Remote Matcher Journal #4

This is something new I’m trying: a journal recapping the work I’m doing on Remote Matcher which is my current side project. My goal with this is to do some public accountability so I’ll > keep moving forward on this project.

(Real talk: I’m passionate about the idea behind the project, but I seem to have some kind of mental block about getting work done on it. These blog posts are meant to apply pressure to me to report my progress publicly and move the project forward)

BLUF

(Bottom Line Up Front) Progress was slow this week. I know what needs to get done, but I have lost momentum.

Last week(s) in review

Let’s look at the goals from last week and score them

1. Get the bi-gram tokens stemmed with lots of tests around them. (Aiming to have them deployed into production in the next 2 weeks) – More tests were added, but stemming is not there. 25%
2. A plan for launching the self-signup page (steps outlined by next week) – A rough plan has been hatched, more below. 75%
3. 20 new tweets (recycling this one, it is easy and needs to be done!) – Still did not do. 0%

Score: 1/3 = 33% If I started graphing these weekly score (which I probably should) I think I would be unhappy with the overall average.

Technical issues

This week’s goal was to stem the bi-grams. Stemming in general will allow me to extract tags and do better matching. The tests to prove that this is happening correctly are becoming challenging: manually bi-gramming a chunk of text and then confirming the code does it that way isn’t as smooth as I thought it would be. I believe I will be able to re-use the stemmer I had in the project already. Getting tests in place for that will be a bit of a pain, and I am dedicated to having tests in place BEFORE I roll it into production. In other words, there is pain in my immediate future.

Growing the business

Last time I talked about the OKR’s I’ve written down for this part of the business. So for my updates, I will speak in terms of the OKR’s to ensure I’m actually working towards them.

More users

This past week there was a goal to write more tweets to feed into twitter. This just didn’t happen. No excuses.

More money

Inspired by a tweet, I snapped and wrote down a plan to do a 12-week year starting on Monday. The objective for this 12-week year is to get Remote Matcher bringing in a minimal amount of money by December 9th. The plan has broad strokes and minimal details at the moment, so I don’t have a lot to report today on this. After this is published I am working on the steps needed to make the plan work, so by next week I should have a rough timeline.

Next steps

1. Plan for 12-week year. (This is a must!)
2. Stemming of Bi-grams complete with tests.
3. 20 new tweets (recycling this one, AGAIN. It is literally an OKR and is something I should be doing in my spare time.)

Questions? Comments? Email me and ask away!