200WaD: The End

I decided to give myself till the second anniversary of 200 Words a Day on November 22nd to see if I can create some new growth for this website. After that, I’ll either pull the plug or pivot to a paid productivity tool.

When I started Writelier, I just wanted to develop a writing habit. It quickly became a community, and a standalone product I’ve been working and writing on every day for almost two years now. 

Back then, I didn’t think it would take such a huge part of my life. I had to take on many hats I wasn’t familiar with to make it work, which resulted in many long work days and uncomfortable situations. I’m not a marketer, and yet I convinced 5,000 people to give it a try. I’m not a people person, and yet I enabled 62 members to publish more than a hundred articles. I’m not an experienced software engineer, and yet I’ve learned from scratch and modernized the technology to adopt industry standards. I’m not a writer, and yet I published 300,000 words and half a book.

I’m doing my best, but it’s not enough. I’ve been too ambitious and set unrealistic expectations for a one-man business. With the latest update to writelier.com, I’ve received mixed reviews, but only the negative ones stuck with me. The last ones I received yesterday pushed me to decide on the aforementioned self-ultimatum: if I don’t measure any growth in the following month and a half, I’ll forget the concept of a writing community.

I haven’t made a living in two years, so I think it’s time to move on. 200 Words a Day didn’t work for me in this regard, so change was the only way forward.

Tomorrow, I’ll will pause all current patron subscriptions till November 22nd. If I succeed, I think I’ll have earned back your trust. If not, you can’t say I tried everything.  

For those who want to move to stabler platforms, I’ll have fixed the Export button and opened an API endpoint in a couple of days, so you won’t lose your articles/drafts while packing.

It’s not an easy decision to take for me since I invested so much time in this project, but I’m totally exhausted and I don’t see myself keeping this up for another year if I can’t make any progress.

Take care,
baz