The biggest thing I have built this year is Hexadecimal (https://tryhexadecimal.com https://tryhexadecimal.com). It is my first SaaS business, so it is a pretty

The biggest thing I have built this year is Hexadecimal (https://tryhexadecimal.com https://tryhexadecimal.com). It is my first SaaS business, so it is a pretty rough endeavor, both on the development and the business side. Built on the vanilla Rails stack. As boring as it could possibly get. I have described in some detail the tech behind it: https://runninginproduction.com/interviews/9-running-a-website-monitoring-service-with-a-boring-technology https://runninginproduction.com/interviews/9-running-a-websi... Lessons learned: * If you'd like to start making money on the Internets, don't start with a SaaS * Making your first $currency will give you a (much needed) morale boost * If you're just starting out and you're in for the long-term, optimize for learning and building relationships * Worthwile Things take time * You probably won't get it right from the first time (whatever it is). It is far more important to keep iterating rather than getting the right answers from the very beginning. * Most minor decisions won't matter in a few months', let alone in a few years' time. Don't overthink it. Make a fast decision and if necessary, re-evaluate it down the road * Don't rush to automate tasks * Build it, and they will do absolutely nothing * Businesses live and die by their distribution channels * Running a lean operation (i.e. low-cost) is a competitive advantage * Having an audience is an unfair advantage * Writing is a gift that keeps giving. Write more! * The true validation is people paying you money After many months (or years?) of procrastinating, I finally published my personal website (https://jmstfv.com https://jmstfv.com). I have been meaning to do this for a long time but kept putting it off for various (artificial) reasons. So, I hand wrote the HTML, copy pasted the CSS from my other projects, and called it a day. Lesson learned: start with the least painful solution. EDIT: added couple more "lessons learned"