I’ve been building a tech startup solo for five and a half years…trying to solve a lifetime problem.
The graph of my bank account is looking like the Grand Canyon right now. It’s sad. But here’s the crazy part: I’ve never been more excited to wake up and work!
Right now, everyone on the internet is trying to sell you their course on how to build an app in 10 minutes and become a millionaire before you’re even born. That overnight success is a myth. The sweetness of success comes from pursuing something that actually matters. And the reality is, when you are trying to design something that heals people’s minds, the internal work takes just as long as the actual work.
You can’t sell a solution to a problem you haven’t even solved yet. So today, I want to talk to you about what actually happens when you commit to the long game. How I navigated the Fog of War for the last five years, and more importantly, how you can track your own invisible progress before the burnout takes you out.
So let me take you back. I was born in Indonesia, and my parents divorced when I was young. I spent my key developmental years—the time when you're supposed to learn emotional modeling—completely away from them. By the time I reunited with my mom in the US, there was this deep, heavy emotional disconnection. That feeling was the seed that got me interested in psychology. I was like, I need to figure out how personal relationships work.
The thing was, when I was in college, I actually started as a Math major. I didn’t go for Psychology because apparently Math is better for you financially. But that same semester, I took one Psych class, and I was hooked! I’m not really a good student or even an organized one. But for that class, I was taking notes in 3 different colors! At that time, I knew Psych was calling me so I changed my major.
You’d think I’d be a therapist or counselor by now if I really wanted to solve that deep disconnection. But nope, I learned really quick that the heavy research you need to do as a Psych student is not for me. I thought, well…the mind is interesting, but…it’s hard. Let me go for the second thing I like, so I switched my major to communication. And part of me still thinks this way can somehow help me figure out this human relationships stuff.
The real test came during my senior year. I was fortunate and brave enough to meet the love of my life. Eventually, I moved to Taiwan to be with her. I became an immigrant for the second time.
This is where the invisible walls started to really hit me. I brought all of my past baggage, cultural differences, and maladaptive thinking right into the relationship. I had the awareness to see the “enemies” looming in the dark, but I didn’t have the tools to actually defeat them.
So during COVID, I started teaching myself how to code. I knew I needed to build a tool to track these behaviors. But I didn't want something clinical or boring. I'm a gamer. I wanted to bring fantasy and RPG mechanics into the real world. I wanted to make emotional work feel interesting and less intimidating.
I was trying to build in this space of "gamified mental health," but that space didn't really exist. There was no playbook or experts who’ve done it. And when you are in the Fog of War for that long, something happens. You start fighting ghosts. My biggest enemy wasn’t other competitors, it was my own impostor syndrome. My mind was telling me, I got no business building this. I don’t have the skills or even qualified for it. You also need to go out there and talk to people, find your users, and see if people even need this. My idea was getting rejected constantly and I’m already bad at taking rejection. My mind was looking for acceptance of who I am as a person instead of actual feedback on my idea. And let me tell you, Validation is completely useless when you are looking through a broken lens. If you fundamentally don't believe in your own character stats, nothing is going to help you change that. So, I was stuck…
I had this uncomfortable realization: listening to the standard startup advice—trying to solve for the market—was a trap for me. I was trying to build a generic product for a generic audience. But you can't build a life raft for others if you’re the one who is currently drowning. I had this undeniable urge to just solve my own pain first.
And I have always looked at the world symbolically. Metaphors just make sense to me.
So I stopped trying to build a standard mental health app, and embraced the language that made sense to me: gaming and fantasy. I started mapping out my actual, real-life relationship friction using RPG mechanics.
If you look at the tech world today, people are launching AI apps in a weekend. So taking five years to build Selfrell sounds insane. Well, not only was I building it solo, I was making sure that the tool actually works. I needed it to heal my own maladaptive behaviors before I put it into the real world. I didn’t want to build another AI-wrapper that does the mental push-ups for you while expecting you to get the muscles. You can’t rush that kind of internal work.
Eventually, I reached the milestone. I built the dream app I wished existed when I was a kid. The code, the psychology, the RPG mechanics—it all finally lined up. But getting there was really hard. That Everest-sized mountain of a challenge I overcame doesn’t reflect the Grand Canyon graph of my bank account. I was ignoring the fact that I built a life-changing app because the financial mirror was telling me that I was failing. It felt like trying to swim to the surface with a boulder tied to your leg. And when you are in the Fog of War for that long, juggling a million different things, you have to redefine what the 'goal' actually is. My goal wasn't just shipping an app to get rich; it was surviving the build without losing the real purpose—understanding the human connection puzzle that was missing. To survive that long game, I had to redefine what wealth actually looked like. I needed to track the invisible progress in my life.
First, I now have a much healthier and resilient mind. Selfrell gave me the tools to navigate the invisible walls in my life. Real conflicts in my marriage feel like sparring sessions instead of a disaster because of the internal work. That is worth a lot more than money.
Second, even without thousands of reviews, I can finally see real impact. Users are engaging with the mechanics I built. There are people out there quietly using the platform to reflect, track their behaviors, and shift their habits. It’s helping others all over the world. That’s a win, and the financial reward might come later.
And third, I laid out the concrete foundation. I built the ecosystem from scratch. Now I’m ranking for keywords. I own my space on the internet, and I’m the number one power-user for my own product. I didn't just spend five years building an app. I spent those years leveling myself up into the founder I actually needed to be.
We are so conditioned to only look at and celebrate the financial reward. But if you ignore the slow progress, the burnout will get to you.
So I want you to pause and think for a second. You are probably grinding on a project, a relationship, or a business right now, and you are frustrated because you don't see any external payout yet.
What invisible wins have you achieved this year that you aren't giving yourself XP for?
Are you better at regulating your emotions? Are you getting better at holding boundaries with your family? Did you finally learn that complex skill?
When you’re in it for the long game, you have to define and track what progress looks like. Logging that invisible XP is not going to instantly make you a millionaire. But it can make your baseline stable. Use that progress to move you one step forward. Build a resilient mind by giving you the objective proof that you are growing and leveling up. And that proof is the only thing that keeps you in the game long enough to actually win.
If you need the tool to help you track your internal growth, check out Selfrell, link to it below. It has been life-changing for me and I hope it can do the same for you.
