Japan Journey

2024

My Journey:

• Arriving in Japan
• Deciding what to build
• Late night coding -> "MVP"
• Daily Starbucks, Mike-san, and Kōdan Website
• Doubt, Dieter Sabbatical, Birth of Kōdan Desktop
• Desktop Launch, Analysis, and Convo With Mentor
• Leaving Japan

Hey, Thomas here! I’m years old (as of today), but as of writing this I am 19.96 years old. I spent the past 2 months in a rural Japanese village coding a project with my best friend, Dieter.

We set out with the goal to build a software project that we love and that can generate revenue such that we can survive from it. We succeeded in making something we love (Kōdan.app & Kōdan Desktop), but we failed in the pursuit of making something that is useful to others such that it can generate revenue.

This page is about our journey and the many unlikely friends we made along the way, not so much the destination. It's also about the many lessons we learned from the things we did well and the things we did not so well along the journey.

As I am writing this, I'm reaching the end of my journey and the start of a new journey. I am reaching the final nights of living here in a cabin in Saitama. Soon (starting Oct 1st), I'll be living in a Hacker House in San Francisco.

until next time... bom bom bommmmmmmmmmm...

~Thomas