Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have the same problem. I see all these hackers out there making (something like) the millionth travel blog and sticking with it for years and somehow ending up making a decent income off of it. But I'm sitting here wondering if my potentially cool game idea that has never been done before is something that the world really needs, then I quit after about a week because of those thoughts. What drives people?
It's hard to be accountable to oneself. But it's easier to be accountable to others. So, feedback from others motivates me. Seeing people visit my website, even if only a few dozen or hundred, is motivating.
How I stay motivated as a solo creator
121–123 of 123 posts
Re: How I stay motivated as a solo creator
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, my C. R. S. is kicking in, so I can't remember that well, but the gist was that it scanned ratings sites. I'm not sure if it was just app stores, or also included things like Amazon. It looked for products with a lot of ratings and mediocre levels, which indicated a market that wasn't being satisfied. The middle of the bell curve would be an app that had 10,000 3-star ratings. This excluded products being "hate…
Thanks for the details! That's a cool idea. Were you thinking of this one? It was posted 10 years ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5680011
Re: How I stay motivated as a solo creator
#123>Working solo has its difficulties. For one, my income is somewhat tied to my productivity, and my productivity highly correlates to my state of mind. Since going back to being primarily a maker after organizing my days around being a manager[1], and being an avid runner, I've redefined my relationship with "motivation" in a way that can be summed up succinctly by author Brad Stulberg: "You don't need to feel good to…
Good advice. Re: body doubling, I think I would benefit a lot from that, but I hate having a webcam turned on all day with strangers. Or even a microphone. I feel these body doubling apps focus too much on neurodivergent extroverts, and it's a damn shame. Honestly, if I need strangers around, I'd rather work in a coffee shop, but ideally I just want something no more intrusive than an IRC chat to shoot the shit while…
The problem with working from a coffee shop is that your strength and motivation to go there must come from you. You must get up, leave your apartment, go to the coffee shop, and decide to work there. For chronic procrastinators, it's rather tricky. A person like that needs enough motivation to do it but not enough to work alone.
Shameless plug - you can try us (https://workmode.net/). However silly it sounds, we provide body doubling as a service. Try the demo session - no registration is required, and it lasts from 15 minutes to several hours.
Some features that might convince you to finally give body doubling a shot:
- you connect with our employee (aka productivity partner), not a random stranger,
- you always connect with the same productivity partner,
- all sessions are 1-on-1. It's just you and your productivity partner,
- you don't have to enable your camera. We don't rely on you being our body double. We're happy as long as text chat/audio/screen sharing/webcam feed makes you productive,
- you can share your screen at a greatly reduced resolution. It's enough for us to distinguish between you watching Youtube/reading Hacker News and spending time in IDE/Excel/other work-related apps. We're unable to read any text on your screen, even at 32px font size,
- every day, we make sure that you connect with us. We make sure you tell us when you want to start the next day, and in case you don't show up, we'll call you and keep calling you.