Marty Markenson's Blog

From Banana Hands on YouTube to RSStoKindle, working on digital projects has melted into my daily routine.

I launched for the backlinks, but making the launch content reminded me why I built this thing in the first place.

My goal this week is for my Kindle to be at the top of my phone screen time report, so I started vibe coding tools to make it happen.

I was embarrassed by how bloated the app had gotten, so I spent two weeks rebuilding it from scratch around simplifying and explaining.

I spent three months building a post discovery algorithm nobody used.

I ignored RSStoKindle for a month.

Social media killed the discovery of good writing.

Months of building, and the market said it was not worth $7.

My first job after college was corporate hell.

For the first time, I built a product for myself first: RSStoKindle delivers posts from blogs I love to my Kindle as ePubs—no feed, no tabs, just words.

One of my favorite Claude Code workflows as a PM.

As a PM, I care about sprint goals, stability, and building the right thing—not who or how the code gets built.

"People don't pay for hard work.

Bought my dream house.

5 years ago I dove into real estate.

Quit my high-paying PM job in 2023 to go full time on a side hustle.

I've put pressure on myself to hit $10k MRR, launch a podcast, build a known product.

Nope.

A video editing service for realtors.

Why blindly shipping products is like giving keyboards to monkeys and hoping for Shakespeare.

At its peak it made $10k/month and $56k total.

Gave it a shot, learned a good lesson.

Got married, rebuilt the Apollo Theaters website, hiked 3 peaks, finished trail races, Disney twice, Noah Kahan, closed my first product, won vacations at charity auction.

To build a lean, high-growth product, you need something that can be explained in a single screenshot.

Everyone says starting a business is hard.