I Quit My CTO Job to Work on My Own Projects

Mickel — Fri, 28 Feb 2020 19:36:25 +0000

For the past five and a half years I’ve been working as CTO of a startup. We worked to digitize the personal development space, intending to improve people’s well-being. Think Tony Robbins, BJ Fogg, James Clear, meditation CDs and such, all re-packaged into apps for the modern consumer. Throughout the years our positioning changed, but what remained was the focus on goal achievement and life balance. I love the company and all the people working there. We achieved great things during our time together. But lately, I’ve had this growing itch to go do something on my own, and now it’s outgrown my reasons to stay.

I’m starting Ultimate Machine as the sole founder. It will be a company to manage a suite of software products and services. At the moment of my writing this, there’s about $350-$400 of MRR to my name, generated from past online projects. This is not enough to sustain my living expenses in Sweden. Although I’ve had the option of part-time employment, I feel that what’s left of 80%, 50% or even 25% is not enough to get into the zone needed to create useful products that people love to use. It takes a lot of focused work, free of distractions.

The timing, my confidence in my abilities and my knack for investments allow me to take big career risks. I’m committing up to three years of my professional life to become self-sustained, through creating. Either a big chunk of my savings are gone by then, or I have managed to strike gold with software.

Continue reading to learn about The Growth Masterplan and my next steps...

Today I'm launching TAYL - An app that uses A.I. to turn websites into Podcasts

Mickel — Wed, 27 Feb 2019 19:58:34 +0000

The video of Steve Jobs introducing the Macintosh in 1984 never fails to put a smile on my face. It was a groundbreaking feat of engineering in many ways, but what impress me the most is how the computer for the first time ever had a personality of its own. It spoke. https://youtu.be/2B-XwPjn9YY?t=193

Computers, software and humans have come a long way since 1984. By standing on the shoulders of giants I managed to build a little something that comes bundled with several different personalities…

🌍 It lets you select from 50+ voices in 17 languages.
🔍 It detects the language of text automatically.
🎧 It SOUNDS FANTASTIC.
🤖 It uses A.I. to summarise long articles.
🤓 It makes web pages readable by removing slow & ugly junk.
⚡️ It is super fast, ultra reliable, and works 24/7!

For the past 3 months I’ve spent early mornings, late evenings & weekends doing nothing but working on this project. It’s a good feeling to finally be able to exit my chamber, and have something to show for it. I hope you will check it out!

Here's the URL: https://www.tayl.app

DEV Community: Mickel

I Quit My CTO Job to Work on My Own Projects

Today I'm launching TAYL - An app that uses A.I. to turn websites into Podcasts