Well, 2018 isn't over yet, so I'm still holding out hope that my big accomplishment for this year will be launching our Fogcutter SaaS offering. It's very close to ready to launch, at least in the "soft launch" sense. That is, the site will be live and ready to accept customers. I don't know that we'll do much promotion initially, as there are still a lot of rough edges I want to polish.<p>OTOH, the old saying stands "if you aren't embarrassed to show your product to your mother, you waited too late to launch". And I would probably be embarrassed to show this stuff to my mom right now. I'd be embarrassed to do a Show HN for sure.<p>Anyway, if we sneak that in before midnight on 12/31/2018, I'll call that my accomplishment. If not, I'll fall back to saying my biggest accomplishment of 2018 was going through the Startup School program.<p>What did I learn? Wow.. so much. I'd probably have to write a book. Or at least a few blog posts. Offhand though, I'd say two of the biggest things I learned were just reaffirmations of things I'd at least heard - if not internalized - before:<p>1. The toughest part of being a founder is managing your own internal mental/emotional state. I forget who originally said that, maybe pg, or pmarca or somebody of that ilk. But it's very true. My morale has sunk pretty low a few times over the last 12 months and I've spent moments here and there in a real funk. But I've managed to keep reminding myself to shut down the negative self-chatter, keep working, and push through the tough times. It's important to remember that things usually get better, and that being negative and depressed doesn't help. So when I start questioning myself, I try to redirect my thoughts to "how does all this negativity help? What if I just STFU and keep working and see what tomorrow brings?" And as it happens, usually by the next day the moment has passed and I'm back in the saddle.<p>2. Startup School really reminded me of the importance of focusing on the problem you're solving, and the idea of doing the smallest subset of what you're trying to build, and then putting that "out there". In a talk, pg (or one of the speakers, but I think it was pg) referred to finding the "minimum quantum of utility" of your idea.<p>So having that thinking beat into my head repeatedly throughout SS was valuable. As pg said (paraphrased) "As a developer you can sit in a coffee shop or cafe and write code and work on your 'vision' forever. You need to actually get your thing out in front of the people you want to sell it to, preferably sooner than later".