---
aliases: ["August 2025"]
Is A: Month
Created at: "2025-08-28"
Belongs to: "[[25q3]]"
Rating: "🤩"
---
# August 2025

## Focus

- Publish [[25q3-ebook]] — final edits, cover design, launch campaign
- Ride Stelvio — the culmination of [[25q3-peak-training]] and [[2025-ride-stelvio]]
- Open [[25q3-community-launch]] to all premium subscribers

## Highlights

- Published [[25q3-ebook]] "The Engineering Leader's Playbook" — 1,400 copies sold in the first month at EUR 29, far exceeding the 500-copy target
- Rode Stelvio from Bormio in 1h52m — [[2025-ride-stelvio]] achieved — the hardest and most beautiful thing I've done on a bike
- [[25q3-community-launch]] opened to all premium members — 850 founding members, 65% weekly active rate from day one
- [[25q3-podcast-season-4]] debut: "Building Engineering Culture from Scratch" Part 1 got 22k downloads in the first week — biggest episode ever
- FTP peaked at 285W during [[25q3-peak-training]] — best numbers of my life
- Newsletter at 75k subscribers

## Reflections

Stelvio. I don't know how to write about it without sounding dramatic, so I'll just be dramatic. It was the hardest thing I've ever done on a bike. The Bormio side starts deceptively gentle — wide roads, gradual grade, you think "this isn't so bad." Then the switchbacks begin. 48 of them. Each one steeper than the last, each one revealing another section of road winding above you. At km 18, with 6 km still to go, I almost stopped. My legs were screaming, my heart rate was at 175, and a voice in my head was saying "you've proved enough." But I kept going because the summit was up there, and I'd been thinking about it since December. 1h52m. Not fast. But done. I cried at the top. No shame.

The ebook launch going well was almost anticlimactic after Stelvio. But 1,400 copies in the first month is genuinely impressive for a self-published niche book. The "real book" effect is interesting — people treat you differently when you have a book, even if the content is largely derived from free newsletter articles. Perception is reality in media.

I need to be honest: by the end of August, I was running on empty. Three big things shipped (ebook, community, Stelvio), podcast recording ongoing, newsletter still weekly. Sleep has been under 6 hours most nights. [[person-paco-furiani]] told me I looked tired on our weekly call. He's right. September needs to include real rest, or I'll pay for it later.
