One month in: am I still on track?
Here's what I achieved in the first month (2025. 07. 14. - 2025. 07. 20.)
One month ago, I started building a tech business from absolute zero.
Every day since, I’ve shown up. No breaks, no cheats, no skipping.
Hi — I’m Zoli, a 16 y/o documenting the journey from “no clue“ to launching a real tech product.
This week marks a quiet but meaningful milestone: the halfway point of Step 1. Here’s what happened, and where I’m headed next.
What I’ve done this week
This week didn’t bring anything crazy: only silent, consistent progress.
Here’s what I did:
The Figma sprint is almost done, just the final mini-project left
3 posts written on Substack
VSCode environment is ready for learning programming
Started coding journey, now 2 days into learning React
Completed 3 of 4 modules in a business ops course
Spent time reflecting on my progress
I had a hard time reading my next book (The 4-Hour Workweek); this is the only task I couldn’t make any progress with.
So… am I still on track?
I’m halfway through the first step of my journey.
I decided to take some time reflecting on how the first 4 weeks went compared to my initial plans, and decide if I have to make any adjustments for the second half.
To summarize it in short, I think I did really well.
I was able to stick to most of the plans I made and adjusted when things didn’t go as planned. The most difficult problem was the struggles I had on the first week with the market research. It slightly delayed a few tasks, but nothing that I couldn’t fix easily.
I can confidently say that I’m happy about the progress I've made: I’ve clearly grown in knowledge. I learned a lot about Figma and web design (check out what I learned here) — I’m especially proud of the mini-project I made on day 13.
I only started learning about business ops a few days ago, and already know a few concepts that are vital for starting a business (eg, the product pyramid, or the ability to resell). I’m only 2 days into programming learning, and already have a clear idea about what React is and why it is worth learning and using.
Since most went according to my plans, I won’t change anything about them. I can clearly finish this strong, with visible progress made.
I’m already planning what’s next, but I don’t want to ruin the surprise…yet.
What will happen next?
For the next 3 weeks, I’ll be away, traveling and going to a summer camp. This means I won’t be able to work much, but I’m not going completely dark.
I’ll still publish every week, shifting to a new format for now: storytime posts. These are shorter posts about past lessons that shaped my way of thinking, and experiences that led to the point of starting this journey.
The first one arrives this week, about the top 5 lessons I took from The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel.
Then, starting August 11, I’ll be back for the final 3 weeks. Here’s what I’ll focus on:
Wrap up the summer learning sprint (biz ops, sales, coding)
Keep the Substack alive — maybe even aim for my first 10 subs?
A takeaway from this month
This past month taught me how powerful accountability is.
You can stay on track in a hundred different ways, but you have to find the one that actually works for you.
For me, it’s writing on Substack. I’ve procrastinated less, simply because I knew I’ll have to write about it, even if no one’s reading yet.
See you next time
This journey has just begun, but I’ve already grown and learned more than I expected. And the wild part? I haven’t even taken the first step yet.
Wish me luck — I’ll need it.