Business building vs Daily 3 hours
Weeks 10-11 (Sept 1 - Sept 14, 2025)
Season 2 kicked off. School is back, and time is more limited than ever.
This was a crash course in balance. Here’s what actually happened.
Hello! I’m Zoli, the 16 y/o working on a tech business from scratch. Here, I document my journey, sharing everything honestly so You can learn from my mistakes.
If you’re new here, this post will make more sense once you read this one:
A New Season in my Journey
When I say ‘Season‘, I mean 2-4 months spent on achieving specific goals. It’s my own systematic way to maintain structure. Season 1 ran from July to August 2025.
With the end of summer, I started a new season in my journey. I work towards the following goals (broken down to 4 aspects) until the end of November 2025:
Substack: revamping my Substack, and aiming to hit 100 subscribers.
Coding: deepening my coding knowledge by developing 3-6 basic apps.
Personal Growth: learning about sales, marketing, biz ops, and productivity.
Business-Building: lock in my business model and fully validate my ideas.
Week 1: Momentum
Here, I cover the 10th week of my journey, which also marks Week 1 of Season 2.
While planning for the first weeks, I was motivated. This optimism gave me the energy to achieve most of my goals, including designing PassMate (a password manager app I started building to practice the coding skills I learned recently).
Week 2: Collapse
By the second week, burnout hit, and everything fell apart. My progression noticeably slowed down in all areas, and I even got sick.
I had 2 major problems. I lacked energy, and focus.
I had 2-4 hours daily, which should’ve been enough for progress, but the lack of these two essential elements undermined it completely.
When was Your most recent burnout, and how did you deal with it?
Here is a summary of what I accomplished and what I couldn’t do:
My #1 Achievement
Even though it didn’t go according to my plans, I’m still really proud of what I achieved with Substack. Before the revamp, it was basically dead.
I levelled up my branding, introduced new content formats, and learned about Substack growth. I’m especially happy about the visual upgrades, including the post thumbnails and my logo.
The single thing I’m most proud of? My profile picture! I finally overcame the fear of putting myself out there, and this was a huge confidence boost.
Plans Ahead
My #1 goal for next week? Solving the problem of energy + focus. If this is the only thing I achieve next week, I'm calling it a success.
Here are the top tasks I want to work on:
Post notes and engage daily on Substack, publish about 3-5 long-form posts.
Fully finish PassMate, and start working on my second full-stack app.
In addition, I’ll continue progressing with the copywriting course, reading The 4-Hour Workweek, and start planning my future market research.
See You Next Time
Next time, I’ll share everything about my 100-Subscriber Challenge - the plan that might be my best attempt on social media yet, marking the start of a new community.
Zoli