It’s been a year since I posted an entry here. I have been writing on and off in the past, letting domains expire and moving on. However, I would like to keep this space because this phase of my life feels different. I am exploring something bigger than me, and bigger than anything I’ve built before.

I am building a startup. Oof. That still feels awkward to say out loud.

So as much as possible, I want to capture my thought process and learnings along the way.

For my future self, if she ever gets lost. “Hello there.”

Now, let me tell you where I am and what I want to focus on for the next half of the year.

I am currently at the stage where I am acquiring customers for the company. Yay! But it wasn’t easy. I wrestled with myself for a long time.

You know, it’s really hard when you are so good at reasoning. It’s very dangerous especially if you make yourself believe why you shouldn’t do something. But I’m glad I stayed firm with myself and decided that I would never give up. I am ambitious and relentless despite the lack of resources.

I think I’ve reached the point of no return. I’ve spent so much time, money, and energy building this company. I’ve also made a lot of people believe that I’m doing amazing things, even though my parents still don’t fully understand what I’m doing.

So here we are, marching forward. And here are some things I discovered along the way.

First, I was scared. I still am. It felt like jumping off a cliff knowing that I’m not a skilled swimmer, but wanting to do it anyway. I had to change my identity (and that part deserves its own entry someday). There’s no stopping now. It might be slow, but I will keep grinding.

Next, I noticed something strange about fear.

It was easy for me to reach out to people closest to me, and also people completely far removed from my world. Different country, different culture, different context. I just didn’t care. Imagine two ends of a line. The fear only lived somewhere in between.

The hardest people to approach were those in the middle. People I didn’t know personally, but who shared the same culture, language, and maybe even the same judgment.

Lastly, direct outreach has been the best way to acquire initial customers.

There’s one important caveat though. You need to put extra effort into your copy. Right now, I have around a 20% response rate. I became obsessed with perfecting my messages, reading different sales copy, studying the psychology of selling, and learning which words worked best.

At some point, it even started feeling cringe because I became too aware of every technique.

But after overanalyzing everything, what actually worked was writing from the heart. Reaching out in a genuine way, without expectations.

So for the next half of the year, I hope we reach our target number of customers. We’ll continue doing direct outreach, and once we exhaust that, we pivot. I’ll leave it at that.

And of course, I’ll keep focusing on the goal written on my whiteboard.

Honestly, I’m still not fully satisfied with what I’ve achieved so far. But in moments like this, I think it’s important to zoom out and look at the overall trend of progress.

Every rise and every dip means we are trying. More importantly, we are surviving.

Our only way is up.