Lessons from 2025

Happy new year!

It’s been a long time since I sent my last email, but here I am again, sharing what I learned in 2025.Consistency and self-belief

The main lesson from last year is consistency.

I worked full time on building my bookkeeping software. Everyday.

Sometimes I didn’t feel like it, but I forced myself to.

Sometimes I doubted myself, but I brought back my optimism.

Sometimes I got distracted, but I went back on track.

Now the product is ready and I have another struggle to face: getting people to care.

Dev work is linear: a line of code is a line of code. It gets the job done and it gives you immediate feedback on what it does.

But marketing is different.

Sending a message to a prospect doesn’t necessarily bring a new customer. Most times you get silence.

Creating content on social media is similar. It may bring you thousands of customers or none at all.

This intermittent reward is unsettling — it is what keeps most abusive relationships alive.

So I’m still getting used to it. Trying to silence the voice in my head that asks: “Is this worth it or should I build something else”?

Luckily, I always tell it to shut up.

This brings me to the second lesson: being delusional.

I learned to be overconfident — even more than I was.

I developed such ingrained self-belief that failure is not an option for me.

I’m convinced I’ve built something valuable that people will pay for on a monthly or yearly basis.

Is this realistic? Not at all.

Is this useful? Hell yeah.

If I wasn’t overconfident, I would have probably quit six months ago.

On a more personal note, I visited Thailand in September.

I stayed there for one month and it made me reconsider life in Europe.

Europe is getting more expensive, taxes are increasing, and the overall quality of life is decreasing.

It’s a declining continent.

What I found in Thailand was the opposite.

A country that has been growing in the recent past — and that is expected to thrive in the future.

A booming economy, convenience, great infrastructure for a developing country, and amazing food.

The food was to die for, and healthier than my usual diet in Lisbon.

I lost 4kg without even realizing it.

The lesson here is that your environment matters a lot.

P.S.: if you’re looking for bookkeeping software, I would love to hear your feedback on Nummo. It’s free, beautiful, and simple.