I have been observing the ebbs and flows in my confidence level while working on Mailbrew over the past few months.
The more confident I am, the more willing I am to improve the product uncompromisingly. Fix that hard bug that eluded me for months, or work on that feature that I ignored because the scope is too big.
What influences this confidence level?
I believe it comes down to a mix of:
- Customer Love. How much customer love we are getting. The small email and tweets of appreciation from users.
- Metrics. All the charts moving in the right direction, and past efforts are paying off big-time.
- Focus. How many uninterrupted stretches of time I have to work on bold ideas.
- Rest. I haven't been asking too much of myself, exercising, sleeping well, and doing sane hours.
- Tranquillity. Nothing is going on in my personal life that's stressing me.
Right now, I got a 4/5. It must be for this reason that I have been killing it this week. Some big updates are coming to the product.