Exactly one month ago…

I went for a long walk with my girlfriend. It was a beautiful day, sunny. It felt like spring.

Sometimes we walk for hours, and we don’t even say a word to each other. I remember sitting down in front of a beautiful river, close to where I live, drinking a coffee, looking to the infinitive. How many failures do I need to stop wasting my time? Nobody cares about what I’m doing. Find a job. Make money. Stop dreaming.

So when I came back home, and I bleed my fingers against the keyboard announcing to the world —I was telling it to myself because I wasn’t expecting much attention from it— that I quit.

People told me that I was brave to write about it. But there is nothing worse than what you think of yourself —and I felt like an idiot. I didn’t mind people thinking of me as a failure. I was scared of me thinking that I was a loser. That hurts.

I based my life on making myself better every day, and seeing that I was failing time and time again was a hard lesson. Maybe I wasn’t that great. Maybe I wasn’t smart enough. Maybe they were right.

The article went viral. I didn’t understand why, but people were saying: keep writing. We want more. Your writing is amazing.

I didn’t believe it at first.

I thought they were trying to cheer me up —also, many people bought me coffees, which definitely cheer me up. I remembered dancing in the living room while my girlfriend was looking at me as I was crazy.

So I began writing more. I shared more articles. It kept happening.

I just want to say that when I began to read your post, by the 2nd line, I was hearing it in my head as the opening narration of a movie. The first line is a great opening line, "None of that happened. But I became José León, the fat guy" was a great beat and "But I know one thing. It was a disaster" got a laugh. You clearly have a knack for writing. Stick to it. Do what you need to do to pay the bills first, but don't give up on writing.

So I started a newsletter, I published many articles on Indie Hackers, here on Reddit, Medium, everywhere.

The feedback continued. That felt great. For the first time in my life, people were giving me feedback. I’m 36, and I’ve been creating things since I’m a kid. But I never had feedback before, well, at least I never had positive feedback, that’s for sure.

I grew up in a pretty toxic environment where thinking out the box was punished. But that’s another story.

Should I Try Again?

I started writing everywhere, and I wanted to find the perfect place to publish my articles and send my newsletter.

I tried many solutions, but some were too much, some of them weren’t enough.

I wanted to focus on my writing. I was looking for a platform where I can publish without thinking about technology, design, themes, and —very important— I wanted a platform that helps to find readers.

I couldn’t find anything exactly that was tailored to my needs.

So, I decided to create it.

Before, I was creating projects for others and just guessing their needs. This time, I want to create something 100% for myself. And, to be honest, It’d be strange that my needs are very different from other people like me.

There is something that I learned from all my past failures.

Don’t spend six months creating something in complete isolation.

Think of this tool as the intersection between Substack and Medium.

It’s going to be amazing. If you are a writer or want to be one, you’ll be happy to get onboard. I promise. I will bring attention to your words and deliver an amazing, simple product to focus on writing and nothing else.

I am building this tool in public if you want to join, and I will be sharing everything as I go about it.

I don’t even have a name yet!

Thanks for reading. I hope this time will be different. What do you think?

By the way, when my girlfriend knew that I made $700 from that article, she danced harder than me.