September focus, two builds, everything else is content: update #10

This week was all about content planning, getting my shit together for the four podcast channels, and prepping what I can before the new month starts.

Less building, more writing was the right call for me this month. It gave me the space to think about what I should be doing and what I shouldn't. Well, the plan might be going a bit differently now that I fired Claude and cancelled my subscription, but it's still not going to stop me.

I admitted in a past post that I was ignoring, or flat-out procrastinating on, a few blogs I built and manage. That's about to change.

Here's the full breakdown for September.

SaaS, BETA invites, and the language app

I dabbled in dozens of projects since I started vibe-coding. Went overboard, honestly. So in the first three weeks of August I stepped back and went single-focus on my flagship SaaS, a docs editor with a split-view feature.

I quietly started vibe-coding the native Mac app for it too, and that scared the fuck out of me. Still does.

This week I added the BETA invite page, and that's my priority for September: find, gradually, up to 25 BETA users who are bloggers, since that's one of my ICPs. My original target was 100 beta users, but that's just too much to carry solo when I'm the one asking for feedback and reading through it myself.

The second build is the note-taking app for language learners. I'm close to 70% done on the MVP, and it's the one I believe in most, in what it does and how it solves real problems for language learners.

It's tied closely to my Story Brew stories, so before I put energy into distribution and organic acquisition, I want the MVP finished.

So September comes down to two builds, and they're not the same kind of work. The docs editor is in marketing mode: BETA invites, outreach, finding the right 25 people. The language app is still in build mode: finishing the MVP.

One is about getting people in the door; the other is about having something worth walking through.

Everything else, aside from the odd stupid impulse build (see: our $12 typo), is shelved until both of those are further along.

That split gives me room to focus on writing and blogging.

The publishing network

I announced the niche blog network a few months ago, and I'm still building it, but I can't keep chasing that when I'm not even keeping up with the blogs and domains I already have.

So I went back, did an honest assessment, and set realistic goals.

This blog, my personal journal, is always the priority. Then there's the Indie Hacker blog, my life-in-Taiwan blog, and StreetPoint, which I haven't touched in months.

That changes now. After mapping out how I manage the podcasts, I landed on one post every two weeks for each of the other blogs. Not unreasonable. Just a slow-burn prep for a five- to ten-year plan.

StreetPoint was the hardest one to pin down, because I genuinely didn't have a clear idea of what it's about. The other two were easy.

StreetPoint was a struggle until I realized: anything that doesn't fit here, or anywhere else, goes there. Opinions and observations on random things, leaning toward entrepreneurship and global economics.

Doing the math:

Personal blog stays high frequency, almost daily, minimum three a week. My life in Taiwan and StreetPoint go once every two weeks each. Indie Hacker goes once a week.

That's an additional eight posts a month, which I can manage given how deep I'm going into content creation right now. The upside is that everything on the other blogs is more evergreen. None of it needs the kind of timeline follow-up this post does.

What else is going on?

I'm moving to a new house, and my hardware setup is still mid-transition. I haven't had the mental bandwidth to think about upgrading or replacing anything, and I might just wait for whatever Apple announces next.

Nothing urgent, except maybe headphones, because the pads on mine are completely ruined.

Read also: I need a full hardware upgrade, and I have no idea where to start

I've also got another QA pass and sanity check on code to get through, and there's more than enough happened in August that I won't be short on things to write about.

Beyond what I've marked as focus, expanding distribution past Pinterest is next. That deserves its own post.

Two builds. One in marketing mode, one in build mode. Everything else is content. That's September.