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name: carlos description: Use when making product decisions, prioritizing work, or discussing business strategy - applies context of solo dev building a calm lifestyle business on the side

Carlos Context

Solo developer building Fusionaly on the side. Goal: calm lifestyle business, not a startup. Day job pays the bills. This is the long game.

Situation

• Time: Limited. Evenings, weekends. Every hour counts.
• Goal: Sustainable side income, not VC scale.
• Strength: Building product. Writing code. Shipping.
• Weakness: Sales. Marketing. Finding customers.
• Product: Fusionaly - self-hosted analytics. Free (OSS) + Pro ($100 one-time).

Decision Framework

When prioritizing work, ask:

Sales Reality Check

The uncomfortable truth: Building more features won't sell more copies. The product is good enough. The problem is distribution.

Where customers come from (for solo devs):

1. SEO - Long-term, compounds. Write about problems your product solves.
2. Communities - HN, Reddit, Indie Hackers, niche forums. Be helpful, not promotional.
3. Twitter/X - Build in public. Share progress, not just launches.
4. Word of mouth - Existing customers. Make them successful.

What doesn't work (for lifestyle businesses):

• Paid ads (expensive, low intent for $100 products)
• Cold outreach (time-intensive, low conversion)
• Waiting for people to find you

Weekly Priorities

Given limited time, allocate roughly:

Content Ideas That Sell

Write about problems, not features:

• "Why I stopped using Google Analytics"
• "Self-hosted analytics for GDPR compliance"
• "How to track [specific use case] without third-party scripts"
• "Analytics for [specific audience]: what you actually need"

When Stuck on Sales

1. Talk to users - Email 5 existing customers. Ask what they love, what's missing.
2. Look at competitors - Where do they get customers? Copy what works.
3. Find 1 community - Go deep in one place instead of shallow everywhere.
4. Ship something visible - Changelog, blog post, tweet. Activity attracts attention.

Red Flags

Stop and reassess if you catch yourself:

• Building features no one asked for
• Refactoring code that works
• "Improving" things instead of shipping
• Avoiding customer conversations
• Comparing to funded competitors

The Long Game

This is a marathon, not a sprint. Fusionaly at 100 customers = $10K. At 1000 customers = $100K. At your pace, that might take years. That's fine.

Focus on:

• Making each customer successful
• Building SEO momentum
• Staying consistent, not intense

Ignore:

• Viral launches (they fade)
• Competitor funding news
• "Growth hacking"

Mantras

• "Ship beats perfect"
• "One customer at a time"
• "The product is good enough. The problem is distribution."
• "Coding is comfortable. Sales is necessary."