Building a Ship and Sailing Alone

From 0 to 1,741 commits — An independent developer’s voyage across the Internet ocean

1. The Beginning: The Dock and the Sea

In the tenth month after leaving my job, I once again asked myself the same question:

Why start a business?

What’s the real difference between choosing a stable job and venturing out to sea to fish?

It’s not a new question — I’ve asked myself countless times, but each reflection brings a slightly different answer.

I’ve always seen quitting my job as setting out to sea.

Working for a company is like being a dock laborer, moving cargo day after day, collecting wages from the boss daily or monthly.

Going out to sea? That’s like taking off your gloves, putting down the cargo, and turning to build a ship, weave a net, and sail into the boundless ocean.

There are two ancient Chinese sayings that have stayed with me:

Laugh proudly as I step out the door — I am no common weed.

Better to weave a net than to envy the fish from the shore.

The truth is, while many yearn for freedom and refuse to bow their heads, the gravitational pull of life holds both body and soul firmly in place.

Even if you muster the courage to leave the dock, the waves will force you to constantly question your decision — tempting you to run back to shore.

2. The Truth About the Sea

Why do people say “going to sea” is a nine-in-ten chance of death — or even certain death?

Because the terror of the ocean is something those on land can never truly feel.

It’s not that the courage of sailors is rare — it’s that the instinct to avoid danger is deeply wired into every living being.

It’s self-preservation, and that’s perfectly natural.

But venturing into the entrepreneurial “ocean” is, in many ways, a hundred — even a thousand — times more terrifying than the real sea.

It has no maps, no weather forecasts, no supply ships.

It offers only two outcomes:

Move forward, or sink.

3. Setting Sail with Nothing but a Gamble

What am I really doing?

No team. No resources. Practically nothing.

And yet, I set out to challenge the vast Internet ocean with nothing but a laptop and my two hands.

Not just in thought — I am doing it, every single day.

From the very first initial commit, I’ve been writing code line by line: building the ship, reinforcing it, weaving the nets, expanding the deck.

From a Lighthouse score of 38 on launch day (May 19) to a steady 99–100 now;
From Google Search Console errors (“Sorry, something went wrong”) to instant indexing after each push;
From zero clicks to daily PV/UV growth of 200%+;
From no ranking at all to Top 10 on Bing;
From a single tool to a full-stack integration of frontend, backend, and admin panel.

I can’t recall all that I went through in between…

Nor the countless nights that have passed — only that each of those 1,741 contributions on GitHub is an anchor or an oar stroke made in the storm.

4. The Reality of Competition

My AI partner once told me something I’ll never forget:

The world will not lower its standards just because you’re alone.

Your competitors are teams of hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands.

The real stage is not the classroom.

The opponent you must defeat is the entire world.

At first, I thought weaving a net and catching fish would be easy — like when I was a child and could fill a bucket in a day.

It wasn’t until I truly set sail that I realized how naive I was.

Entrepreneurship is not just “making a few simple tools.”

It’s a long, unending battle — with the world, and with yourself.

5. The Voyage Continues

Looking back, neither the waves nor the reefs have stopped me.

On the contrary, every optimization, every change in search ranking seems to whisper:

The ship is still afloat. The nets are still in place. I’m still here.

I don’t know how dangerous the waters ahead will be, or when I’ll return with a full haul.

But I know this ocean belongs to those who have truly set sail.

And I have already departed.

🚀 If You Too Are Building a Ship in the Ocean

I’m building AiMuo — a global, multilingual, zero-learning-curve one-stop toolbox.

It offers dozens of lightweight, easy-to-use tools for images, files, text, and time.

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If you’re also sailing — or if you’d like to support an independent developer’s shipbuilding journey — bookmark and share AiMuo.

Let’s bring more people into this ocean.