. All bootstrapping. You may ask: what changed in 2024 comparing to 2023? The fact is - literally nothing. Most things (the way we work, the amount of capital we have, our knowledge and skill sets etc.) are all the same as in 2023. I'm still the design growth guy, @himtkw is still the tech guy. We didn't hire anyone nor upskill much. But there's 3 decisions that changed our trajectory: 1. Pivoting from a failing project. 2. Starting making short-form content. 3. Starting building personal brand on X. Those 3 decisions (esp. the first one) proved to be the greatest leverage in 2024. My biggest takeaway is that - if you feel like shit and useless, it's not about you. 80% of your failure is not about your skills. It's about the avenue you chose. Don't stuck to the same thing for too long if it's not working. Don't marry to an idea. You just need a win to escape the imposter syndrome, and you'll get in soon. You'll realize you're way way better than you think you're. You'll crush 2025. 👊

HONG KONG 🇭🇰 indie hackers meet-up: @desmondhth @himtkw: building viral mobile apps 🔥 @thetechjason @calvincheungtc: building viral study tools 📚 Meet up irl with ppl in ur niche in ur city and u get a lot of inspiration

Also what I concluded (technical side) from last 3 weeks that mobile app dev should be aware of, especially when IAP or subs are involved: - you need a server to listen to Play/App Store noti for payment events, and grant/revoke user access accordingly. Don’t rely on client side receipts - be careful with model definition when using SwiftData. Even a missing default empty string would require database migration - be careful with .environment() in Swift. It will cause runtime but not compile time error so make sure you test through all pages - if you may need authentication, implement that as early as possible - write some unit tests (need not to cover all) for critical or highly used functions - outline user migration plan carefully if you got existing paying users

I'm considering fundraising for Rise now Rise launched 6 months ago, now at 100k installs and $20k/mo, grew all organically with $0 spent My goal now is to make Rise the #1 self-improvement brand in the world and help 100 million people to improve their life To do this, bootstrapping will take me 5 years So I'm exploring external funding to grow it further If anyone is interested/knows anyone, feel free to slide into my DM 👋

If you are monetizing mobile apps, and you don’t want to use third party SaaS like RevenueCat, this may be useful for you. I am making a free boilerplate for mobile development. In Rise, we are handling lots of UI (local data, authentication, widget, notifications, etc.) and payments, which have been tested in production. Right now I just added payments handling in Swift for iOS. I will slowly move the components from our projects to an open codebase. I’ll put the repo below so you can see how to securely handle transactions from client to server: github.com/tongkw/app-develo…

After a year👀

Any marketer/designer wants to make shorts and UI design for Rise? Drop your best short-form videos or mobile app UI design, I’ll reach out 👀

Our advantage is that we have great perseverance and honesty towards our mistakes. Learn and grow from every single step.

Young bloodsssss🔥🤟🏻

Introducing @BlackbirdCRM, a CRM tool for X to help B2B founders build relationships and get more clients 🖇️ Manage, label, add notes to all contacts 🧲 24/7 AI lead finder 🪄 AI contact enrich (location, project, MRR...) If interested in beta testing, drop a '👋'

Another screenshot from BlackbirdCRM.co ✍️ Launching this week!