Now it is official … in some way

Two weeks ago, I made my first LinkedIn post, talking about my side project and, in this way, revealing to the world—or in other words, to my LinkedIn followers—that I am working on a personal project and that I officially founded a business. A UG, to be precise. So, you could say that's just another LinkedIn post or just more marketing noise in the feed, but for me, it was a crucial and also special moment. Going public with this isn't easy for me. In my network, there are a lot of great designers, developers, managers, and other founders, and telling them that I am building something and getting attention for this feels very, very uncomfortable for me, to be honest. A lot of thoughts popped up after posting.

But in the end, I really don't know what people are thinking, and I shouldn't care about what I don't know. I got a lot of supportive feedback, which really, really meant a lot to me, and this is what counts. Not what I don't know or what I can't see, but what is actually there.

I am sure I am making a lot of mistakes on this journey, but that's the whole point. I started this to learn, to experience this process myself, to go through every step necessary. And making mistakes and doing things sub-optimally is part of the journey, I think.

Side hustle progress

Setting up a marketing machine

It has been some months since my last newsletter, and a lot of things have happened, both small and big. The founding process of my company is as good as done. I am still waiting for some tax documents, but everything else ✅ DONE. If somebody is interested in the specific steps, I am happy to share.

In parallel, the development started, and I needed some things done to have everything in place. It turned out to be not as easy as I thought. Creating company/organizational accounts for Google and Apple was a huge pain. These are the kinds of tasks where you just write in your to-do list "create account," and you end up with 10 more to-dos and vibe coding a homepage because this is a mandatory requirement. For 20 years, I thought about whether I needed a homepage or something, and then I eyeballed the whole thing in 1.5 days. It feels so strange. But being pragmatic is one of my mantras at the moment. If they need an online representation for legal purposes, they get exactly this. It is what it is until it goes up in priority.

After one of the weeklies with my dev, I realized that I need to think about marketing and a go-to-market strategy. This is what I am diving into now. It’s completely new territory for me. How do I plan a campaign? What channels do I use? Will my budget suffice? Is my product even ready to be marketed – here we go again.

And don't get me started on the trademark stuff… that's a whole different story.

On the daily business front end

So, while this already seems like a lot (for me), I actually have a main job where I have to deliver. Luckily, my booking was not only extended but also increased in volume, which is awesome. After the first months, that has been quite intense, and now that the Gründerzuschuss is running out (phase two is still being assessed), it is great to make some progress, being able to invest more time in client work and dive deeper into the product and the clients' processes.

Stuff I stumbled across

​IFB | InnoFounder a Hamburg-based funding program for early-stage small team startups.

​Design Token for Dummies a good overview of FIGMA Design Tokens and how to structure token collections. A new area for me, but I'm getting there.

​The component gallery is... yeah, a gallery with all the components you can come up with.

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Last weeks insights

• Talking about my stuff still feels weird, but getting positive feedback fuels my motivation.
• The process of founding is easier than I thought, but more painful than it has to be.
• Tax advisors are living in the digital stone age and are completely out of line when it comes to discussing what is a good user experience.
• I hate Excel - even more now.
• The internet in the ICE is utter crap – every time.

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What's up ahead … 🍿

So, while learning about marketing, setting up a new newsletter platform, and creating a communication strategy, I stumbled across several funding programs. Because they are tied to the founding date, I need to check if they are relevant for me. The next task will pop into a never-ending list of to-dos, new things to learn, and headaches. But I am here for that…

Greetings

Alessandro