How far have you come in the past two years?

Wow you are a superhero, Rosie!

Two years ago, I felt really lost with what I wanted to do with my life and pretty down. I didn’t want to work in tech anymore. I hadn’t heard of indie hackers but knew I wanted to start my own business. I wasted time trying to start projects without an audience or validation. And suddenly I found indie hackers last year and I’m close to my first saas business being launched! Last year, I released two books and started working on community at gumroad which has been incredible.

Two years ago I was at a cross roads; stay in a job I no longer loved, or make the bold move and leave. I picked up the family, moved to the other side of the country and took a job in a field I knew very little about.

Its the best thing I could have done for the family and my own mental health.

Soon after I got a job as a developer and things have gotten better and better.

Whilst I haven't made any products or apps or whatever, I am now in a much better space to do that. Without the big step away, I would never have had the energy or mental space to do anything. Something other vet's will understand only too well.

This year, I plan to launch a product for a network security appliance that lets users manage them remotely. Looking forward to what the next two years brings!

Two years ago, I was 6 months pregnant with my daughter Amelia. Working at Rackspace, leading our North American Events Team and Customer Briefing Center at our HQ in San Antonio, Texas.

Now, I've been working full time on my startup, Poppylist, which officially launched in July 2020. I said goodbye to my cushy corporate career after a difficult transition back to work in a high pressure, constant travel job that was not suitable for a new mother. It really was a matter of life or death. And now that I've experienced the other side - this side - the side of entrepreneurship & freedom, there's no going back.

Wishing you all much success and happiness on your journey!

2 years ago

• I was employed, was working on the prestige-projects in the company, got promoted to a section lead with line management function, additionally to my product management tasks.
• I had a good salary (although my promotion wasn't officially accepted as such and I didn't get the pay raise I would have deserved), worked only 4 days a week, and my flights from Zurich to my hometown Berlin got covered so that I could regularly see my family.

BUT

• I was working towards a burnout. Which came in April.
• At the same time I was trying to get a baby but got diagnosed that it would be fairly difficult for me to get pregnant.
• I was happy, but unhappy. Weird.

Today

• I'm self-employed as a Product Consultant, don't have a stable income but choose myself which projects I work on
• I'm building my own products. Once I launch them, I want to grow them in MY pace
• I haven't seen my family in Berlin since July last year due to COVID and - I won't lie - ticket prices
• Me, my fiancé and our families are safe, healthy, have homes, have food, have water, have everything we need.
• I'm pregnant and am expecting a girl in... April. Aprils are magical.

Today, I'm happy.

Two years ago, my wife and I decided to backpack Europe for a year and a half. We traveled for 8 months and stopped due to COVID. During the travel, I was inspired to learn how to code so I can continue this lifestyle to travel. It's been a year and few months now since I know how to code mostly as full-stack JavaScript developer.

After trying to find a job in tech, I stopped looking and decided to pursuit my own dream instead to launch an app/website. Since December until now, I marinated this dream into my heart and mind and decided to make it even a bigger dream.
My goal is to create more understanding, self-awareness, and passion through my app. I want my app to let individuals grow in their personal relationship aspirations.

I learned to take everything that is around me to create something that could provide value to others. I am going to create something big from being a "nobody".

Two years ago, left the job to build my own product. Right now building the second product , one product didn't work out. On the side, build the service based company to financially stable. All this done along with my cofounder. Learn a lot about myself in these two years and hoping to learn a lot in the future.

Just over 2 Years ago I quit my day job to focus on producing something of my own. 2 years ago to this day I was in the midst of working with a developer and a designer to build my first product based on 5 years experience in social media growth.

It did not end well.

by July, after 200 sign ups and only a couple of actual users using it, Stopped work on it and still haven't moved on completely.

Even though I had been planning to work on it for 5-7 years and fully invested personally. I knew to quit as the social media environment changed swiftly and suddenly.

Still have the domain because I quite like it and the work to that point all still exists.

Wow, 5 kids Rosie, wow!

Two years ago I went through a very bad health crisis, bored out at work, burned out at home (only 3 kids, and a dog :-) ). And after much thinking and rethinking, I decided to quit my job, to reinvent myself and to set up my own business in Digital Marketing. I learned a lot not only in my area of expertise, but also about myself and about mindset. I went from not wanting to have my picture on my own website, to recently creating YT videos with not only my face in them, but also my voice 🙀And during the first lockdown, I launched a small online course about fermentation. I am now working on my next online offer, not sure yet what that will be. But I am excited!

Stories fuel me! Thank you for Rosie and everyone else for sharing!

Two years ago, - I was just picking myself back up from the lowest I'd been in my life - personal and professional both factors contributing. I was working in an investment bank. The environment was a bit toxic and I was unhappy and miserable. In personal life, living alone away from family was not helping either. I had friends whom I'm grateful for, but I felt I never fit in.

I worked hard in turning around the environment that I was working in, but not without at my own cost. I burnt out in the process. I had been thinking of leaving the job for a while and saved up for it. Had planned to do it June, thought to wait 2020 out but something triggered me and I quit in Oct.

Since then, I have made many friends online who see things as I do and are happy to call me out on my BS. I launched Creator's Playbook. I'm passionate about helping people grow/reach their potential, so looking forward to doing that in anything that I do.

Let's see... two years ago, I was in a job who pushed me to burnout end of 2019. Not good.

But the thread is not about that, it's about me. Actually, I've made a lot of progress concerning:

• 💻 Programming - Learn two new languages (Goland and Clojure), learned a lot of stuff from the SICP, and from 320982403894 talks, articles, and books.
• 🖼 Photography - It changed my view on the world, nothing less. I think I'm a bit better, but difficult to say. I'm very critical toward myself.
• 📝 Writing - I've made so much progress! I'm not a native English speaker, but the feedback I had two years ago was "it's full of mistakes" and "it's too long". Now, I've mostly "it's very well written". It's very well written! I still don't believe it.
• 😷 Survived the pandemic without too much stress.
• 💎 Meditation continue to make my life better, years after year. If there is one habit I don't want to lose, it's this one.

Oh. And I've realized an old dream of mine: writing a book. Even if I make two sales (I don't expect much from it, even if I put a lot of time and energy into it), I'm still happy. I've written a book!

I'm already thinking about the next one 🤩

2 years 1 day ago I was laid off from my QA job and offered an Account Manager role instead. I accepted on the spot, did it for 3 months, then quit to start my entrepreneurial journey.
No regrets.

Almost exactly two years ago, I got my first DSLR camera. I had been shooting video on my phone as a hobby before that. Upgrading not only improved my skill and enjoyment in that hobby, but has allowed me to take on some paid video and photo work here and there. Now video content is a major component of the gardening site I'm getting ready to launch.

2 years ago, I was in college and no money in my pocket. I was working on a product called clsname (page builder for Tailwind CSS) but I shut it down after 12 months of coding.

Last year, I started with another page builder but I quit again, then I started Frontendor which I still working on until now (9 months!).

I'm moving forward but growing slowly which is going to make me crazy (looking for overnight success :( ).

Two years ago I lived right down the block. Since then I have travelled around the world, both physically and mentally. Now I live about 300 yards down the road from where I lived back then. It's been a wild wild ride.