As a big fan of Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, I was interested in this book. 70 years after it was published, I still see people recommending it, so I had high hopes.

Sadly, the book fell short of my expectations. When I read How to Win Friends and Influence People, every chapter felt relevant and useful. In contrast, only about 20% of How to Stop Worrying and Start Living felt useful. Most of the book is personal anecdotes that failed to connect with me and mental exercises that didn’t appeal to me.

Highlights

• TinyPilot’s EU distributor is on track to begin sales by the end of August.
• I’ve freed up time by delegating responsibilities to my teammates.
• I miraculously became unstuck on two tasks that have been blocking work for months.

Goal grades

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

Get my EU partner ready to begin sales by the end of August

• Result: We’re on track to begin sales by the end of the month.
• Grade: A

This went well. By next week, my distributor should have all the parts and instructions he needs to begin assembling his own TinyPilot Voyager devices. He’s on track to begin sales by the end of this month.

A transparent look at how I generated $11,517 in revenue from my indie projects in July 2021.

Highlights

• I’m struggling to get unstuck in two areas that have stalled for months: hardware development and hiring.
• I’m partnering with a distributor in Germany to begin selling TinyPilot within the EU.

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 new release of TinyPilot

• Result: Published TinyPilot 1.5.1
• Grade: A

This release went well and came out on schedule. It didn’t have any especially exciting new features, but we polished existing features and paid down technical debt.

A transparent look at how I generated $6,861 in revenue from my indie projects in June 2021.