Buying a house, quitting my job, and going full-time indie

Issue #37

Hey! I’m Alyssa X, a serial entrepreneur who built 12+ products on her own. This email is part of my maker journey, which you’re subscribed to. Feel free to forward it to others if you find it interesting! You can support me through GitHub Sponsors, I’d really appreciate it! ❤️

Hey all,

It’s been a whole year since I last wrote in the newsletter, and I’m long overdue an update. Let me share what’s been going on with life, work, and Screenity.

The (never-ending) flat saga

One of the biggest things I did in 2024 was buy a flat.

I spent most of 2023 viewing houses with my partner, seeing everything from overpriced shoeboxes to run-down properties needing “a bit of TLC”. Then, in October, we finally found the one. We knew buying in London would be slow, but experiencing it was another thing entirely: months of stress, endless paperwork, chasing solicitors who wouldn’t reply, all while our rental contract was running out and our move-in date kept getting pushed back. Every time I thought, surely this is the last document they’ll ask for, I was so wrong. I lost so much sleep convinced something would go horribly wrong at the last minute.

Somehow, in March, at the very last minute, we finally got the keys.

Owning a place felt like a huge milestone, but also a massive weight. The move was chaotic (boxes everywhere, sleeping on an inflatable mattress way longer than planned), and instead of settling in, I went straight into maker mode, obsessing over every detail.

I built a 3D model of the flat and saw every inch of space as a puzzle to solve. Instead of just buying a standing desk, I designed a custom one using floating Elfa shelves. We didn’t want a TV, so I went down a rabbit hole and built a concealed projector system to keep the wall free for art. We DIY’d banquette seating, automated everything with a Raspberry Pi, and even painted a magnetic whiteboard wall.

It was exciting to see the space come together, to turn it into something that felt ours. But it also took over my life—instead of working on side projects, I spent nearly all my free time tweaking and optimizing the flat. I kept telling myself, once it’s done, I’ll be productive again. But something always came up. And in the meantime, being surrounded by clutter and unfinished projects made it even harder to focus.

Still, at some point I learnt to step back. With less chaos, I started to enjoy the space for what it is, rather than what it could be. I appreciate going on morning runs around the park, working at my actual desk instead of just slouching on the sofa with my MacBook, and having cozy evenings playing board games in our nook, all without thinking about what needs to be fixed next. Well, most of the time anyway 😬

Travel and a random hackathon

With the flat finally feeling somewhat settled, we figured it was time to step away completely, not just mentally but also physically. So we just traveled for a while.

In the summer, we explored parts of Germany and Austria with friends, wandering around picturesque towns like Heidelberg, hiking in the mountains, and being surrounded by beautiful nature and lakes. We also spent time on Portugal’s Silver Coast, hopping between surf towns and exploring places like Óbidos, with a slower, more relaxed lifestyle. It was a much needed break from just thinking about furniture 😅

Later in the year, we spent a few weeks in San Francisco, where aside from a small earthquake and tsunami warning scare, we enjoyed walking everywhere, exploring the parks and taking in the sights.

Somewhere in between all that, I also had a (minor) surgery. I thought that might force me to slow down, but I guess I just don’t know how to do that. Instead, I randomly joined a hackathon while recovering and built a whole Chrome extension in just 24 hours—crunching code and designing non-stop, forcing myself awake at midnight to submit it at the very last possible second. Probably not my best idea, considering I spent the next day in a zombie-like state, but hey, I finished it.

I created QuestScout, a cute AI companion that follows you while reading articles. You can give it any quest (find the funny side of things, diving deeper into a topic, or even just surprise you), and it’ll read alongside you, floating around the page, highlighting relevant excerpts that when clicked give you different insights, and reacting with many emotions.

Designing the reactions in Figma was really fun. Maybe too much. I probably should have spent that time recovering instead of obsessing over facial expressions for a tiny floating AI. But in the end, I think it could actually be useful, for helping people focus, curating better content, or avoiding doomscrolling. Maybe I’ll extend on it, maybe it’ll just be a chaotic 24-hour fever dream that never sees the light of day again. Who knows.

Burning out (and finally doing something about it)

Between everything else, I was still working full-time as a product designer, squeezing in time for Screenity whenever I could. I sacrificed weekends and late nights trying to get the paid version out sooner, but I just couldn’t get there. I was burnt out, drained of energy, and dragging my feet to the finish line.

By October, I knew I needed a change. So I put Screenity out there, and shared a preview of the editor I had been building, along with a waitlist for early access.

The reception was amazing, with tons of people joining the waitlist, pushing it past 6000. But as I started letting people in, I realized I had overcomplicated everything.

I had focused so much on just coding and adding features, I lost sight of the bigger picture. It didn’t matter how powerful the editor was if people struggled to actually use it. So I decided to strip it all down, spending ages refactoring, simplifying, rethinking everything, just to make editing as intuitive as possible.

That was the final straw. I took a step back and looked at my life, where I was putting my time, my energy, my creativity. I had spent almost three years as the sole product designer at Modyfi, shaping a collaborative, non-destructive editor with animation in the browser from the ground up. It was exciting, challenging work, and I learned a lot. But it also came at a cost. I didn’t have the time or space to fully dive into my own projects, to build, experiment, create on my own terms.

So (just a few weeks ago), I finally made the leap. I quit my job to go all-in on my own projects.

What’s next?

I don’t want 2025 to be another year where I spread myself too thin and burn out. I want to find my own rhythm, in shipping projects, enjoying life, actually feeling settled in our new home, and figuring out what kind of path I want to take with my work.

My priority for now is going to be ship the paid version of Screenity as soon as possible, to get some MRR. It’s grown to over 230K users, and even featured on TechCrunch. I might share more details on it in a future issue (this one is already too long, as usual 😅).

But besides that, I also have tons of ideas. I think I want to build more small, self-contained tools and experiments, as opposed to going all in on one massive thing—it’s more my style anyway.

See you,

Alyssa X