Staying organized while making $3k+/mo working on 3 projects

Here's an interview I did with Joe Masilotti, who's a founder of 3 successful projects (one of them making $3k+/mo). Plenty of interesting lessons here on how to stay organized while experimenting with multiple projects.

What's your name and what are you working on? (describe the projects here basically).

I'm Joe Masilotti and I'm working on a few projects in the Rails ecosystem.

• First up is RailsDevs, an open source hiring platform exclusively for Ruby on Rails developers. I started this after helping a bunch of companies hire Rails devs by sharing a spreadsheet. I figured there has to be a business there, somewhere!

• I also built Jumpstart Pro iOS with Chris Oliver of GoRails. This is a code template to port your Ruby on Rails app to iOS with Turbo Native. It helps get the basics out of the way so you can focus on creating a great app.

• I run the ⚡️ Hotwire dev newsletter, a monthly publication on all things Hotwire related, like Turbo and Stimulus. It broke 2000 subscribers last month which felt like a solid milestone to achieve.

Finally, I do consulting work for Turbo Native projects helping clients port Ruby on Rails apps to iOS. I've been doing this for 5+ years and have launched about 10 apps in the App Store this way.

You're working on so many projects at the same time. How do you stay organized?

I keep track of my long term to-dos and ideas in Notion. All new ideas or client tasks are added to this list ASAP. Every Monday I go through my list and pull out the ones I want to (or need to!) work on that week.

Day-to-day I pull out 3 big picture items and 3 small items. I physically write them down on an index card: 1 valuable task, 1 urgent task, 1 rewarding task, and 3 small(er) tasks. I call it the "VUR3" method. This helps me stay focused on my goals for the day while also ensuring I do something that fulfills me.

At the end of the day I write down everything I accomplished on the other side of the index card. This helps me stay motivated as I can see how much I'm doing, even if some days don't feel like I'm getting much done. And it's pretty cool to have a growing stack of index cards next to my desk.

Are you noticing the 80/20 (Parreto's principle) while working on your projects (10-20% of the projects bringing 80%+ of the revenue)?

Definitely! 80%+ of my revenue comes from RailsDevs and my consulting work. I go in waves and right now I'm putting a lot of effort into RailsDevs. A few months ago I was more focused on Jumpstart Pro. And at the end of the year I'm planning on launching a workshop or course on Turbo Native.

So to answer your question directly, I work where I feel the passion and desire. I don't usually let (potential) revenue dictate which projects I work on (and when).

You seem to be in so many niche markets/industries. How do you decide what market to go into?

I consider myself in one market: helping Ruby on Rails developers level up their skills. I use this "north star" to navigate what projects I pick up and how to market them. It would be weird if I launched a hiring platform for Rust developers, right?

Even so, there are a ton of micro niches inside of the Rails ecosystem. A big focus of mine is helping developers get their Rails app on iOS with Turbo Native. And a close second is helping junior developers find their first job in the industry.

At what point do you decide to abandon a project? Can you describe the last 2 times when you did that?

I sold my last project before I abandoned it!

I'm sure other folks can resonate, but I get bored easily and want to work on something new almost weekly. My strategy is to learn when I hit that inflection point – when does it start to get boring? If I can identify that moment in time then it might be time to pivot. And that's a great opportunity for me to look for potential buyers or someone to hand the project off to.

What % of your time do you spend building vs. marketing?

I try to do all of my marketing while I'm coding. Building in public on Twitter and open sourcing RailsDevs are two ways I can get "free" marketing while doing what I love to do – building great products.

Since RailsDevs is an open startup, all of my decisions are public. Not just my revenue numbers! This means I do a lot of thinking in public – I share Notion docs, GitHub Discussions, and Twitter threads. They all outline my thought process for deciding on things, the potential risks, and what I hope to achieve.