What I learned by building and launching PuppetVendors as a one-man team during this pandemic

Here are a few things I realized building and launching a micro-saas startup as a one-man team (during a pandemic). It's not necessarily only applicable to startups launching during a pandemic or a one-man team but should apply to most I believe. Do keep in mind that these are my personal opinions from my personal experiences only but I do hope you find a thing or two that can be applied to your business as well.

Do what you enjoy doing - I know that's a cliche but what does that even mean? A simple way for me to know if I am enjoying what I am doing is my ability to get into a flow state. In short, it's basically when you lose track of time when working on something. It is not easy but practice and experimenting with what works for you will get you there. As a designer + coder, I love the fact that I can just think of an idea, design, and code it and push it out to the world. I, however have been subjected to shiny object syndrome where I would jump around projects and not push anything out to the world. I still have a ton of half-baked projects lying around my computer. With PuppetVendors, I made it a point to push it out there no matter what regardless of my fear of whether it will be successful or not. I decided to let the market rather than my insecurities decide. As you may already know, launching a startup or a business is hard regardless of whether the pandemic is around or not, so I see doing what I truly enjoy as the key to persevering and seeing it through.
There's no rush - We're all chasing that thing that doesn't even really matter to us. Are you chasing after a milestone? Have you ever thought about what would happen once you get there? Think about it. Don't get me wrong, goals and milestones are good but rather than chasing that milestone which is a finish line. Why not make the process the reward in itself so that when you eventually get there, regardless of the outcome, you would have still enjoyed the journey and won't have that empty feeling and look for the next milestones. For me, I had to learn this the hard way and I can tell you that I am not there yet but that's what I am striving for - to be ok getting there one line of code at a time. That's what I tell myself all the time.
Things are going to be ok - After getting burnt out numerous times, I learned that it is ok for me to take breaks every once in a while. Be it that weekend that you want to spend with your loved ones or if you just want to take that hike or a long walk. You don't have to be coding or writing or whatever you do all the time. It is ok to take breaks here and there to rejuvenate. For example, after a long day, I find myself thinking much clearer after a long stroll. Think about it this way, would you rather take a day or two off or would you want to take weeks off at a time to recover from burnout. Not giving your mind and body enough time to recover is the worst thing you can do and not only for your business but for you as well. It takes a toll and negatively impacts you both physically and mentally over a long period. So give yourself that break and know that things will be ok :)

Lastly, I just want to share this quote from Derek Sivers's Book, Anything You want "Never forget why you’re really doing what you’re doing. Are you helping people? Are they happy? Are you happy? Are you profitable? Isn’t that enough?"

Ask yourself this and find the answers and the rest will fall in place. :)