Tracy Osborn of Hello Web Books ($1k/mo) on Overcoming the Winter Blues

It's peak winter. And that means a decent percentage of indie hackers are dealing with the winter blues. Add the mental health problems associated with the pandemic and you've got a perfect storm.

So I talked to a founder who knows a lot about the winter blues: Tracy Osborn (@tracymakes), who had to shutter her first business last year. Since then she's bounced back and started generating stable revenue from her latest business, Hello Web Books.

Here's Tracy's very personal story of weathering the winter blues and taking back control of her life:

My life really didn't start until I was 25. I had a rough childhood with divorced parents and moved at least once a year until I was thirteen. There was a period of time when I was around 12 where I just gave up on making friends. I spent my lunches curled up in a corner. I had a lot of social anxiety from moving around so much. I gradually made some friends but then the process started all over again in university.

Things got especially bad in my early twenties when both of my parents passed away just very unexpectedly. The next few years were just me being depressed and going through life's motions.

But at age 25, I learned to code, launched a web app, and started doing some conference talks, and I was like, "Okay, so I can really do these things." I was starting to take control of my own life.

Today, one of my self-confidence hacks is actually public speaking. If I go to a conference, I have a hard time being social. It's still scary to talk to new people. But if I'm speaking at a conference, something clicks. People come to me. I don't have to worry about going to them. It puts me in a weird position of power. It's made me a lot more confident.

I still struggle with social anxiety, and the winter blues usually hit me pretty hard. Especially last winter, when I shut down my first company.

But I think about the fact that I've been able to do what I want to do in my day-to-day life. Largely, I think I've been able to finally live the life I imagined having when I was struggling as a kid.