I quit my job at Google a little over a year ago to work full time on my product. I still don't make near half the salary, but that connection to my users using a product I built is something that, prior to this last year, I didn't know I'd be so attached to.

Users message me to appreciate some small look & feel improvements, they leave feedback and I fix things for them, I get excited about a new feature and it brings value to their work. I let them vote on the more experimental ideas.

I get happily excited for each new subscription, and it all feels earned, a stark contrast to how I felt about my biweekly paychecks at corporate life.

The product [0] launched on HN a year ago, and I've worked on it almost every day since then, and after having reached some threshold of MRR, I've since felt that I can keep working on it forever.

Tonight, I'm up late releasing another feature [1]. The motivation to do so feels effortless, as, it's my garden.

[0] https://terrastruct.com

[1] Sync diagrams with a github repo, ~hacking the README as a presentation tool (https://github.com/terrastruct-bot/Demo)