I'm Steph. I've grown products like Trends.co to millions in ARR and sold 6 figures in my own. AMA!

@luke_button Oooh this is tough, but I think it would be either Chartr or Exponential View. Chartr is my favourite way to stay up to date on biz/tech, since it's so quick and visual, but they also tend to tease out unique data points. Exponential View is a must read to understand how technology is shaping our world, whether it be re: semiconductors, climate change, EVs, AI, etc. I think at the end of the day, I would probably choose Exponential View, since it's one of the only newsletters that I feel I genuinely learn from each week.

@jmestn I think regardless of whether you have a personal brand, the power of asynchronous is not preserving my time at the expense of someone else's, but to make both sides of the working relationship more optimal. I say that because I think you can communicate that ethos when you're asking people to work asynchronously. For example: 1) Could you send over those questions via email so that I can make sure to answer all of your questions? 2) Could you record a demo via Loom so that I can share this with others that also want to learn and revisit it later? 3) Why don't we set up a dashboard for this so we can check this at any point in the day, since I know you're on another timezone?

@igocrete As with most other technological innovations, it will change the game, but not replace it. At the end of the day, people will still be looking for the best content. And for now, I don't think that will be produced by AIs on their own. On their own is key phrasing here, because I think that absolutely AIs can already augment the writing process in pretty significant ways and I think it will continue to expand those use cases. Even today, you can use GPT-3 to write an article for you, which you can use as the foundation that you build off of. But, I still think that you (for now) need a human to adjust that piece and make it excellent. And even if that part gets replaced, you still need the prompt which comes from someone having the ability to determine what people care about. When you think about it, AI-generated content won't really change the game much, but simply advance what is already happening. The democratization of people being able to produce content en masse already flooded the internet with more content than we could ever dream of. In other words, it became a commodity. So now, people don't want a lot of content... they only want the best stuff. So in fact, I think it will increase the value of the best content, but it will continue to lower the value of mediocre content which again, is already in progress.

@cris_stringfellow Hey Cris! 1) I use the MEN stack (Mongo, Express, Node) for all of my projects so far. 2) Leverage increases every day through access to new tools. So while we'll continue to see independents creator a lot more value, the key shift will be in those creators directly being able to capture that value themselves. I believe that's the ethos of web3.0 in that it's all about direct value transfer: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio.... The same way that people were surprised that Instagram sold for $1b at 13 employees, you're going to see someone become the first solo billionaire (ie: create and capture $1b on their own). Almost certainly there have been creators already have have created $1b in value, but we're just developing the mechanisms for creators to effectively re-capture the value themselves. I'm waiting for the day where a group of indie makers from Bali becomes an albeit smaller version of the PayPal mafia. :) Along that line, I think we're going to see a lot of diversification in how creators monetize. Until now, it would often be through media products, but I expect to see a lot more examples of creators monetizing through creating their own brands... think: apparel, alcohol, fitness, etc, but I think we'll see the scope of that increase as well. 3) I publicly share my goals here: http://stephsmith.io/open I haven't set goals for 2022 yet!

@tasos_valtinos Hey Tasos! 1. I learned the MEN (mongo, express, node) stack through this course: https://bit.ly/3qwyCKh I would definitely recommend it, but at the end of the day, your stack really does not matter at all. See myth #3 here: https://blog.stephsmith.io/learn... 2. Pre-sell it! https://twitter.com/stephsmithio... 3. Answered a similar question here! My response to Sorin: https://www.producthunt.com/disc...

Thanks @alvin_oommen! I've always enjoyed building things, but I'm also quite risk averse. That's probably one of the reasons that I still work full-time, while creating projects on the side. With that said, I think our archetype of the risk-taking visionary is unlike many entrepreneurs I know. I would say that perhaps my "AHA moment" was meeting a friend, Pieter Levels, in Bali. When I learned more about his story, I was like... "Wait, so you just iterated until something worked? And now you make $300k a year? And you work on whatever you want?" Prior to that, I thought of building companies in a much more rigid way. You have a genius idea and raise money and the rest is history. The more I started learning about Pieter's story and about indie makers, I realized there was another path. I didn't need to quit my job. I could get started whenever. I could just slowly iterate until something developed. I could work on several projects at once. All of these things I could've done before meeting them, but as silly as it sounds... I didn't realize it was possible. So I guess my answer is that I think there is an entrepreneurial bone in all of us. It just may not look Zuckerberg dropping out to start Facebook. Ie: It may not even look like a leap! :)