I Code At 4 AM In Cuba Because That's When the Internet Works

I code at 4 AM in Cuba because that’s when the internet works. No Stripe. No PayPal. No reliable way to monetize anyone outside my island bubble. Zero users last month, too. The truth? I don’t care. Most mornings, I’m back at it. My little side project feels like the only piece of the internet I own, even if no one knows it yet.

Why 4 AM? Welcome to Cuban Internet Rules #

If you complain about AWS latency or DigitalOcean randomly killing your VPS, try living in Cuba. The internet here is… creative. If you want a semi-decent connection, you’re playing weird games: 3 AM for ‘acceptable’ speeds, 4 AM if you don’t want constant drop-offs. And let me be honest: if the internet gods are laughing in your face that day, it doesn’t matter what time it is. I’ve lost entire code pushes because the connection tanked in the last 5 seconds of a git push origin master. There’s no “I’ll update packages quickly” here either. Those bloated NPM packages that everyone whines about? Multiply the pain by dial-up speeds. Updating one basic Node module feels like birthing a whale. Spoiler: I avoid updates until something outright breaks.

No Stripe? No PayPal? What Do You Even Build? #

Good question. The short answer: something weird nobody asked for. It’s a tiny SaaS app that lets people create minimalist “personal status pages” to announce things like “I’m on vacation” or “Stop bugging me; I’m focused on my PhD.” Yes, I know. It’s niche. But there’s something freeing about building something just because you can. See, here’s the real kicker: even if I had Stripe or PayPal, I’d probably charge nothing at this stage anyway. I’m still figuring out who’d even use this thing beyond “people I DM on Twitter asking, ‘So… hypothetically, would you pay for X?’” Think of this more like my sanity project than a business—though, if anyone wants to help me side-hustle-plan this thing, please holler. I’ll pay you in cigars.

Building With Zero Users Feels Stupid (But Isn’t) #

There’s a comment on r/sideproject that stuck with me. Someone said, “You don’t need users to practice building good habits.” I didn’t save the username (sorry, random internet sage), but it hit me hard. No one talks about this: most of us suck at framing side projects the right way. Either we pressure ourselves to “become the next Notion” (and inevitably burn out), or we assume it’ll be worthless (and stop before even launching). Building with 0 users, no money, and crappy internet? It’s an experiment. It’s practice. Every dumb mistake I make on this project is a lesson I won’t repeat if, someday, a real business idea crosses my desk.
Like when I accidentally left a test endpoint open and someone DELETED MY ENTIRE DATABASE because I was using MongoDB on free-tier Atlas with no IP whitelisting. Lesson learned. (And no, before you ask—I did not have backups. 😂)

Should You Build in Public? Here’s Why I Do It Anyway #

Let’s talk “building in public.” I post updates on my app, share the handful of stupid-win moments (“My mom is my first paying user! Thanks, Mom!”), and, yeah, I post about the failures too. It’s not because I’m some LinkedIn thought-leader bro. It’s because the process forces me to stay accountable. Example: Three months ago, I tweeted some broken-terminal screenshot that said, “Adding dark mode today! It’ll be ready by the weekend.” I spent four Saturdays chasing weird design bugs in Tailwind, but guess what? I finished it. People on the internet saw me declare something. Couldn’t break the streak. Do I recommend public updates to everyone? No. It takes energy. It’s overkill if you’re not a sharer. But if you’re like me—someone who needs an occasional “nudge” from the void of the internet—it can be a game-changer.

Final Thoughts (And Why You Should Build Anyway) #

Coding in Cuba is wild, frustrating, and amazing in equal parts. With almost zero infrastructure or payment tools, I’ll probably never get rich doing this here. At best, my side project grows into something I’m genuinely proud of, and, maybe, inspires one other person to try something equally insane. At worst? I’ll still have learned 100 things about launching, running servers on $5 VPS plans, debugging Tailwind headaches, and smashing MongoDB bugs. Building something, anything, in public—even when your odds of success are garbage—is like a tiny rebellion against perfectionism. And honestly? That’s reason enough.