What's next for The Maker Journey?

The Maker Burnout™: into the abyss and back

Hey, fellow explorer,

Long time no see—eleven months flew by so fast.

(If you're one of the new 200 subscribers, welcome on board!)

When we last talked back in December, little did we know what would happen just a few days later.

Huff.

Long story short, I burned out.

My whole life fell apart like a plane crashing in the middle of the desert, hundreds of miles away from everyone.

I had let passion take control, drove the car for me, and ran out of gas.

Not funny.

I thought I'd have enough consciousness to avoid it, except I didn't.

But after a long hiatus, I'm back.

During this break, other makers stepped away or are going through a healing process as well, like Amer, John, Dagobert, and Lilian, to name a few.

It's sad to see how many people break down along the way.

We make the same mistakes, set the bar high, and slip on self-imposed deadlines.

To paraphrase Jay Clouse, one of the creators' biggest causes of burnout is a lack of restraint.

Of course it happens.

Entrepreneurship is a challenging game and a lonely journey.

Hence, my first step to finally moving over is sharing the ins and outs of this experience.

Learn from my burnout story.

It’s packed with mistakes you must avoid.

"Darkness lasts not even for one second when you turn on the light."
—  “All The Light We Cannot See”

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Build in Public Bites

There's nothing to show, so let's take stock of the situation together.

Would you?

It's a raw roadmap of what's next.

As promised, here are the next steps for The Maker Journey.

👎 X/Twitter

I don't have enough capacity today, so it's best to keep it on pause to limit the time spent on the platform.

I'm still fighting demons and trying to regain a work-life balance first.

👍 Newsletter

Resuming the newsletter brings back the loop of small wins and positive feedback I need.

It's a project I truly believe in, my most valuable asset with 500+ subscribers, and requires less effort than social media. It's perfect.

In the future, I'm thinking of opening sponsorship slots so it could auto-sustain (I'll still send out stories, progress, and reflections as always).

🤏 Products

My current projects don't bring in any money, and it'd be pretentious to pivot them.

As a maker, I have several ideas I'd like to explore in the next few months—SaaS, blogs, templates, etc. so my focus will belong here, and I'll share the progress.

Scratch your itch, they said.

🤚 Services

I am not planning on working on them soon, but freelancing is always a fallback in case of an emergency.

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Resources

Over the past few months, I stumbled upon other solopreneurs’ reflections on burnout and indie life.

These are the gems worth a check:

• Artist vs. Entrepreneur by Jay Clouse on the insidious cause that forces creators dealing with burnout.

• The hammer & crowbar of indie hacking by Jason Leow is about seeing others moving faster than we do.

• Interviewing Dagobert About How to Avoid Burnout as a Founder. A great talk between Tiago (Wannabe Entrepreneur) and Dagobert about his burnout.

• From 0 to €4k MRR and an unexpected exit, my friend Luca shares how he bootstrapped and sold two Twitter products in 12 months.

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I’ve missed you, friend!

What have you gone through this year?

What are you working on?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Mattia