Ask HN: Why is nearing completion so demotivating? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Why is nearing completion so demotivating?

#141

Post by m-p-3 » Thu, May 24, 2018, 11:52 AM UTC

mikekchar wrote: post #22

When your project is finished, the dream is dead and the reality is born. The death of a dream is like the death of a friend. It's probably been with you for a long time -- longer even than the length of the project. A dream is the manifestation of what's possible. When it is over, the possible diminishes very quickly and you are left with what actually is. Will people respond well to your project -- in the dream sta…

I guess it's kinda like when one of your kids grow up enough to fly by themselves. You're proud of them, but you're also sad to see them go.

Re: Ask HN: Why is nearing completion so demotivating?

#142

Post by mgoetzke » Thu, May 24, 2018, 12:12 PM UTC

I know that feeling very well. But there is only one answer, keep walking out of this hell.

Re: Ask HN: Why is nearing completion so demotivating?

#143

Post by imhoguy » Thu, May 24, 2018, 12:13 PM UTC

I think there is potential that you may spend another year to polish your launch without earning anything. Why big launch then?

Maybe you should just now release a quick alpha version and share it for free on a niche forum with your target audience. I am sure you will get a valuable feedback. There may be people who may want to donate to help you with beta and then GA version. If you succeed then you will worry, you can always employ somebody, sell everything, open-source or just fork with your new direction.

Re: Ask HN: Why is nearing completion so demotivating?

#144

Post by agucho » Thu, May 24, 2018, 12:50 PM UTC

funfunfunction wrote: post #74

mikekchar wrote: post #22

When your project is finished, the dream is dead and the reality is born. The death of a dream is like the death of a friend. It's probably been with you for a long time -- longer even than the length of the project. A dream is the manifestation of what's possible. When it is over, the possible diminishes very quickly and you are left with what actually is. Will people respond well to your project -- in the dream sta…

> in the dream stage it is possible; everything is possible. In the reality stage, it will only be what it is. Best comment I've read all week.

Yes, but... not b/c the dream stage includes the possibility of succeeding. It's all the other possible outcomes that make it richer and preferable to the reality stage, where one and only one thing will be. Even if that thing IS success. This is the unknown vs certainty, the unfortunate and mind-bending nature of desire. The reason https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_on_a_winter%27s_night_a_tra... is so great. And the reason I'm not doing what I should be doing... :(

Re: Ask HN: Why is nearing completion so demotivating?

#145

Post by gitgud » Thu, May 24, 2018, 1:04 PM UTC

INTPenis wrote: post #135

I can only speak for myself but I consider myself to be some sort of pro academic. I should maybe consider a career at a university. Because one of my biggest flaws is that I love starting projects and following them through until I've learned everything new I can squeeze out of them. Then just before the finish line when I feel that I have a good understanding of the project my energy and willpower falters and my fo…

You're not the only one, I too enjoy the learning process much more then finishing the project.

It seems I'm always learning new skills in preparation for something greater. Maybe its just a lie I tell myself in order to prevent disappointment...

Re: Ask HN: Why is nearing completion so demotivating?

#146

Post by gitgud » Thu, May 24, 2018, 1:14 PM UTC

btilly wrote: post #113

ablanco wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't get me wrong, if you are to measure success by the money you raise, then I completely agree with you. I meant thinking of an app as a mean of expression rather than a cow to squeeze money from. If you want to make something more in the arts department, getting people to tell you what they think early on might be a horrible and non constructive idea.

I don't care whether you are writing it for money, open source, or simply to make the world a better place. If the purpose of your work involves other people appreciating it, you won't know what they will and will not appreciate it until you put it in front of other people and get feedback about it.

I agree, software that is designed for users must be tested as soon as possible.

Humans are notoriously bad predictors. For example; That fancy menu system you spent a week making might be completely useless to most users, simple user feedback could have prevented the colossal waste of time...

Re: Ask HN: Why is nearing completion so demotivating?

#147

Post by mlthoughts2018 » Thu, May 24, 2018, 1:20 PM UTC

gitgud wrote: post #146

btilly wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care whether you are writing it for money, open source, or simply to make the world a better place. If the purpose of your work involves other people appreciating it, you won't know what they will and will not appreciate it until you put it in front of other people and get feedback about it.

I agree, software that is designed for users must be tested as soon as possible. Humans are notoriously bad predictors. For example; That fancy menu system you spent a week making might be completely useless to most users, simple user feedback could have prevented the colossal waste of time...

One caveat though is that in many situations, there is a lot of bureaucracy and overhead involved with collecting and interpreting user feedback. User feedback is often inconsistent and contradictory, influenced by mistakes in survey design, influenced by time-varying factors. And once it is collected, a lot of different stakeholders inside the company will have conflicting incentives about what the feedback is supposed to mean for priorities and decisions.

In some cases, if someone has a very highly developed sense of aesthetics and design, or can extrapolate from previous user feedback scenarios, then they might be able to come up with designs that users will love even if users wouldn't have thought of it that way ahead of time, or if more generic feedback would never have collated down into actionable decisions that empowered that particular designer.

As I've gone on in my career, I tend to see the value of this more and more, and lose faith that feedback collection mechanisms won't be politically subverted.

One example: I'd say a lot of the feedback about the principal lines of work for TensorFlow from the recent dev summit is wrong-headed, and they should just let Francois Chollet's design aesthetic motivate what gets worked on and how it gets designed, for a while.

Re: Ask HN: Why is nearing completion so demotivating?

#148

Post by kaskavalci » Thu, May 24, 2018, 2:10 PM UTC

DarrenZ wrote: post #136

I’ve built a dozen apps over the past 10 years, most of them commercial, and I always encounter this dip that you describe as I approach the finish line. A number of commenters are suggesting it’s the fear of what comes next that is causing it, but I don’t agree. For me, it’s so regular that I can see it creep up on me — all the major features completed, only the polishing and websites to complete, and it starts to h…

George R.R. Martin's behavior just made a lot more sense to me now.

Re: Ask HN: Why is nearing completion so demotivating?

#149

Post by codesternews » Thu, May 24, 2018, 2:29 PM UTC

Ok, I am very depressed person and I do not have motivation. All the comments are very insightful, great and true.

I checked your http://schuwing.com website and want to tell you it is really great what you have built.

Now Advice: Forgot about all the expectation you have about money, payment model, people will like it or not.

Think about positive side of it. Check your website again and see what the great thing you have built. How much you have learned during process. Can you mention it on your resume? Can you talk with passion about this? After two years when you see this Is it not making you great or felt yes I have achieved something?

If yes than do not fear and push the release button. Forgot all about you negative thoughts. Loose your expectation if someone will buy or not. Continuously improve it.

Re: Ask HN: Why is nearing completion so demotivating?

#150

Post by marak830 » Thu, May 24, 2018, 3:12 PM UTC

hoodoof wrote: post #4

Are you me? Programming feels like productive work, and indeed it is, up until just about the point you are at. Now it is not productive work any more, in fact, once the product is finished, programming is counter productive work. Other things need to be done and you don't know how to do them and if you do, are not in the habit of doing them. IOt is easy to get up in the morning and write code, harder to do unfamilia…

Christ this hits hard to home. (Note amateur programmer here), I built my software, openers to beta testers and was active in the community. (It's a good deal control software for a popular game - pretty much a copilot who would do things for you).

So many testers said they would try it out, never did and there was an insane amount of actual testers who wanted something slighty different. (Which i couldn't do, as I had spoken to the company, and doing certain automated style actions would have gotten me banned).