#007 - The Daily Grind (And Why I Love It)

Issue #007: The Daily Grind (And Why I Love It)

January 27, 2026

Welcome back!

Just wrapped a full week of events at Nomad Summit. Builders everywhere. The kind of energy that makes you want to ship everything at once.

A few readers asked for more of the daily reality. Not the wins. The grind.

I’m still working long days, but the impact isn’t even close to what it was a few months ago.

Let me explain.

The Split

I balance client work with my own products.

Client work takes about half my time right now. Architecture consulting. Debugging complex systems. Code reviews. I’m working on shifting that ratio. More product time, less client time; without sacrificing quality or attention to detail.

Architecture energizes me. Helping teams think through hard problems. Designing systems that scale. That’s the good stuff.

Debugging has become an AI challenge now. I’ve set up agents that monitor and fix issues. Proactive and reactive. The repetitive stuff gets automated.

Code reviews are still a bottleneck. Lots of context switching. More manual work than there should be. I have ideas about this. Ideating and may end up building something to fix it.

Slow Down

Something I keep relearning.

AI is eager. Too eager. You give it a task and it races to produce output. Drafts, code, ideas. It wants to deliver immediately.

The trap is letting it.

Better results come from slowing down. Asking more questions. Real back and forth before any execution.

When I notice AI being too eager, I redirect. “Ask me some questions first.” “Let’s discuss this more.” “What are you assuming?”

The conversation is where the value lives. The output is just the artifact.

Outsource execution to AI. Partner with AI on decisions. Don’t outsource understanding.

AI implements what I designed. AI helps me think through tradeoffs. AI spots things I missed.

But AI doesn’t decide what to build. And if I can’t explain what got built, I don’t own it.

Human in the loop. Right there in the name.

Tether Update

Some of you have followed Tether. The SMS without borders service for nomads and teams who need reliable SMS forwarding.

It’s on the verge of launching.

I’ve been using a working version myself for months. But there’s a gap between “works for me” and “ready for real users.”

The past few months have been about infrastructure and systems that need to be rock-solid before real users touch it. Provider integrations. Edge cases. Infrastructure that has to be solid before anyone touches it.

I’m excited. And nervous. Worried about the details I might have missed.

Mostly excited though. I’ve had this problem for years. Missing verification codes. Getting locked out of accounts while traveling. Building something for your own pain hits different.

Looking forward to real users. Real feedback. Making it actually good.

Very soon now.

What Else I’m Building

This is what the grind looks like right now.

Two things I’m excited about.

A tool for expense management. Born from frustration. Apps that don’t sync. Tools where I can’t easily ask questions about my own spending. Too much manual work.

I want something that connects my expenses to my accounting software. Eventually, business intelligence I can actually query. “What did I spend on subscriptions last quarter?” Just ask.

A suite of desktop apps for developers. The missing UI layers on top of AI coding tools. Something that enforces a structured workflow. Spec first, then implement, then review. Based on how I’ve been building software for almost 20 years. A guided experience that codifies what actually works.

Code reviews being a bottleneck? This will likely evolve to address that.

Both in active development.

The Energy

Yes, I still work long days. The grind is real.

But it’s fun. Building things you believe in changes everything.

The impact of each day now versus a year ago isn’t even comparable. I ship more. I understand more. The tools got better. My systems got better.

That’s the grind I live for.

And when I’m not working, I’m spending time with friends and loved ones, on my own schedule. I honestly can’t complain.

Coming Next

I’ve been experimenting with everyone’s favourite tool of the week, Clawdbot. An AI assistant running 24/7. I’ve given it its own VPS and I can interact with it from my laptop or phone.

I used it throughout Nomad Summit. Captured notes. Saved links. Organized everything straight to my Obsidian vault in real time.

Felt like a superpower; and I’m only just getting started with it.

I’ll share more about my setup next issue.

Keep shipping,

Joey

P.S. If you’re building with AI and want to share your process, hit reply. I read everything.

P.P.S. Know someone navigating the indie builder life? Forward this. They can subscribe at jkudish.com/newsletter.