Recent Updates / Blog Article

Share your product updates, adopt user-driven development, promote transparency and improve engagement with easy-to-use announcement boards, interactive roadmaps, feature request, help documentation and customer feedback tools.

Day 28 - Power Hour Productivity Hack
27 October 2025 — Dave Cheong — Founder's Journey, Weekday Video Updates
Set a 60-minute timer with zero interruptions and work on one thing.
Hey guys, here's a productivity hack that actually works.
It’s called “Power Hour”
Every morning, dedicate one hour to your most important task. Close all your tabs. Put your phone on silent.
The Process Is This:
  1. Before checking anything, identify your highest-impact task
  2. Set a 60-minute timer with zero interruptions
  3. Work with complete focus on that one thing
Don’t aim for perfection. Don't polish as you go. Just get as much of the task done and keep moving forward. You can improve on things later.
The secret isn't working more hours—it's making your first hour count.
Being semi-retired, I'm actually producing more with less time. When I had unlimited hours, I'd waste them. I'd overthink. I'd polish things that didn't matter. With less time, I have to be more focused and effective.
So, try the “Power Hour” hack—it actually works.
I’m posting every weekday. See you tomorrow.
Read More

Day 27 - Tesla FSD, Bondi Beach, Sculptures By The Sea and Coding Automatic YouTube Short embedding
27 October 2025 — Dave Cheong — Founder's Journey, Weekday Video Updates
Embrace all that life has to offer. Work hard, but play hard too. When your mind is in the right state, you will produce great work. This is me in a Tesla FSD for the very first time. The car drives us to Bondi Beach where we checked out Sculptures by the Sea.
After a fun day out, I still had time to add a feature where you can paste the url of a YouTube short and User Mastery automatically embeds the video, just as you see above.
Read More

Day 24 It turns out if you spend 15 seconds...
23 October 2025 — Dave Cheong
It turns out if you spend 15 seconds lacing up your new shoes, spend 15 minutes walking to the gym, spend 52 minutes punishing your body and then walking out feeling like a million bucks, then turn into the local cafe and order an amazing coffee to have with your wife, you will still have time to stroll through the local suburb, you will still have time to meander to your desk, write some code, type out a changelog and deploy the changes to production.
Read More

Day 23 - Using My Own Changelog Platform
22 October 2025 — Dave Cheong — Founder's Journey, Weekday Video Updates
A milestone moment—I made my first changelog post using User Mastery’s own Changelog platform
Yesterday was a milestone moment—I made my first changelog post using User Mastery’s own Changelog platform. That’s right, I’m now dogfooding my own product—a term which means you’re using what you’re building.
There’s something powerful in that. I can immediately see what works and what doesn’t. I spotted six things I need to improve just from publishing that one post. I’m getting feedback from my own experience and therefore I’m building something I want.
If you’re interested, my post is about adding this new feature called “Collection Groups”, which is a way of organising related collections together in a changelog to help with feature discovery. Head on to https://usermastery.com to read about it.
I’m posting every weekday. See you tomorrow!
Read More

Day 22 - Productivity Hack That Works Is Picking The Right 3 Things To Work On
22 October 2025 — Dave Cheong — Founder's Journey, Weekday Video Updates
Don't pick 3 hard things. Don't pick 3 easy things. Pick One hard, One important, One quick. Try It—it works!
Hey guys,
This productivity hack actually works, unlike everything else.
Every morning, pick your Top 3 tasks. But here's the trick most people miss:
  1. Task 1: Pick something hard. The thing you've been avoiding. Do it first, while your brain is fresh.
  2. Task 2: Pick something that moves the needle. Not busy work—something that actually matters for your goals.
  3. Task 3: Pick a quick win. Something you can knock out in 30 minutes. This keeps momentum going.
Don't pick 3 hard things—you'll burn out and end up doing only one thing.
Don't pick 3 easy things—you won’t get very far if you do.
Pick One hard, One important, One quick.
Once you finish a task, immediately add another one of the same difficulty level to replace it. Keep your list at 3 tasks throughout the day, but only work on that after you’ve finished the other two.
Just a simple tip, but it works. Try it.
I’m positing every weekday. See you tomorrow!
Read More

Day 21 - Apple Listened To User Feedback
20 October 2025 — Dave Cheong — Founder's Journey, Weekday Video Updates
They've added a setting to toggle Liquid Glass from being Clear to Tinted. Clear is transparent and the default. Tinted reduces the background bleed and makes things way easier to read.
Apple has just released iOS 26.1 Beta 4. They’ve actually listened to user feedback and have added a setting to toggle Liquid Glass from being Clear to Tinted. Clear is transparent and the default. Tinted reduces background bleeding through and makes things way easier to read.
Even for a big company like Apple, user feedback isn't just nice-to-have—it's essential for building products people actually want. That’s how you make users happy.
Super happy Apple’s doing this.
Products that succeed are built by teams that actively listen to users. The ones that fail are built in isolation.
User Mastery is all about helping teams engage with users. We’re making it easy for product teams to collect feedback, announce features, create knowledge bases and communicate roadmaps. We’re launching soon—join the waiting list to get exclusive offers.
I'm posting every weekday. See you tomorrow!
Read More

Day 20 - Three Things Productivity Tip
20 October 2025 — Dave Cheong — Founder's Journey, Weekday Video Updates
My system: Every morning, I write down 3 things I must do.
Here’s a Productivity Tip!
Do you know what kills productivity?
It’s starting the day without knowing what you need to accomplish. You bounce between tasks, chase notifications, and by 5pm you've been busy all day, but haven’t achieved what’s important.
My system: Every morning, I write down 3 things I must do.
Not 10 tasks. Not vague goals. Just 3 specific things I WILL complete.
Today for me:
  • Code a Reaction feature for User Mastery's help docs, so visitors can thumbs up or down a page
  • Install some kind of web analytics, so I know where traffic is coming from
  • Fix a quirky little bug affecting the mobile side navigation
Three things. Clear. Achievable. Non-negotiable.
By end of day, I know I moved forward.
I'm posting every weekday. See you tomorrow!
Read More

Day 17 - Showing YouTube View Numbers
16 October 2025 — Dave Cheong
On Youtube my most viewed short is from Day 7 and it clocks in with 1371 views and 6 likes. The second most viewed is from Day 15. That’s just two days ago, with 1248 views and 10 likes and 1 share!
Hello!
Today, I’m sharing some numbers. I’ve been posting for 17 days. On Youtube my most viewed short is from Day 7 and it clocks in with 1371 views and 6 likes. The second most viewed is from Day 15. That’s just two days ago, with 1248 views and 10 likes and 1 share! My subscriber count has gone from 0 to a whopping 15, 4 of which came from the Day 15 video.
Not crazy numbers by any means, but I’ve gotta start somewhere!
Here’s another interesting stat. YouTube says 10% of viewers are still watching at the 30 second mark, which is typical. To be honest, that’s not great, so it does make me second guess the benefits of what I’m doing with these daily updates. 
Building an audience takes time and I’m committed.
It’s Friday and I’m posting every weekday. I’ll see you on Monday!
Read More

Day 16 - Stay Focused, Don't Get Distracted
16 October 2025 — Dave Cheong — Founder's Journey, Weekday Video Updates
When building a product, especially as a solo founder, it's so easy to get distracted. There are a million things you could be working on—marketing, design, new features, SEO, social media, partnerships. The list is endless.
Hello! Day 16 of my indie hacker journey.
When building a product, especially as a solo founder, it's so easy to get distracted. There are a million things you could be working on—marketing, design, new features, SEO, social media, partnerships. The list is endless.
But here's the thing: you can't do everything at once. If you try, you'll spread yourself too thin and make no real progress on anything.
Be ruthless. Right now, my focus is simple: get an MVP built.
The true lean approach would be: talk to potential customers first, validate, validate, validate, and maybe even pre-sell the solution before writing code.
I could do that, except I know regardless of what startup I work on, I need the benefits that come from User Mastery. It’s central to my overall strategy and it won’t be wasted time.
I'm posting every weekday. See you tomorrow!
Read More

Day 15 - Release Early and Often, Iterate Fast 
15 October 2025 — Dave Cheong — Founder's Journey, Weekday Video Updates
If you’re a startup, each feature you complete, each piece of feedback you get, each user who signs up—they all add up. Keep shipping and keep moving forward. That's how you build something real and tangible.
Hey there! It’s Day 15 of my indie hacker journey!
I’m a perfectionist and I tend to work at something until I’m happy with it before I release it. That's not good when building a startup. I need to ship fast, get feedback, and iterate. 
Ship early and often—even if it's small—to build momentum. 
If you’re a startup, each feature you complete, each piece of feedback you get, each user who signs up—they all add up. Keep shipping and keep moving forward. That's how you build something real and tangible.
Yesterday, was huge. I launched a landing page. Today, I’m building out the changelog and blog, then I’ll be adding in collections and improving the overall writing experience. If you head over to usermastery.com, you might not immediately notice the dozens of little improvements since I launched the landing page, but they’re there and they’re adding up.
Small wins compound.
I'm posting every weekday. See you tomorrow!
Read More