My Small Bets and Writing in 2023
Top Picks, My Favorites and a Year in Review
👋 Hi, this is Ankur from ByteSizedBets with another free edition of the newsletter.
Each month, I write about software engineers, tech founders, software engineering, startups, developer tools, writing, career growth and small bets. If you’d like to get emails like this in your inbox, you can subscribe here.
As we close another year, I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to each of you for your continued support, engagement, and curiosity. Thank you for being an integral part of my journey.
Today's edition revisits 2023, offering highlights and links to articles/blogs/tweets worth revisiting or exploring for the first time. I’ll cover:
The newsletter’s name change
The most popular articles, and my personal favorites
Top highlights of 2023
1. Newsletter’s name change in 2023
If you've followed this newsletter for a while, you've witnessed several pivots, experimental content, and a variety of posts from me.
This year, however, as I built multiple small bets and became a part of the Small Bets community, I've gained clearer insights into what I aim to pursue and share with you all. Your positive feedback on the 30-day highlights has been incredibly motivating.
I'm grateful for your questions, encouraging emails, and steadfast support. This engagement has been instrumental in refining our journey together and ensuring that the content resonates more deeply with your interests and needs.
Thank you for being such an integral part of this evolving narrative.
So, I bought a new domain so soon newsletter will have its domain.
2. Most popular articles
Some of the most-read articles this year on my blog:
A Software Developer’s Guide to Writing: I started writing because I wanted to share my experiences with tech and needed to turn my life around. I loved ideas but had nobody to talk about them with. many years later, I can say that writing on the Internet is among the best career decisions I’ve made.
Writing for Developers – Why You Should Have a Blog and How to Start One: Having a blog is a useful asset for developers. It can be a lead magnet, as well as a place where you can sell digital products you create.
It can also simply be the place where you build a loyal audience within your niche, share your knowledge and ideas, and help other devs.
How I Made $30,000 From Writing in 1 Year: If you had asked me if I would ever make money from my blogging, I would have said no. I lack any special talent, gift, or even a writer to mentor me. I’ve made more than $50,000+ from writing in the last 365 days. If I can make money from writing, you can too.
My personal favorites of 2023:
A Complete Guide to Start a Blog for Software Developers: A blog is a valuable asset for all software developers. Instead of paying attention, people and businesses give it to you. When you write something, you get immediate feedback, and your writing helps you spread the word, which leads to more opportunities.
How Writing Can Be Your Secret Weapon in Tech
Writing in public and sharing it online gets you the attention you won't get anywhere else offline.
Writing on the internet works like a magnet.
Writing can give you a competitive advantage.
Writing attracts like-minded people.
Lessons from an Indian Software Engineer: Things I’ve learned from Santosh’s story
Unexpected Beginnings: Santosh's journey into tech was accidental, choosing computer engineering after high school without a clear direction.
Early Career Struggles: He faced disappointments in college admissions, job market challenges in 2008, and initial low pay.
Growth Through Opportunities: Joining a startup in 2011 marked a turning point for Santosh, where he quickly progressed from senior engineer to team lead.
Pivotal Move to Pune: Relocating to Pune allowed him to explore beyond his job, starting a blog and teaching Angular, which kickstarted further growth.
Overcoming Challenges: Santosh shared a story of a difficult project integrating with SBI's banking system, demonstrating problem-solving and resilience.
Technical and Community Growth: His focus on problem-solving and productivity led him to specialize in areas like NxDevTools and performance bottlenecks, while community involvement significantly impacted his personal and professional development.
The Importance of Networking: Santosh emphasizes the importance of building a reputation through community engagement, meetups, and open source contribution.
Adapting to the AI Era: He advises not to fear AI but to learn how it can augment developer productivity.
Work-Life Balance: Santosh values work-life balance, learning to say no to weekend work and emphasizing the importance of family time.
Compensation Journey: He transparently shares his salary progression from a modest start to a competitive salary in Germany, highlighting the negotiation and job-hopping as tools for salary increase.
Job Security Myth: He believes in staying hireable and keeping skills relevant rather than relying on job security.
Dealing with Burnout: Santosh has faced burnout due to his community work and advises taking breaks to focus on the primary job during such times.
Workplace Dynamics: He recalls discrimination in Indian companies and stresses the need for improvement in diversity and inclusion.
Career Aspirations: Despite wearing many hats in his career, he thrives as an individual contributor and hopes to consult in the future, helping teams succeed.
Personal Insights: Santosh shares personal insights on maintaining well-being and pursuing passions outside of work.
My personal favorites tech articles of 2023:
A Step-by-Step Guide for Deploying LLMs with MindsDB and OpenAI: MindsDB allows you to create models that utilize the OpenAI GPT-4 features and deploy them so that you are ready to perform NLP tasks within your database.
How I Used Medusa to Create a Powerful Next.js E-commerce Store: Medusa is an open-source modular commerce infrastructure for building highly performant, scalable, and data-intensive commerce applications. Medusa’s modular architecture makes it flexible and extensible. It is a great tool for building e-commerce stores. Medusa provides three (3) building blocks for a commerce system: the backend, an admin dashboard, and a storefront.
OneEntry: The Next-Gen Headless CMS: OneEntry Headless CMS is a ready-made, flexible, user-friendly, and scalable backend that allows you to manage all your websites and applications from a centralized dashboard.
Building Scalable Microservices with Amplication, GraphQL, MongoDB, and Kafka: In this article, you will learn how to build microservices with GraphQL, MongoDB, and Kafka using Amplication to generate your application and build it many times faster.
Shopify vs. Medusa: Compares Shopify and Medusa, two popular e-commerce platforms and The aim is to determine which platform offers the best value for online businesses and entrepreneurs and Concludes with a recommendation for the best platform based on the comparison.
Github Copilot vs Tabnine? – Which is the Best AI Assistant for You: This article will demonstrate the difference between Copilot & Tabnine.
3. Top highlights of 2023
Started this year with the launch of my book “A Developer's Guide to Blogging“
I have crafted over 50+ professional blog articles and offered strategic support in documentation to 3 emerging startup founders.
I started the “developer stories“ series in ByteSizedBets and you can expect a lot of cool and motivational real developer/founder stories in 2024.
I started a “React“ series on my blog and got praise from many of you people.
I started a travel blog which hasn’t been announced in public.
I was writing a course on “writing for engineers“ but it wasn’t working well with the publisher and we broke the contract after finishing 25% and a payment of $3,000. I’ll give more details in the upcoming newsletter about what happened and why self-publishing is way better if you’ve your personal brand.
I closed my AB in Sweden and opened a new private limited company in India.
I opened my restaurant chain in India, marking a major milestone in my life.
I've embraced life in Sweden, considering it's the best long-term choice for my family, even though I'm not happy as an individual. However, I've decided to add a personal twist by travelling back to India three times a year.
Takeaways
The last year has been full of surprises, far from dull, with life's randomness sometimes taking the lead. Much like the previous years, it seems that my life's pace has quickened, bringing changes more rapidly than ever.
Thank you for being part of this journey over the past year. I'll be on holiday for the remainder of 2023 and into the first week of January. As mentioned, I'm heading to India on January 13th and will stay there for 3-4 weeks. Therefore, the next newsletter will be in January 2024. I hope you find some time to relax and rejuvenate during this period. Wishing you happy holidays – see you in 2024.
Seeing you closer from smallbet community, you've accomplished so much this year and yet you look hungry for the next.
Looking forward to 2024 and your smallbets. And welcome to India, hope you don't put on your weight from your new restaurant (Bikanerwala) or from the family love in India.