Course change and the use of this blog.

So it has been a minute since I actively posted on this blog, and to be honest I didn't get around to it. And maybe more than that: I didn't see the direct value in it. But on the off change that someone ends up here: it has to be current.

The fact of the matter is that 2025 was a sling-shot year that accelerated the online business that I'm building. I tried a ton of things. I made pivots. And I figured out what I will be working on for the coming years.

I have a detailed plan worked out that I will carry out between now and the summer of 2030. Right now the limiting factor is time, so I'm very deliberate in what I will spend my time on. 

To quickly bring you up to speed: check the pages in the side-bar (or scroll all the way down if you're on mobile). If you just read "short-lists", and more precisely the "one pager of what I'm working on" and "honorable list of projects pursued with the intent of making money" then you will have a pretty good idea of the sort of guy I am. 

And if you really want to get down to the nitty-gritty, check "my current mega-projects". As for this blog: I will mostly use this to post "founder notes" that didn't make the cut for one of the Friday videos on the yt channel of Stacking Sleep.  

 I will try a new upload schedule, starting this week (Monday).

Unfortunately I can't yet see when my audience is online, so I'm just trying this based on what I could find out using gemini. 

Summary of Recommendations:

• JBT: Sunday (Late morning/early afternoon, e.g., 10 AM - 2 PM AST)
• EJW: Tuesday or Wednesday (Afternoon/early evening, e.g., 2 PM - 5 PM AST)
• PG: Friday (Evening, e.g., 5 PM - 8 PM AST)

Prim's Game Explained For Beginners!

So I'm trying to grow the YT of Prim's Game mostly through shorts, but I felt that I needed something more immersive. So that's this. It's a try-out, and it feels a bit forced, but it's also the best that I can currently do. In the coming weeks I plan to do a weekly video like this, each week taking one of the problems that Prim's Game solves, and literally showing where and how in the installments each of these problems is being solved.

First video of Prim's Game on the dedicated channel

So I have been working very hard on mapping out the fictional universe that ties all of my stories together. And little by little I am building out the entire infra-structure that I think is needed to "get it out there".

That's also why I started a dedicated yt-channel, which will be exclusively about Prim's Game. The only video right there at this moment is the introduction to both Prim's Game and The Entity. 

In case you're interested: I wrote the text, recorded the audio and used Recraft AI to generate all of the images.

 

Changing course slightly to "Making money online in an awesome way"

I really figured that the way I felt about moving forward with my "online ambitions" after 6 months would be how I would move forward from now on. And then I changed course still.

The fact of the matter was that "it didn't quite feel right", and that's why kept on evaluating a while longer. And this is also most of the reason why I made a video this week, to explore how I feel about things, and also to "put the idea out there". 

So, moving forward, my goal will still be to make recurring revenue by the end of the year. The "how" has slightly changed towards "making money online in an awesome way".

Rephrasing the goal of this year gives me just a bit more air, and it allows me to lean in on the two big things that I enjoy in my free time: woodwork & writing. 

So, yes, I'm going back to writing fiction, and in this video I will explore my feelings, reasoning as to why now is the right time to jump back in.

6 months in 1 full day on yt / online fly-wheel

Part of me can't believe that it has already been 6 months since I started dedicating 1 full day to yt. To start: I hit my target of 300 watch hours (current score is 374). But over the last few weeks I was in a bit of a slump because I felt that I wasn't moving in the right direction. So that's why I haven't been uploading for the past two weeks.

This is most of the reason why I also paused the 2nd channel (currently all videos on that channel are private). But I did restart what I hadn't planned on doing for the next few years: I started going back to making it as a fiction author. 

I'm leaning in slowly, and it seems that a lot of the landscape has changed over the last 3 years: AI makes it easy to create images and visuals, the site Royal Road is also popular beyond fantasy, Tiktok has become way more than just dance videos, Reddit is open to targeted advertising, and on top of that: in the week that I slowly went back to writing, I came across the slow start of an accelerator for authors that will have their first cohort in June (which I plan to be a part of). 

So a lot has happened, and leaning back into writing is giving me a lot of ideas and inspiration moving forward. And it's also how I prefer to operate; I prefer to have "two big things going on", and on and off lean a bit "to the left or right". Over the years I have come to realize that it always comes down to these two things: writing and woodwork.

My current plan is to continue "Jelmer Builds Things", while also slowly working towards making it as an author of fiction. My plan is still to get monetized on yt by the end of this year, and also to start making money from my author activities around that time. I have enough ideas, but until I have worked them out, and tried them out, I will keep most of these to myself. 

So next update will be 8 months in, with the goal of having 600 watch hours, and by that time I will also be starting to get the flywheel in motion to make it as an author of fiction. 

is this failure?

 This morning I tried to make one of the hardest things that you can make with basic power tools: a wood ball. I tried it before, and didn't succeed. This morning, well, it went worse so I put up my tools and was ready to accept defeat. 

But then after a good break I realized that I can't let it define my day: I will have to get back at it and still go above and beyond to make this happen. This is not foolhardiness, but it's to make a point to myself: this day is to produce one good piece of content. And the failure in one aspect can be the creation of a success in another (if that makes sense). 

The vid will be up next week Friday (hope you're interested!).

btw this is what the wood looked like after I gave up in the morning: