Life after Automattic: week 10 & 11

Last October, I took what's called an "alignment offer" - a severance package offered when an employee and company's values no longer align. With six months of runway, I decided to take a sabbatical to work on personal projects and explore what's next. If you're curious about the journey, check out parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.

Dang, I didn't write an update last week. The reason is twofold: writing these updates takes a lot of time, and the things I worked on these past two weeks aren't that exciting to share. Don't get me wrong; I did a lot of work on side projects, but it's been mostly adding polish.

Lijsje

I added PostHog to Lijsje. PostHog is a really cool open-source analytics tool, that allows for advanced analytics, funnels, session recording, A/B testing, and even surveys. A consequence of adding PostHog was that I had to add a cookie banner to the site. I hate cookie banners, so I'll be evaluating if the extra insights are worth the hassle.

I also added dark mode and made a carousel showcasing the site's features on the homepage.

Traffic and conversion have been good these past few weeks, but with the holidays now only days away, it's steeply declining. I guess everybody has made their list and bought their presents 😄

Light parade

Last week, the neighborhood held its yearly light parade. I repeatedly asked the kids if they wanted me to make them something over the past couple of weeks or if they wanted to take the lanterns I made two years ago for the third time.

The answer was no every single time. Of course, one day before the event, they changed their minds. They wanted light-emitting tiaras.

I find it very hard to say no, so I spent a whole day 3D-printing tiaras, attaching LED strips, soldering wires, and designing an enclosure for the microcontroller and battery. It was a race against the clock, but in the end, it all worked out.

Misc

• After the not-so-great launch of Endgame, I decided to wind down development on it for a while.
• I did start building another app using Expo. I can't tell much about it yet.
• My father-in-law and I rented a big machine to scrub the concrete floor last week. I totally underestimated the amount of time it takes to scrub a floor. It took a full day and was super exhausting, but the result was awesome.

• I caught Vampire Weekend in Amsterdam. What a show. It was terrific, and there was so much joy. They started out as a three-piece until the backdrop fell, and there turned out to be a full band hiding behind it. After a lengthy normal set, they continued to play audience-sourced cover versions.

The next two weeks will be very slow, since there are a lot of holidays, the kids are at home and I should probably relax a bit. See you next year I guess!