[Blog #13] Personal Struggles, Financial Situation and More.
Added 2025-03-24 17:01:03 +0000 UTCHey everyone!
This post is not about complaints or an attempt to increase income. I’m not asking for additional financial help, nor am I writing this in an effort to change anything. I just want to be honest with you and share a part of my life. After all, that’s what blogs are for.
This post will be long and public because I frequently receive requests for the product to be free, with people saying, "I don’t spend money on things like this."
🚧 Personal Struggles
Recent events have drastically changed my life. The freelance team I relied on for most of my income has disbanded. I used to work freelance for just 3 hours a day, leaving the rest of my time (5-7 hours) for Syrffe Production. This allowed me to develop the project without a major financial hit. Now, Syrffe Production is my only source of income. Looking for a job? Not an option. I know how enterprise work functions, and I understand that I would have zero personal time - at least for the first year. That’s why, in one of my past dev blogs, I said that I’m betting everything on this project. I have consciously refused to search for a job in favor of this project.
💰 Project’s Financial Situation
I’ve always dreamed of working full-time on Syrffe Production, but let’s be real—project income has remained within $500–800 per month for the past 12 months. Out of that:
🔹 $300–400 goes toward services, artist payments, and other expenses.
🔹 $400 is rent.
In the end, I’m left with nothing while losing a massive amount of potential income I could be earning as a Senior Software Engineer.
I dedicate all my time to development, marketing, and improving the product, hoping that once one of the apps is released, everything will change. I dream of assembling a full-fledged team and creating the best techdom software in the world. But every month, it gets mentally harder. Instead of subscriber growth, the project is experiencing user churn. More and more people demand the app for free, without realizing the sacrifices I’m making or how much effort development actually requires.
⏳ Time and Mental State
I used to love hosting techdom sessions in Discord, but I had to stop - there’s simply no time. I see my wife less often. I talk to my friends less often. I can’t even watch a single episode of a show, because any bug can take 12+ hours to fix. And the worst part—I can’t go outside.
I live in Ukraine, and stepping outside is literally life-threatening. If you’re curious, just see #busification on Twitter. In short: military recruiters are abducting men from the streets and sending them to the front lines in their place, while the government turns a blind eye and justifies it as "necessary for war."
I haven’t left my apartment since August 2024. My mental state is terrible. The only things that help are vitamins, exercise, and "calming" pills. But despite all this, I keep going. I still hope that my project will attract more people, funding, and recognition. I’m confident that with my skills and experience, I could lead a development company at an AAA level. That would be a dream come true.
🚀 Development Continues
Meanwhile, I continue to work on the project, and over the past week, mostly technical changes have been made, so there won’t be a dev blog today. Instead, I wanted to have an honest conversation with you. There are things worth saying, and things better left unsaid. But I believe it’s important for you to know how I live outside of development and the challenges I face.
I'm incredibly grateful to every single one of you who supports the project. You are the only reason Syrffe Production still exists.
I sincerely, truly appreciate that I have people like you by my side. One day, I’ll prove my gratitude not just with words, but with actions. I have a few ideas, but first, I need to stabilize my income.
For those who want to support the project for more than $30/month, Patreon allows you to set any custom amount on the payment page.
However, I won’t be able to see who increases their pledge, so please let me know if you do so that I can personally thank you.
