Income Report Feb 2020 - Launched First Chrome Extension

Welcome to my income report for February 2020

In February I have earned $255 in total. About 14% more than in the previous month.

What I Did In February

So what happened in February?

Restarted My Crypto Trading Algo

I made a great effort to refresh my crypto trading strategy I used back in 2018. At that time, there was no way to fully automate a trading strategy with all the bells and whistles.

I did a bare minimum to gather market data from various unreliable sources, glue them together, calculate some basic metrics, and generate the signals. There was no trading API, I didn't know how to code and brokerage market data was hard to come by.

It worked fine for a short period, but I could not sustain the life of a crypto trader. Having to stay up late until midnight, waiting for the new candle, then executing the trades. I felt like a zombie the day after.

Then recently, I set a goal to give it a shot again after Bitcoin surged from 3k to 8k last summer. Only now, I will do it properly automating as much as possible.

And thanks to Binance API, I have direct access to the market data, can execute orders, and track my wallet. So far I rebuilt the database and the logic from the ground up and simplified trading rules to avoid overfitting.

Now I am in the process of scheduling the bot workflow with Apache Airflow.

Started Investing Into Mintos P2P Loans

Diversifying the P2P portfolio to EUR denominated P2P lender was another milestone achieved in February. I was fed up with low gains on Zonky, the Czech P2P lender, and its high default rate and fees, I looked for a foreign alternative for some time.

After reading many positive reviews on Mintos, I gave it a shot. The best thing compared to Zonky is much higher earnings according to the reviews and zero fees. Everyone says they achieved above 10% annual gain consistently.

Another plus is the guaranteed buyback after 60 days if the loan is late on payments. On top of that repayment includes interest accrued over the late payment period.

And to start investing, I don't have to code a bot to take care of my portfolio. Mintos have an auto-invest feature, that does it for you based on custom parameters.

For even more lazy investors, there is an invest & access feature. Just pour in the money, let it do its thing, and withdraw it anytime. The difference is the strategy invest and liquidate positions in a way on both primary and secondary market so you can withdraw the money anytime.

I am quite excited to see if the gain will surpass the 5% I gain right now.

Of course with EUR P2P loans comes the currency exchange risk and the risk of loan originator default. The currency exchange risk is less of a concern because I don't plan to withdraw and spend the money any time soon.

Moreover, I timed the market well and bought EUR when it dipped to the lowest value since 2013. Now it nicely bumped up.

I reduced the currency exchange cost further by creating a Transferwise account and converting it to EUR for almost interbank rates. Thanks to having a local account, it was a matter of a few hours to see moves on my balance.

The biggest risk is the loan originator default. It happened before and it was ugly. Since they source loans from third-party countries as well, like Nigeria, I sometimes doubt if the buyback guarantee is realistic in the worst-case scenario.

I have to rely on their Risk assessment and don't go for originators with a rating below B+.

Released Chrome Extension MVP To Chrome Store

After two months of sweat, I finally released my first Chrome Extension ever to Chrome Extensions Store. Of course, nothing happened after the launch and I sit at zero installs as of now.

The journey was anyhow quite exciting, learning a new platform, a new channel, that I can use to distribute my products. I learned more about jQuery, about Chrome API's and its quirks.

I think it was worth to pay 5USD for a developer license fee, given the endless pains I can solve with a Chrome extension.

The hardest part is, of course, the monetization and Google's strict approval policy. My extension was rejected multiple times due to various requirements I had violated.

Fortunately, I am not that worried about its success, because I am using it every day myself and the whole project served more as training wheels than anything else.

Published My First Vlog

I know I mentioned recording my firs Vlog back in Autumn, but it took me 4 months to edit the footage and to get it out. It was scary to look at myself and to hear myself on the recording, so I procrastinated as much as possible.

You know the saying, that you always see yourself in the best angle when looking at the mirror? Well with a camera, it is the opposite. You will see the image of yourself you never saw before.

Strangely, others see you as a camera do. And for them, it is normal to look at you from various weird angles. Yet we are conscious and anxious as we are not used to not seeing our best selves.

On top of that, talking to the camera is hard, much harder than public speaking.

To be honest, I am not a naturally extroverted person and I don't enjoy being in front of the camera, but I take this as a challenge to improve my English and video editing skills.

The pressure to talk smoothly, quickly, and with clarity is so enormous, I have to take a nap after a one-hour session. My brain is wired differently being a silent introvert my whole life, it literally circuit itself by making Youtube videos.

But I don't want to give up and I will create content from time to time.

Live projects

The Hustle App

In February, I continued to use Hustle every day and prepare a landing page for the Producthunt launch.

I took all critiques from the subreddit launch to my heart and created an intro video, personal story copy, and a free trial offer. Everything was set and ready and I was about to launch it on Producthunt.

But I didn't account for the fact, that don't they allow posting products if your account is new. There is a one week grace period and because of that, I didn't post it in February as planned.

Good House Music

At the time of writing this post, my channel grew to 54 subscribers. A 14% increase over the previous month.

The growth slowed down significantly compared to autumn last year, but I am quite happy to reach 50 subscribers milestone. According to linear projections, I should reach 500 subscribers in 2025, fingers crossed.

My new render rig helped me to speed up post-production flow to a great extent. If one hour render took me a week before, now it takes up to 14 hours to finish a jpeg sequence.

The next biggest bottleneck is sourcing and curating music, which can take anywhere from two hours to 6 hours. Luckily, this is what I enjoy, discovering hidden gems and putting those pieces together into majestic jewelry.

Financia

There was a hike in interest rate last month, so I spend two days updating product terms on my website. Other than that nothing much happened.

Income Report Breakdown

Savings Accounts

The battle royale in the savings account arena started again. I took the chance and moved the savings to the best offer on the market.

The 2% is still below the inflation levels, but somethings tell me with the coronavirus outbreak happening, I will need liquid cash more than ever.

No point in locking cash in longer-term assets as of now.

Used Stuff Sales

My path to life minimalism went well in February. I got rid of a small LCD monitor, some alcohol bottles, and a piano for kids.

Yes, alcohol sells. I noticed the buyers are usually restaurant owners, who scout for cheap booze, so they can mix it up with regularly bought bottles, to make even more money.

And since the margin on a drink is astronomical, buying 50% cheaper booze can make them twice the return on the initial investment. If vodka costs 15USD a bottle and one drink costs 2USD, the ROI is 10x. But if they get a bottle for 7.5USD, the revenue doubles.

Then I sold shoe lifters to some poor guy, who was even smaller than me. Please don't laugh, you don't even know how height plays a huge role in social dynamics.

There were dark times when I was genuinely worried about my height. In Vietnam, I would belong to the top 20% of the highest, but here, I was at a disadvantage.

So I listened to some guru online and bought shoe lifters to increase my height up to 5.9 ft. I quickly realized this fakery was not natural and I felt ashamed of even trying.

Plus I would have to buy new shoes to cover up the lifters. I warned this guy about the disadvantages and he nodded. So I hope he knows what is he doing and the shoe lifter will get him some hot ladies.

Plans, dreams, and wishes

My goals for March are following. Automate my crypto trading strategy, create an index fund and stock investing algo, replace jQuery with Vue.JS on Financia, add a blogging feature on TheHustle and brainstorm my next MVP journey.

That would be it. Thank you so much for following me on this journey and see you in the next report.