Create:

• Biz - 8
• Build - 8
• Share - 10

Reflect:

• Health - 9
• Finance - 9
• Happiness - 9

Observe:

• Connect - 9
• Explore - 7
• Learn - 8

Create

• High: Shares beat my goals for the year. (Shares)
• Low: Keep forgetting my hobbies are for fun
• Seed: Enjoying my current Creation Cycles - more to come

For more details / numbers on my creation bucket - see my HAMY LABS 2024 Review.

Biz

• High: Making money from my job.
• Low: Some of the stuff I build is boring.
• Seed: Experimenting with ways to keep business and work enjoyable.

Business is business as usual.

• I'm still working as a software engineer at Rippling which pays the bills and gives me health insurance
• I'm still building little projects and shares on the side
• These projects and shares are making a little bit of money but not near enough to support me full time

I'm really glad I took time in 2023 to explore being a fulltime solopreneur. It's a bit of a romantic career path these days and if I'd never tried it I'd still be wondering about it. My downfall was that I didn't have any projects with traction so pouring more resources into those projects was akin to spinning my wheels faster which ultimately didn't lead anywhere. Add the pressure of needing revenues to support my life led to more anxiety than any kind of impact.

Going back to a corporate job this year has reduced this anxiety significantly - largely because it keeps paying the bills and giving me health insurance. I'm more convinced than ever that software engineering is the right career path for me and is something I think I will enjoy doing for many years to come.

Not as exciting a career path as founder/investor/ceo/entrpeneur/innovator etc but one I look forward to nonetheless.

Q: Is there a world where I would go back to founding companies full time?

I think there is but it would need to be under the right conditions.

A few rules of thumb I like from others:

• Wait til you're ramen profitable
• Wait til you make 2x your normal salary (Dickie Bush)
• Wait til you feel like not focusing on the project is wasteful / would lead to regret

For me I think if the project fulfiflled these I would consider focusing on it fulltime:

• 2x ramen profitable
• I am enjoying running the thing
• It would benefit from extra resources from me

That said I think I'm a long ways off from this. I'll keep building and launching projects on the side so maybe this will happen but I'm not holding my breath.

Build

• High: Building fun things I can share.
• Low: A lot of it is not ~useful / fun.
• Seed: Current tech stack is fun to build with.

I built a few things I was happy with this year. Little experiments, apps I can share with people, and builds I thought were fun. For the first time in awhile I was able to recapture a bit more of what I enjoy about coding - following my curiosity and bringing my imagination to life.

On the flip side I've found myself struggling with figuring out what I should build. This tends to send me down a bikeshedding spiral of thinking ab my values, what I enjoy, what will be valuable, etc vs actually building anything.

A lot of this stems from the things I enjoy doing being so close to the things I get paid to do. I know there's that saying that "if you do what you love you won't work a day in your life" but sometimes it's more of a "if you turn your hobbies into your job then it's no longer fun".

Fixing this is hard because the truth is I do have mixed incentives here. If I could build my own projects and get paid for them then I would. I'm not there yet so a lot of my fun builds still have an incentive to be monetizable. But often this ends up failing and it becomes both non-monetizable and non-fun. Sad!

Ultimately the solution is simple but maybe not easy - Just build things I want to build (esp when I have a job to support me).

For posterity - my current project evaluation framework is a remix of ikigai:

Build something that:

• Solves a problem
• People want
• I'm invested in / curious about the outcome
• Is engaging and fulfilling (to build)
• Can make money

(I realize that the validation framework itself mixes both money and fun attributes and thus could be a contributor to these issues but leaving it here as evidence so can critique myself later.)

Share

• High: Shares doubled in viewership this year. (data)
• Low: Individual shares are not that impactful.
• Seed: I've found a good Share system I like.

In January I took the Ship30For30 cohort class which is a guided 30 day writing challenge. It focuses on tactics for making small bets and doubling down on what works for writing in the age of social media. I like the small bets approach to creation and I found the lessons useful / directly relevant to my own shares.

This year I shared ~120 posts and corresponding videos. While this is more than I usually share in a year - it didn't take me that much more time. I leaned into the "atomic essay" format which lends itself to more concise ideas shared frequently which itself means more releases per cycle.

My shares aren't viral and don't bring in that much money (and given current trends probably never will) but I still enjoy making them, I learn a lot in the process, and I've met a lot of interesting ppl / ideas so will keep going.

If you want notifications for new Shares, you can follow me on various platforms / sign up for emails.

Reflect

Health

• High: Feeling healthy - my workouts, daily routines, and stress levels are all doing well.
• Low: I don't go outside that much which isn't great.
• Seed: Just got back into eating healthier and more circuit training which has already shown some benefits.

Last year I shared how I'd started morning workouts and I'm happy to say I kept up with it throughout all of 2024. At this point they've become something of a habit - just like breakfast and my morning coffee.

Based on my Strava data - I exercised ~244 days this year (4-5 days a week) which is 56% higher than 2023. I'd say the 2024 vs 2023 comparison is likely on the high side cause I'm now doing cardio during every workout vs 2023 where I didn't but I'd bet it's still around 30%.

Now I'm not going to say that I'm in the best shape of my life nor that I'm particularly fit. But I do have way more consistent fitness and energy with morning workouts than without it so hoping to keep this habit for the long-haul.

Finance

• High: Finances are good - mostly because I had a job this year.
• Low: I wish my projects brought in more money - oh well.
• Seed: Just gonna keep rolling with the simple path to wealth.

I had a job all year, my earnings were greater than my expenses, and I continued to invest the remainder in my current and future self. So things are going pretty well.

Happiness

• High: Things are going well - I'm settling into a new phase of life.
• Low: Still uncertain about the future but that's life.
• Seed: Excited for the future.

Things are good. I don't have many complaints. I still have a lot of existential angst but that's just a recurring character in my story.

I could always be happier of course. There are always things that could be better. But much of happiness is simply enjoying where you are now and I find myself doing more of that.

Observe

Connect

• High: Lots of intentional hangs.
• Low: Not meeting as many new people as I used to.
• Seed: Also okay with this - in a slower phase of life right now.

I've been more intentional this year to try and connect deeply over broadly. This often means seeing people less but when we do ensuring it's high quality.

Practically this means a lot less parties and more dinners, small activities, and get-togethers.

The downside of this approach is that I am meeting less people which in some ways means less excitement / new ideas / experiences. But those I do meet - esp through shared interests - tend to align more so it's kind of a wash.

One tactic I've found helpful is a recurring casual hangout night. Some people might do a dinner or a movie or something but I've found it fun to do a dinner / game night. We usually grab takeout and play some couch coop video games (think overcooked, packing, fusion frenzy) on a Wednesday which ends up being a low effort, high quality way to keep up with people.

Overall I like this slower cycle of connection - like many domains in my life it's a bit slower and less exciting but I think ultimately more fulfilling.

Explore

• High: Still going out and seeing things.
• Low: Not seeing as many new things as I used to.
• Seed: I'm okay with the lower rate of new things.

Megna and I traveled to a few places this year:

• Mexico City
• California
• Florida
• Jamaica
• Tennessee
• New Hampshire
• Copenhagen
• Stockholm

Okay more places than I thought - reminder to take more photos cause human memory is unreliable!

So we still are going out and seeing things but slowing down more and more. We do see things but often less things at once and spend more time on each one. This seems to fit better with our current phase and rhythm of life. No need to sprint, we'll get to it when we get to it.

Research

I don't know what to call this bucket of stuff but basically it's stuff I like to do because I'm curious. This is mostly like content consumption I guess for various purposes.

Books

• Books read: 25

I continued to read a lot this year. I often read for 1-2 hours before bed cause don't have anything better to do.

My ~obsession with LitRPG books (kinda like anime in book form) continued and may have ruined me from other books cause all the other "fun" books I read weren't that good imo.

Top 3:

• Fantasy: He Who Fights with Monsters series and Dungeon Crawler Carl series. I think the reason I like these is the speed of progression is cranked way up. So there's more of a focus on events rather than aesthetics of an event happening. The downside is this may have ruined me for slower, more robust books cause they now seem REALLY slow.
• Business: The minimalist entrepreneur - Highly recommend. Aligns well with my ideas on entrepreneurship as a series of bets and tactics to make those bets efficiently over time.This book is to enrepreneurship as The Simple Path to Wealth is to personal finance (basically inspired my own personal wealth strategy).
• Technology: Hypermedia Systems - I'm a bit of an HTMX fan boi so shouldn't be a surprise I like the creator's book. I think it does a great job of showing what's possible with plain old Hypermedia which is a bit of a perspective shift from the more mainstream throw-JS-at-it tactics. This book is to webdev as Domain Modeling Made Functional is to DDD (my favorite DDD book).

A notable book I didn't love was Three Body Problem. I like the concept of it but the delivery of information seemed too slow. I ended up finishing the book then looking up the synopses of the rest of the trilogy. Really like the ideas but didn't love the delivery which seems to be a common critique on the Reddit forums.

Video Games

I honestly think I played too many video games this year and not sure I want to do that in the future. Video games are a kind of empty source of dopamine a lot of the time which means they're often very fun in the moment but ultimately not fulfilling after the fact which makes them feel a bit empty.

This isn't to say video games are bad - I think they're about on par with Netflix binging. But they are a dessert so when consumed in excess you might want to check yourself.

In 2024 I probably spent ~100 hours playing video games across ~63 titles (on Steam). In the grand scheme of things it's not THAT much - I spend way more time coding and exercising and hanging out with friends. But when I look back on those hours I'm often not happy with the ROI like I am with doing things that are more fulfilling - like coding and exercising and hanging out with friends.

This is a new thought for me so still processing it but notable enough to write down for posterity.

Top 5:

• Palworld - Great. Hopefully Pokemon takes some pointers and gives us smth like this.
• Mini Metro - If I ever get into game dev, this is the kind of game I want to build. It's simple but not easy. The game is streamlined while also fun / pretty. It rewards thought / strategy vs mindless cycles. This is a 3S Artifact and I really enjoyed my time with it.
• Indiana Jones and the Great Circle - It has its issues but I think this game was fun and pretty refreshing. Less gameplay-driven than most games I like but good and different enough that I recommended it to my dad who likes the movies.
• TCG Card Simulator - This one is just amusing. Megna played a lot too as a parallel to her Pokemon card hobby.
• Red Dead Redemption 2 - Beautiful game. Got pretty far but didn't finish. A work of art though and smth I'd recommend to any western lovers.

Notable game night favorites:

• Overcooked 2
• Crash Team Racing

Notable game I didn't like - Helldivers 2. I get why people like this game but I found it kind of grindy and not that fun. I do like the open world, generative nature of missions and stuff - if they could combine that with some tighter gameplay like Vermintide or Darktide I think I would've loved it.

2025

In 2025 I want to follow my curiosities more. I don't know where it will lead but I think I'll enjoy the journey wherever it goes.