Log[0]: Hello, World!

You're probably wondering how I ended up in this situation..

It all started when I was in college. For every new year, I always set big goals like ship 3 apps, reach 1k MRR, etc. But I always failed after a few weeks. So this time I want to do something different. Instead of setting big, outcome-based goals, I will just focus on the process and write a weekly log to stay accountable.

I believe this approach will force me to be productive without worrying about the end result since I don’t set the outcome. This way, I can focus on the action rather than chasing an uncertain outcome and avoid the frustration of not meeting my goals at the end of the year. My only goal this year is just to sit down every Saturday morning and write this log.

Onboarding Session

Since this is the first week of 2026, and I want to tell you everything what I did each week for the rest of the year, I think it’s important to tell you what I’ve done last year.

TL;DR 2025 was crazy.

2025 was my first year after college and my internship at Traveloka was about to end in March. Like every fresh graduate, I struggled to find my first job because only a few companies were hiring juniors. So instead of trying to find jobs, I thought it will be easier to just build something on my own and surprisingly it’s indeed the case.

My First App

Sometime in February, I published my first app Filtera. Previously, the goal of this project was just so I have something in my portfolio, and hopefully it will help me when applying for jobs. For the first month, the app generated less than $10, which obviously not a lot but it’s enough to convinced me that this is the way to go for me. Even on March when I was offered a fulltime role at Traveloka, I decided to reject it because of this.

1 Month before WWDC was my best month. Filtera reached #1 in Paid Utilities and #2 in Top Paid Apps and made it to the App Store’s front page. It generated $900+ a month while I do almost nothing to the app. Unfortunately Apple announced that iOS 26 will have spam text blocker built-in, so the app revenue took a hit and now it just generates a few hundred bucks a month (but hey, I still get paid without having to do something, so it’s still a win for me).

My First Job

On June, I joined a new company called Ape AI. Since 2023, I’ve told my friends that my perfect company will be:

• early-staged startup.
• building weird software.
• small team with cracked engineers and product team.

I know that I will join one of them one day (so confident of me lol), I just can’t believe somehow the first company that I joined already ticks all the boxes.

I joined Ape AI super early, they still haven’t released any app to the App Store yet and I was the second iOS engineer. The team was super cracked. They came from companies like Meta, Uber, DoorDash, Airbnb, Gemini, and other big tech companies. I thought engineers at Grab was super cracked, but man they just operate on a whole new level.

On August, we stayed in Bali for 6 weeks with almost all team members to focus on monetization. It was an amazing experience to work and hang out with super talented people. I always thought it will be super fun if I can spent few weeks with friends and just build things, and finally I can cross that off from my bucket list.

The company’s growth also has been unreal. We just started monetization in late October and now we almost reach 1 billion Rupiah in ARR.

So What’s Next

I really don’t know. I don’t set any outcome goals this year. I will just build things (mostly apps) and document it in my weekly log here. For the log itself, you can expect a short description on what I did, some experiments and the result, lesson learned, and the most important thing: I will share my meme collection (If you know me personally, you will know that I’m really proud of my meme collection that I have collected since high school).

Currently I’m building Sorto, an iOS app that let you to clean your photos gallery with.. wait for it.. ✨ AI ✨. Previously the goal was to release it on October, but as always, I procrastinated. I haven’t continue the development for the last few months. But it will be the first thing that I will do in 2026. I also already opened a wait list and got 22 sign ups. If you are interested with the app (I hope you do), you can sign up below:

Who’s This Newsletter For

TBH I write it for myself to stay accountable. But some people might want to subscribe so they can replicate my success (if that happen) or learn from my failures (this will happen for sure).

I also hope this can inspire others to build things and share their journey.

Random Things

It took 3 hours to setup the newsletter on Substack and write the first issue.