Founder's Journey

Read our latest company news and announcements, as well as useful insights from our team here at User Mastery.

Day 41 - Productivity Tip: Parkinson's Law in Reverse
10 November 2025 — Dave Cheong — Founder's Journey, Weekday Video Updates
Have you guys heard of Parkinson's Law?
Parkinson’s Law describes how work expands to fill the time available. Give yourself a week for a task, and you’ll get it done on Friday at 5pm, just before you head out for drinks. Give yourself a day to work on something, and somehow magically it takes a day.
So let's flip this: instead of giving yourself more time to get things done, what would happen if you have yourself less?
Time constraints aren't limitations—they can be productivity amplifiers.
With less time, you prioritise better. You stop obsessing about things that don’t matter. You focus on what moves the needle and ignore everything else. You get things done.
Here's my challenge to you: Today, I want you to take your most important task and set an artificial deadline for it**.** Instead of allowing yourself the full 8 hours you might normally take, tell yourself that you only have 4 hours to complete it, and make it clear to yourself that there will be absolutely no extension to that deadline.
Embrace the time constraint and you'll be more focused and effective.
I’ll be doing the same. I’m aiming to work through the feature that allows users to record video testimonials.
Let me know how you go.
I'm posting every weekday. See you tomorrow!
Read More

Day 40 - AI Replacing Developers
09 November 2025 — Dave Cheong — Founder's Journey, Weekday Video Updates
I keep hearing about AI replacing developers. My take is:
AI won't replace ALL developers. It will replace developers who do not adapt.
The best developers have always been those who can think the clearly, solve problems, choose appropriate solutions and code efficiently. AI is a multiplier for all of that.
What does that mean?
Thinking clearly is important because AI can generate code, but only YOU can prompt what actually needs to be built. AI might suggest something that works, but only YOU can truly evaluate whether it's the right approach. Also, YOU will always need to be able to write clean, maintainable code, because code will need changing, fixing, refactoring, and AI will continue to struggle as your app gets more complicated.
Let AI accelerate your learning and be your co-pilot. It will free you up to focus on the hard problems: understanding customer needs, improving user journeys, designing elegant solutions, making strategic technical decisions.
I'm posting every weekday. See you tomorrow!
Read More

Day 37 - Find Happiness Within Yourself
06 November 2025 — Dave Cheong — Founder's Journey, Weekday Video Updates
Here's what I've discovered over the years: you won't find it in other people's success.
Find happiness within yourself.
Here's what I've discovered over the years: you won't find it in other people's success.
It's easy to fall into the trap where you measure your worth by vanity metrics—views, likes, subscriber counts, new signups.Every day, I see other people hit milestones I haven't reached yet and it’s natural to compare.
But, happiness isn't external. It's internal.
It's about being proud of your journey—not comparing yourself to others, but to who you were yesterday. There will be setbacks: days when nothing works, your code breaks, nobody engages with your content, and you feel invisible.
Don’t let these moments define your journey—how you respond to them does.
Work because it lights you up inside. Share because it helps someone else. Succeed on your own terms for your own reasons.
Keep showing up. Keep building. Keep learning. The people who succeed aren't the ones who never fail—they're the ones who keep going.
Read More

Day 36 - Learn How To Code, Is It Too Late?
05 November 2025 — Dave Cheong — Founder's Journey, Weekday Video Updates
Is it too late to learn how to code now that AI can write code for you?
My answer? No. It's not too late. In fact, it might be the best time ever.
Here's why:
Software engineering isn't just about writing code. It's about understanding problems, architecting solutions, and making strategic decisions.
AI can generate code, sure, and sometimes the code is good but it can also be bad. It can’t architect complete solutions well, it can’t understand your users’ pain points and it can’t debug system-wide issues.
Think of AI as a superpower that amplifies what you can do—not a replacement for knowing how things work, kinda like how calculators haven't replaced the need to understand math. If you understand the fundamentals of building software, AI makes you more effective. If you don't, AI just generates code that don’t really work, can't scale, which you can't fix and can't maintain.
So, it’s not too late. Start learning.
I'm posting every weekday. See you tomorrow!
Read More

Day 35 - The Biggest Leap In Human Capability
04 November 2025 — Dave Cheong — Founder's Journey, Weekday Video Updates
The people who win in the next decade won't be the ones with the most knowledge. The ones who win are the ones who know how to think with AI, not just use AI.
The biggest leap in human capability—with the growth in AI.
Think about it: For the first time in history, you can have an expert to consult and help on about literally anything, instantly. You can write articles, generate code, analyse data, even create entire apps by prompting.
AI isn't a tool. It's a partner.
The people who win in the next decade won't be the ones with the most knowledge. The ones who win are the ones who know how to think with AI, not just use AI.
Your competitive advantage isn't what you know anymore—it's how fast you can ask, learn, adapt, evolve and create with AI as your co-pilot.
So, stop using AI like a search engine or chatbot. Start using it like a collaborator or a co-founder. Push it. Question it. Bounce ideas with it. Build with it.
I'm posting every weekday. See you tomorrow!
Read More

Day 34 - Using ChatGPT to wireframe the Testimonials Wall of Love
04 November 2025 — Dave Cheong — Founder's Journey, Weekday Video Updates
I took a screenshot of a competitor and prompted ChatGPT to generate a responsive card-based layout. It generated everything in seconds. The structure was solid, the layout kinda worked and the code made sense. It got me about 75% of the way there.
AI is all the rage these days and I do jump on Claude or ChatGPT for assistance.
I'm working on the Testimonials feature for my startup, and I needed to create a "Wall of Love"—you know, that beautiful grid of customer testimonials you see on landing pages.
I took a screenshot of a competitor and prompted ChatGPT to generate a responsive card-based layout. It generated everything in seconds. The structure was solid, the layout kinda worked and the code made sense. It got me about 75% of the way there.
It wasn't perfect. It missed a couple of things and some of the code needed tweaking. I just fixed things by hand. Still, it saved me a ton of time.
AI is incredible for getting you started fast. It’s not a silver bullet though. Believe some of the hype; just not all of it. For now, I think you still need to understand what good code looks like. Don't expect it to replace your developers.
I'm posting every weekday. See you tomorrow!
Read More

Day 33 - Goals for November 
02 November 2025 — Dave Cheong — Founder's Journey, Weekday Video Updates
Two clear goals for this month
It's the first working day of a new month. It’s Day 33 of my indie hacker journey and I’ve set my self two main goals:
  1. Building out the testimonials feature in User Mastery—so teams can collect and showcase social proof
  2. Extending the platform to support multiple sites—so that User Mastery can service multiple product teams
Two clear goals. There’ll be other things to work on, but by the end of the month, these are the two things I’ll judge myself on.
If you're starting this month without clear goals, take 15 minutes right now. Write down what you want to accomplish. Be specific. Give yourself a deadline.
Make sure to break things down. For me, I've split each goal into weekly milestones. Week 1: displaying testimonial. Week 2: collecting testimonials. Week 3: multi-site architecture. Week 4: testing and polish.
I'm posting every weekday. See you tomorrow!
Read More

Day 31 - One Month Indie Hacker Report Card
30 October 2025 — Dave Cheong — Founder's Journey, Weekday Video Updates
Quick report card after a month as an indie hacker.
Launched a landing page at usermastery.com — simple, clean, straight to the point. It's live and ready to collect early interest.
I've been working on our content editor, which is the backbone of the entire platform. This editor powers changelogs, help docs, announcements, feature requests, testimonials—everything. Getting it right means everything else builds on a solid foundation.
The Changelog functionality is coming together nicely. I even made my first changelog post using User Mastery itself—dogfooding in action. I added a commenting system too, so two-way conversation is possible.
Oh, I’ve created a simple form builder. It's works seamlessly with the rest of the platform.
And finally, I've been tuning the rendering engine for speed and ensuring everything meets compliance standards. It scores well on external tests.
A lot packed into this month. Every feature brings User Mastery closer to launch. I’m giving myself a solid B+.
I'm posting every weekday. See you on Monday!
Read More

Day 30 - Chase Your Dreams! Start Today!
29 October 2025 — Dave Cheong — Founder's Journey, Weekday Video Updates
Hey guys,
A month ago, I made a decision that terrified me. I decided to chase my dream of building my own startup. After years of talking about it, planning it, finding excuses—I finally did it.
And here's what I've learned: chasing your dreams is uncomfortable. Some days you wake up energised, ready to conquer the world. Other days you question everything. You wonder if you're wasting your time. You see others succeeding faster and doubt yourself.
But here's the truth: Your dreams aren't going to wait for the perfect moment. There will always be reasons not to start—not enough money, not enough time, not enough experience, not good looking enough. But if you keep waiting for perfect conditions, you'll be waiting forever.
Start messy. Start scared. Start anyway.
So if you've been sitting on a dream—whether it's changing careers, starting a business, doing something with AI, or anything else that lights you up inside—stop waiting. Start today.
Because one month from now, you'll wish you had started today.
I'm posting every weekday. See you tomorrow!
Read More

Day 29 - Building a Startup Is Hard. Stay Strong!
28 October 2025 — Dave Cheong — Founder's Journey, Weekday Video Updates
Hey guys, it’s almost been a month since I started my journey as an indie hacker. Time flies.
I just want to quickly say there are a lot of ups and downs building a startup.
Some days, you ship a feature and everything clicks. You feel like you’re on top of the world, like you're building something that matters.
Other days? Nothing works. Code breaks. Users don't get it. You try to explain yourself, but still they don’t get it. You question everything.
That's startup life.
Here's what I'm telling myself: The downs don't mean I’m failing. They mean I’m learning. Everything, even if small, teaches me something. Every time I’m explaining something and people react with confusion, well, that tells me I need to be clearer.
The key is to keep showing up. Keep chipping at it. Keep iterating.
Most people quit during the down days and that’s why they fail. Not because the idea was bad, but because the founder gave up when things got hard. It’s only been 29 days for me, but it’s something I need to keep in mind.
I'm posting every weekday. See you tomorrow!
Read More