I'm also a senior dev and have suffered from burnout in the past. Building tangible things and learning the skills necessary to do it has helped.

Something like this: https://github.com/IBM/MicroscoPy

What you're describing sounds like it could be more than burnout though. I would also try to find someone to talk to.

Thanks. I wish I could focus on something like that. Whenever I start a new thing I feel like I’m wasting time, when deadlines are approaching. Makes me anxious even more. Paradoxically then I don’t do either which is worse I know.

I guess what I’m saying I can’t seem to detach from problems at work.

Nice project though :)

Kids are 1 and 3. The 1 yo doesn't sleep through the night. No family nearby. I really needed this thread.

How would you know you’re being monitored?

This is great, congrats! How did you get your first few customers? How do you plan on monetizing? I realize Peergrade is free, but, as an educator, do you have any advice with respect to selling into K-12 vs higher-ed?

Thank you!

First customers were through personal network, we then quickly transitioned into cold emails to universities in our region.

We are already making money, primarily through sales to institutions in higher-ed. The longer term plan is continuing down that path, with institution sales making the majority of revenue, but with individual teacher plans available as well. The freemium model is to get teachers hooked, and then have their school, department, or university purchase as they see increased use and a need for integration with their existing school system (LMS). This is a path we have seen for a bunch of our current customers. Especially integrations seems to drive institutions to buy.

K-12 vs Higher-ed is a complex beast, but an analogy can be drawn to Consumer vs B2B. K-12 is high-volume, low price, low touch deals and have some similar characteristics to the consumer market (virality + simple products). Higher-ed is lower-volume, larger deals sizes, but more hands-on sales. Currently our sales and marketing efforts are focused on higher-ed because it does seem to have the best ROI.

I'd bet this was the plan all along. People are talking about Paint 3D.

I was in a very similar situation 6 months ago. If you have a typical agreement in place (4 yr vesting schedule w/ an initial 1 yr cliff), about 10% is not only reasonable, it's what you're legally entitled to. If you're legally entitled to 10% and you believe the company is going to increase in value and eventually exit without you, it would be foolish to sell then your stake.

Meteor should be on the list of Node.js frameworks (absent a more appropriate category).

Really excited about an Indie Hackers podcast. Started listening to Side Hustle School the other day.

It'd be interesting to see if there's a seasonal correlation here - since most of our vitamin D comes from the sun, expectant moms are probably more deficient in the winter. Wonder if third trimester during those months, when there's rapid neurogenesis, leads to an even higher incidence of these traits.

There is correlation at least in Northern countries in Europe.