THE BLOG
Exploration of Thought
Thoughts on autonomy, self direction, digital business and life.
Obtaining More Freedom (and Money) with Freelancing
I woke up the other day after sleeping in (slept until 6:30 AM, I know… that's probably not sleeping in for most people). However, when I woke up, I felt very inspired to work on a problem that I have been solving for a company, not on my own software. I hopped in and got…Donn Felker - May 29, 2024
I Removed JetPack Compose from My App
Ok, I admit, this is a clickbait title, but you’re here, right? So let's keep going. Thanks for joining me. Here’s the TLDR ... I removed an AppBar that was in a ComposeView from my app because using an XML Toolbar is far simpler and required less code. Pragmatism 101. Read on for the full…Donn Felker - April 15, 2024
Why Grandparents Spoil Grandchildren
... and why it's OK. Have you ever wondered why grandparents spoil their grandchildren? As a parent yourself, you might be wondering “Why didn't I get this kind of treatment from my parents? Why do they give it to my child but I didn’t get it?” 🤔 I have a theory on this, and I’m…Donn Felker - January 16, 2024
Make Every Second Count: Strategies to Unleash Creativity and Success at Any Time
If you’re reading this, you’re probably wondering how you can make the time to to do something. Maybe its … I’m sure you’ve heard this, but its worth repeating here … we all get the same 86,400 seconds in a day, but its what you do with them that counts. Saying you don’t have time…Donn Felker - November 28, 2023
Bootstrapping to 7k MRR with WordPress and No Code
This is the story of how I bootstrapped Caster.IO to $7,500 MRR with WordPress and without writing any code. At the peak of Caster.IO it was pulling in 16K MRR with profit margins in the 60-70% range. The site is now defunct and shut down (shut down in 2021). The domain was sold to a…Donn Felker - November 13, 2023
Why Kotlin Multiplatform Won’t Succeed
Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP) is destined for mediocrity. KMP never gain mass adoption and will it remain in obscurity; only to be used by a small subset of the software world, regardless how much it is promoted and touted as the next best thing. Why? Human nature and scarcity. Ego Investments The technical achievements of KMP…Donn Felker - November 6, 2023
Listomo – A New Cheaper and Easier Way To Build Your Email Lists
I built a new software as a service (SaaS) tool to manage email lists - Listomo. It’s out now. Check it out here. If you’re a creator, builder, maker, marketer, or developer who builds multiple things you’ll probably find it useful. What is Listomo? Listomo allows you to manage multiple email lists with unlimited contacts…Donn Felker - November 1, 2023
Native Where You Need It (Hybrid Mobile Apps)
What Does "Native Where You Need It" (NWYNI) Mean? NWYNI refers to the practice of using native mobile components only in areas of your app where they're essential and optimal. In all other instances, web components (web views) are utilized. AKA: Hybrid Mobile Apps. Part of the app is web, and maybe, parts of it…Donn Felker - October 30, 2023
The Power of the Clarity Doc: Your Tool for Clearer Thoughts
A clarity doc is a purposeful piece of writing that you craft to help you distill your thoughts, opinions, and emotions on a subject you're grappling with. It’s meant to force you out of analysis paralysis and into decision making mode.Donn Felker - October 14, 2023
Bootstrapped vs. Self-Funded
In the startup community you’ll hear these two terms used when folks talk about building a product (SaaS, App, etc). You’ll hear things like … “I bootstrapped myself to profitability …” and “I self funded the app and found product market fit…” They sound very similar. These two terms have been tossed around interchangeably for…Donn Felker - August 31, 2023
Deploying Middleman Sites on Hatchbox
I recently migrated the majority of a lot of my Rails applications over to Hatchbox from Heroku. It's far cheaper and the speed of the sites has drastically improved. The speed of the sites is orders of magnitude faster (I'm hosting with Digital Ocean via Hatchbox). Furthermore, the cost savings is astronomical. Win win all…Donn Felker - August 21, 2023
Disable Attachments in the Trix Editor
Use this stimulus controller to quickly disable attachments in the Trix Editor. When you need to disable attachments in the Trix editor you'll need to make sure you do three things: You can do this with the following stimulus controller: Save this as disable_uploads_controller.rb Once included in your /app/javascript/controllers/ folder, you would apply it like…Donn Felker - July 5, 2023