Reading List

The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.

TinyPilot: Month 24

Highlights

  • TinyPilot reached an all-time high of $74k in revenue.
  • I’m trying to figure out the best approach to software licensing.
  • I’m still searching for a web framework I can love.

Goal grades

At the start of each month, I declare what I’d like to accomplish. Here’s how I did against those goals:

Create a self-contained tarball for installing TinyPilot

  • Result: We now have a working tarball package
  • Grade: A

TinyPilot’s install process has been growing more complex over time. It pulls in code from multiple repositories and third-party dependencies, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep track of those relationships.

TinyPilot: Month 23

Highlights

  • The TinyPilot website redesign is finally done.
  • I’ve learned to make Debian packages, and it’s surprisingly simple.
  • I’ve given up on Vue and frontend frameworks in general.

Goal grades

At the start of each month, I declare what I’d like to accomplish. Here’s how I did against those goals:

Publish a blog post and video about building a homelab NAS server with TinyPilot

This was my first blog post in over a year that wasn’t a retrospective or year-end review. It got a so-so reception on reddit, but it reached #2 on Hacker News.

Building a Budget Homelab NAS Server (2022 Edition)

This year, I decided to build my first ever home storage server. It’s a 32 TB system that stores my personal and business data using open-source software.

The server itself cost $531, and I bought four disks for $732, bringing the total cost to $1,263. It’s similar in price to off-the-shelf storage servers, but it offers more power and customizability.

TinyPilot: Month 22

Highlights

  • TinyPilot generates $58k/month in revenue yet somehow loses money.
  • It’s more important than I thought to have low-latency insight into developers’ hours.
  • I’m trying paid advertising again for the first time in almost two years.

Goal grades

At the start of each month, I declare what I’d like to accomplish. Here’s how I did against those goals:

Publish a blog post and video about building a homelab NAS server with TinyPilot

  • Result: I’m nearly done, but I haven’t published yet.
  • Grade: D

The blog post is turning out to be much longer than I expected. There are so many details I want to include about my thought process in choosing parts, and I didn’t realize how long that would take. I’m hoping to wrap up in the next couple of weeks.

TinyPilot: Month 21

Highlights

  • TinyPilot had its best sales month ever, with $69k of total revenue.
  • I’m now five months and $32k over budget on a website redesign.
  • I launched PicoShare, and it’s the fastest-growing project I’ve ever published.

Goal grades

At the start of each month, I declare what I’d like to accomplish. Here’s how I did against those goals:

Publish TinyPilot Pro 2.4.0

  • Result: Released TinyPilot 2.4.0 on schedule
  • Grade: A

The latest release adds support for multiple users, which customers had requested for a while. We also eliminated an annoying bug that generated frequent support requests.