Month 2: I Almost Gave Up. Then Magic Happened at 4 AM.

Day 47 - February 16th, 11:30 PM

Staring at my bank account. We have 3 months of runway left. Maybe 4 if we eat more ramen.

Isabella's asleep. Mango's snoring. I'm debugging why CodeContext crashes on files larger than 1000 lines.

// Error message haunting my dreams
Error: Maximum call stack size exceeded
  at parseAST (parser.js:147:5)
  at parseAST (parser.js:147:5)
  at parseAST (parser.js:147:5)
  ... 16,384 more lines

Starting to question everything.

Day 48 - February 17th, 2:15 PM

Isabella found me passed out on my keyboard. Apparently I typed 3 pages of "hhhhhhhhhhh" into the code.

Her: "When's the last time you went outside?"

Me: "What day is it?"

Her: "Saturday."

Me: "What month?"

Her: Concerned girlfriend noises

She's right. I've become a code hermit. Mango doesn't even recognize me anymore.

Day 52 - February 21st, 7:00 PM

Major setback. A potential enterprise customer tried CodeContext:

$ codecontext generate --folder ./enterprise-app

Analyzing 10,847 files...
[1 hour later]
Error: Out of memory
FATAL ERROR: Reached heap limit Allocation failed

Their feedback: "Interesting idea, but not ready for real codebases."

Translation: Your toy project can't handle actual work.

I wanted to argue. But they were right.

Day 55 - February 24th, 3:00 AM

Can't sleep. Again. Completely rewrote the parser for the 4th time:

// Attempt #4: Stream processing instead of loading everything
class IncrementalParser {
  async *parseDirectory(dir: string) {
    const files = await this.getFiles(dir);
    
    for (const file of files) {
      // Process one file at a time
      yield await this.parseFile(file);
      
      // Free memory after each file
      if (global.gc) global.gc();
    }
  }
}

Still crashing. I'm missing something fundamental.

Day 58 - February 27th, 10:30 AM

Lowest point. Sitting in our kitchen, Isabella making breakfast, me staring at my laptop.

Me: "Maybe I should go back to a regular job."

Isabella: Stops cooking "What?"

Me: "It's been two months. We have 50 active users. The enterprise features don't work. We're burning through savings."

Isabella: Sits down "Show me what you're building."

I hadn't actually shown her the full product. Just complained about it.

Day 58 - February 27th, 11:00 AM

Demoed CodeContext to Isabella:

$ codecontext generate ./test-project

✓ Analyzed 24 files
✓ Generated documentation for 156 functions
✓ Created component guides
✓ Built API references

$ cat Button.jsx
// Before: No documentation

$ cat Button.jsx
// After: Fully documented with examples

Isabella: "Wait, it wrote all of that?"

Me: "Yeah, but it crashes on large—"

Isabella: "This is incredible. Why didn't you show me earlier?"

Me: "Because it's not perfect..."

Isabella: "Nothing is. Ship it anyway."

Day 59 - February 28th, 4:17 AM

Couldn't stop thinking about what Isabella said. Then it hit me.

I've been trying to parse EVERYTHING. But what if... I didn't?

// The breakthrough: Selective parsing
class SmartParser {
  async parse(directory: string) {
    // 1. First pass: Build dependency graph
    const graph = await this.buildDependencyGraph(directory);
    
    // 2. Identify critical paths
    const criticalFiles = graph.getCriticalPath();
    
    // 3. Parse only what matters
    for (const file of criticalFiles) {
      await this.deepParse(file);
    }
    
    // 4. Lazy-parse everything else
    for (const file of graph.getNonCritical()) {
      await this.shallowParse(file);
    }
  }
}

Holy. Shit. It works.

$ codecontext generate ./enterprise-app

Analyzing 10,847 files...
✓ Built dependency graph in 12s
✓ Identified 247 critical files
✓ Deep parsed critical paths
✓ Shallow parsed 10,600 files
✓ Generated documentation in 2m 14s

Memory used: 247MB (was 8GB before)

Day 60 - March 1st, 9:00 AM

Emailed the enterprise customer:

"Hi, we fixed the memory issues. CodeContext now handles codebases of any size. Would you mind trying again?"

Their response (2 hours later):

"This is significantly better. Let's schedule a call."

Day 60 - March 1st, 6:00 PM

The numbers after 60 days:

CodeContext Stats:

const metrics = {
  totalUsers: 312,
  activeUsers: 89,
  githubStars: 1,247,
  npmDownloads: 4,521,
  enterpriseLeads: 3,
  revenue: 0, // 😅
  
  // But also:
  documentedFunctions: 147_384,
  timeSavedHours: 2_947,
  developersHelped: 312,
  problemsSolved: 1 // The big one
};

Personal Stats:

• Weight lost: 5kg (Isabella says I need to eat)
• Coffee addiction: Severe
• Relationship status: Somehow still together
• Dog's opinion of me: Improving
• Mental health: Rollercoaster
• Determination: Stronger than ever

Day 60 - March 1st, 10:00 PM

Isabella and I are walking Mango. First proper walk in weeks.

Isabella: "You know what you did wrong?"

Me: "Everything?"

Isabella: "You tried to build the perfect product alone. But your users would have helped if you'd let them."

Me: "..."

Isabella: "Also, you need a shower."

She's right. About both things.

The Lesson

Two months in, here's what I learned:

1. Perfect is the enemy of shipped
2. Your first solution will be wrong (and that's okay)
3. Users > Features
4. Mental health > Code quality
5. Having support changes everything

The breakthrough didn't come from coding harder. It came from stepping back, getting perspective, and realizing I was solving the wrong problem.

We're still not profitable. We're still figuring things out. But we're moving forward.

And sometimes, that's enough.

P.S.

To everyone who's building something:

It's okay to doubt yourself at 3 AM. It's okay to consider giving up. It's okay to not have all the answers.

What's not okay is giving up before you try that one different approach. The breakthrough is always one experiment away.

Keep building. Keep shipping. Keep believing.

And maybe eat something besides coffee.

Month 3 update coming soon. The enterprise deal, the first hire, and why Mango ate my business plan.

Follow the journey: @yonasvalentin