2021 was a good year that forced me to challenge my fears. I'm an introvert - naturally, it was uncomfortable for me to share my work and promote it. This year, I got to practice both of these things a lot. I started writing actively and sharing my writing in public. By doing this, I also learned to develop a good writing system that helped me put out writing consistently. I think there is still much room to improve, but I am proud of my progress so far.

Another fantastic thing is that my co-founder joined me on our startup journey! Together we launched Coding Font. We have been working on our main app together and have many new ideas planned down the road.

I wrote a breakdown of the year in terms of personal and product development: major projects we launched this year, along with wins, any pending wins, or additional notes. Hopefully, this gives you a little glimpse of what I'm up to. I'm also curious about what you did this year!

Personal Development

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Win

• Experimented with new ways of making and creating!
• More open about sharing my projects with others
• Made many new friends and connections

Pending Win

• Exercise more regularly
• Eating less takeout
• SEO knowledge ++ - I'm learning a lot about this area

Our Startup Typogram

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General

Win

• Wenting joined as a co-founder!
• We released a mini tool, Coding Font. It went viral and had a very successful launch.
• Set up MailChimp funnel
• We created a roadmap from now to April, and we are progressing nicely with our main app - currently working on several features and backend.

Pending Win

• Migrate blog for Typogram and get SEO in order
• Release another mini tool in 2022
• Fix several bugs with the main app
• Launch beta

Main Typogram App

Win

• Cracked a major new feature - select and edit sub-shapes of a letter
• Added a custom font renderer
• Bug fixes, quality of life improvements
• Created a custom admin tool to manage font database, great for tagging new fonts

Img: a preview of a feature we are working on

Pending Win

• Launch pre-order page for Typogram app
• Launch Typogram beta for early customers
• Productize the font database as a separate standalone tool

Mini Tools

Brand Personality Workshop Kit

Win

• Our first launch ever on Product Hunt!
• Made $

Additional Notes

• Our primary goal for this product was to test out some of the ideas we had in the app. We really enjoyed making this kit and we may do more mini kits like this in the future.

Coding Font

Win

• Successfully launched to the public and went viral
• Guest blogged a post

Pending Win

• Set up a proper blog to improve SEO

Additional Notes

• This blog can also host additional materials, like interviews with devs or founders about their work habits. I'm collecting ideas about these themes.

Newsletters

FontDiscovery

Weekly newsletter sharing font and design tips

Win

• Launched FontDiscovery in January 2021
• Reaching 650 subscribers on substack, and 2200 on IH, meeting my goal of 1k subscribers this year
• Consistently write my newsletter, haven't missed a single issue
• Hit Issue 50

Pending Win

• Diversifying content - I'm in the process of brainstorming more interesting content for FontDiscovery. In 2022, FontDiscovery will be home to more font and design content for makers, in addition to the weekly newsletter!
• Hit Issue 65!

Additional Notes

• I created a freebie as a way to grow the newsletter. I think it worked well, and I will try this again. I am also curious to offer different types of freebies such as:
  • Database of resources for entrepreneurship
  • Guides regarding design and SEO

Build-in-Public Newsletter

Wenting's newsletter to share her startup journey and founding Typogram

Win

• Launched in August 2021
• Currently at 405 subscribers!
• we haven’t missed sending a single week
• Currently at 44 issues

Pending Win

• Reaching the 500 subscribers
• Publish weekly for 52 weeks

Additional Notes

• Initially, this newsletter had a resource section, but we removed it because Wenting thought it would be nice to focus more on sharing the journey. If you have any ideas or things you would like to read about, let us know.

Indiegrow

Daily newsletter helping makers on Twitter meet and grow followers by sending interesting startup tweets for makers to comment on.

Win

• Launched in November 2021
• Reached 121 subscribers
• So far, I have been sending this daily and consistently, haven't missed a single post.

Pending Win

• About to hit issue 50

Additional Notes

• The open rate was the highest in the first two weeks. This makes sense because people are most motivated within the short frame of their signing up. Over long periods, they lose interest/goal.
• I am considering changing the format into something that runs more like a monthly challenge for two weeks. I am still thinking about this. Let me know if you have suggestions.