One year later, I still don't have the life I imagined

I quit my full-time job last August. Time flies.

The reason was simple. I wanted to build something new and have more freedom in my life.

One year later, I still don’t have the life I imagined.

To survive, I’ve been working as a contractor for startups, supporting myself and my wife. In many ways nothing has changed since last year.

But that doesn’t mean I did nothing.

What actually happened

After quitting, I moved to the Philippines, my wife’s home country. I stayed three months and spent most of my time building apps.

Looking back, that was probably when I was most motivated.

I built a mobile app called One New Friend. An anonymous chat app: one match a day, no profile, and the conversation is deleted after 24 hours.

It reached about 3,000 installs, most of them from Reddit, and peaked around $48 MRR. Not huge, but for my first app as a solo builder I was happy with it.

Then the revenue went the other way. Last December it was $6.

That was the real lesson of the year. Churn is everything. Getting installs is hard, keeping people is harder, and marketing isn’t optional. Building is less than half the job.

Then I started another app called Dreamflow.

I never released it.

Around that time I slowly started losing motivation.

After coming back to Japan I joined DelightX, a Japanese pre-accelerator focused on the US market. For a month and a half I talked to potential customers and met startup CEOs and VPs in the US.

Honestly, I was surprised. My English isn’t great and I didn’t even have a product yet, but everyone was kind and willing to talk. I’m still thankful for that.

In the end I wasn’t selected for the main program, which would have been six months in San Francisco.

After that I took a break. That was around March.

Since then I’ve just been contracting for startups. The income is enough to live comfortably in Japan.

But sometimes I feel like I’m back where I started.

Still working on someone else’s dream.

Things I learned

Being a solo founder is hard.

On X, YouTube, Instagram, everyone looks like they’re having fun.

But there’s always a story behind that. Everyone struggles. Nobody gets there without hard times.

Environment matters a lot.

For me the hardest part of being solo is keeping myself motivated. Some people can do it alone.

I can’t.

Being around people with similar goals makes a huge difference. Bali, Chiang Mai, Da Nang, San Francisco. Maybe that’s why so many builders gather there.

Showing up every day matters.

If nobody knows what you’re building, it’s almost like you don’t exist.

Post on X. Share what you’re building. Share what you think.

You never know who is watching.

Consistency beats motivation.

Keep building. Keep posting. Keep going.

Simple, but not easy.

I couldn’t do it this year. Maybe next year.

Why I’m writing this

Because I want to start building in public again.

I want to build something new, and maybe bring back some excitement into my life.

Right now I’m in Japan, but I’m thinking about moving to NZ or Australia. If you’re there, let’s grab a coffee someday.