I found 200WordsADay -

200WAD

- on the twilight of

2018

.

One of the first things I noticed upon entering the site was the founder's profile picture: I thought he looked like such a super hero in that picture. It was an illustration of his face gleaming off into the distance not looking directly at you. He had the stare of someone who had an adamant purpose.

This was back before the

Indie Hackers

craze was yet in full swing. It was still a bit of a niche at the time, which meant I had no idea about the trend. Thus to me

Baz

- the founder of 200WAD -- was one of my first examples of what an Indie Hacker was. And thus to me he was like a super hero.

I remember receiving my first comment from him, growing so excited, I replied something along the lines of "Wow you read my post!" he said he read a lot of things and laughed. This was back when 200WAD was going well. It was in its infant stage, had just gotten to the top page of

Hacker News

, which is how I found it. It had also just been featured on

Product Hunt

having won some product of the TIMEFRAME award.

Because of other likeminded people flooding in, excited to form and finally sustain a

Writing

habit

, the site not only felt like a

website

but rather a real place. A 

place

you would go to knowing you would run into somebody who might surprise you. Or you might not run into anyone at all, and you'd simply people watch. A place like a real cafe.

There was so much chatter about Indie Hacking, 

streaks

, and how impressive our young founder was. There was nothing but optimistic energy in the air. The future for 200WAD and everybody in it felt limitless.

In five years time, I think everybody assumed that Baz would be a 

salmon profitable

indie hacker, and the many of us would be published writers. There was even a post about that exact theme. In Five Years Time.