[glancast]

In basically the same situation, here's what's helped me:

1. Hard limits on screen time (e.g. no screens after 5pm)

2. Basketball, tennis, chess (find a social activity - physical ones are a double whammy)

3. Personal training

4. Spend time learning - I spend a good portion of my free time learning about my craft, but also about other things. Variability spices life up a bit.

5. Working from coffee shops

6. Writing. Serves mainly as a way to process my experiences, and the large positive feedback has been rewarding. (example: http://www.programmerfu.com/2017/04/20/fast-is-slow-slow-is-...)

My most recent strategy has been to wake up, make coffee and bust out an hour of focused work before I do anything. My wife works with me during this time, which is nice for accountability and togetherness. Generally, getting that first hour out of the way without "easing into it" with reddit/HN gives me a feeling of accomplishment that empowers me to tackle the rest of the day. And if I'm unmotivated the rest of the day, I know I've gotten a decent slice of work in already.

[borplk]

Fun nitpick: Can "double whammy" be used in a positive context? I think it implies two negative things no?

[glancast]

Clearly I was referring to the original meaning: shooting curses at people with your fingers, which is a fun social and physical activity ;)

[oaxacaoaxaca]

Going on a tangent to this thread but would you be willing to share some of your experience getting to that level of success in solopreneurship? Asking OP the same question because I superadmire this career path.

[glancast]

Not sure what type of info you're interested in, but I think some keys to my success are as follows:

1. Partnership with a domain expert in a then under-served niche market (he was a contract work client turned business partner). The relationship has been difficult, and for the last many years I have been the defacto sole participant. Having a pipeline to the market was invaluable in the beginning, though, and I was able to extract enough pain points from his experiences to put together an MVP.

2. In the beginning, we were crazy responsive to support requests and feature requests. I made the early customers ("visionaries") feel extremely supported and part of the process, and many of them are still with us to this day. Incredible support makes up for a lackluster UX, feature set, etc., especially in non-tech-savvy markets.

3. Despite #2, I said "no" a LOT. It's especially difficult to say no to domain experts who feel like they are the customer, and even harder to say no to actual customers. I prioritized maintaining simplicity of the app over all else; the competitors in the space had all overdeveloped, and especially for our non-tech-savvy market their apps became overwhelming. To this day, we still get customers from a company that hired Indian developers to clone our app. Every one of them says "it was just too complicated." http://www.programmerfu.com/2017/03/16/saying-no-for-fun-and...

4. Slow and steady. Bootstrapping affords the ability to take your time, and you're not hiring a bunch of people who know they'll get fired as soon as your funding runs out. Worst case scenario, you go into "cockroach mode" until you can ramp things back up. We have never hit the hockey-stick curve but we have very low cancellations and constant slow growth. Growing slowly also means the app and company get to grow with the customers rather than uncontrolled bursts of user growth followed by "oh shit, oh shit" and letting those new users down with scaling problems (both technical and human). Slow growth also risks a new, funded competitor will come in and blow you out of the water. Luckily, we didn't experience that while we were young and vulnerable.

This is a bit rambly, and I've got to run to lunch but I hope it's in the ballpark of what you're looking for. I'm open to answer questions as well :)

[oaxacaoaxaca]

Thanks a bunch. Exactly the kinds of things I'm trying to absorb at the moment. I'm inching my way into solopreneurship so it's great to learn these things.

PS nice blog :)