This is the first post in a series I call Building Akordium Lab - monthly dispatches on building a software company out of Surabaya, written as I go, not after the victory lap.
Why write in public? Two reasons. First, I learn best by writing: if it is not documented, the experience simply evaporates. Second, I envy the folks building small businesses out in the open: open startups, indie hackers, developers selling their own products. They own their narrative and community. I want that too, in my own version.
Oh, and one disclaimer: this series is not a success story. It is a process log. The numbers and conclusions here might be wrong, and part of the fun later on will be rereading these posts a year from now while shaking my head.
Why Start #
I am a backend developer. My day-to-day work involves PHP/Laravel, increasingly more Go, PostgreSQL, and systems that must stay alive around the clock, including a GPS tracking system handling vehicle locations for thousands of units every day. Work I genuinely enjoy.
Yet the career pattern of “project comes in -> build it -> ship it -> gone” began feeling wasteful. Every project produces hard-won knowledge - architecture decisions, trade-offs, mistakes, how to fix an incident at 2 AM - and all of it evaporates the moment the contract closes. One unit of work, one output. No compounding assets.
So I designed Akordium Lab around a single principle: one piece of work must produce multiple assets. A client project should yield articles, libraries, templates, case studies, and, when feasible, products. Out of everything I have planned for the next 12 months, this is the one non-negotiable rule.
What Is on the Table (September 2026) #
To keep things honest, here is the baseline inventory - the state of affairs at the end of September 2026, right as this content strategy kicked off:
Already live:
- akordium.id - the company landing page, listing services and portfolio.
- najib.id - this personal blog. Two content tracks are currently in flight: the Hijrah Backend narrative series (a 9-episode story migrating 370+ endpoints) that just came out, and the GPS Backend tutorial series kicking off this week; the rest is a mix of older posts (2019-2023) and a few other 2026 pieces.
- Several internal products at varying stages, ranging from tools in active use to concepts that exist only as business design documents.
- DukunGPS - an open-core GPS tracking platform plan that I take most seriously: the business design was finished and approved in July 2026, waiting on execution. Its foundation is the production GPS fleet tracking experience I share in the GPS Backend series.
Freshly organized this month:
- Internal documentation system (HQ) - a single home for SOPs, product specs, and content strategy. Previously scattered across chats, memory, and random docs.
- 12-week content roadmap - GPS Backend Series as the flagship, AI workflow articles, and this Building Akordium Lab series.
- GPS series master doc - all technical material for the GPS series compiled into one single source of truth before being split into articles. Like I said: one unit of work, multiple assets.
Not yet there: a steady readership (newsletter/RSS subscribers are still in the single digits), product revenue (still zero - development consulting services keep the lights on), and name recognition beyond my immediate circle.
Guiding Principles #
Three decisions that might differ from typical software agencies:
- Backend first, keep it simple first. Go + PostgreSQL + modular monolith. No microservices on day one, no Kubernetes out of FOMO. Complexity is bought when needed, not when trendy - a lesson carried over from the production system migrations I write about on this blog.
- Open core for products. DukunGPS is modeled after Traccar: open source core (Apache 2.0), paid enterprise features. Open source becomes the engine for trust and distribution, not a CSR gesture.
- Write everything down. Every architectural decision, every solved problem, every mistake. The personal blog serves as the authority engine, akordium.id as the conversion engine. They feed each other rather than compete.
12-Month Targets #
To keep myself accountable, I broke down the targets into measurable milestones:
| Target | Metric |
|---|---|
| GPS Backend Series completed + compiled into an ebook | 6+ articles, 1 lead magnet ebook |
| Content published consistently | adheres to roadmap, no gap > 2 weeks |
| Newsletter gains its first core readership | 50 subscribers |
| DukunGPS crosses Phase 0-1 milestone | open-source core repo released + early community |
| Contributors/leads generated from content | prospective client mentions “read the blog first” |
What I am not targeting in these 12 months: product revenue replacing consulting services. Realistically, that takes 2-3 years. This year is about building assets and distribution.
Mistakes This Month #
Yesterday’s content planning session almost produced a funny little accident: my AI assistant and I almost rewrote an article that had already been written - an old draft sat quietly in a folder without either of us remembering it. Not just once, almost twice.
The takeaway: unwritten memory does not exist. Now all content plans live in a single roadmap with per-article status tracking, plus cross-session memory for the AI assistant. Very meta, but the principle “document it or lose it” proved true even for the documentation process itself.
Metrics to Report Monthly #
Every Building Akordium Lab post will report the same set of metrics so progress can be compared over time:
- Published content vs planned
- Product progress (DukunGPS and companions)
- Subscribers/traffic
- One mistake + one lesson learned
- Key decisions made that month
I will hold off on financial figures for now - there is nothing exciting to share yet, and I have not decided how open I want to be on that front. We will see.
That is the starting baseline. The desk is cleared, the roadmap is written, and the GPS series starts publishing next week.
If you are building something too - a product, an agency, anything - I would love to hear your story. Reach out here, or follow along via RSS.
Next month: the first report.
Cheers.