2016 in Review

It's been more than a year since my last post. During the period of time, I have quit my job and launched Homework Hero, an Android app to help students in Indonesia with their homework. I also got married, become a father, went through an accelerator (MaGIC), and learned Python and Machine Learning. Phew!

As a geek, I like to participate in hackathons and do side projects. They allow me to learn new things that I wouldn't get otherwise when employed in a mega-corp. Who knows, one of my pet projects could someday take me to financial independence (whatever that means)!

Time becomes a precious commodity when I started a family and become a father. No more hackathons (also, I'm getting old for that), and the free time I usually spent with code editors should now probably be spent with my family.

I could just stop doing side projects, but I felt a burning passion to start my own business. So, I quit my job, picked one of my pet projects and made it my startup. I have a bit of savings, and MaGIC gave me monthly stipend for four months (way less than my salary before I quit, but something is better than nothing).

So, by quitting my job, suddenly I have 100% for doing startup? Not quite. For the first few months, I was still adjusting. Not to mention MaGIC required us to attend mandatory full-day sessions twice a week.

Fast forward today, Homework Hero has almost twenty thousand users, and the traction is so good, I'm very bullish for 2017. Homework Hero is now my full time job. I haven't started monetizing (attempting to make money from) it though, as the focus now is growth. Let see how far I can go.

I will keep doing side projects, as it allows me to escape from routine. Just few days ago I built kalender2017.id, which at least helps me with my own itch.

Happy new year!

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