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5 side projects in 6 years, earning $0

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Re: 5 side projects in 6 years, earning $0

#111

Post by jamestimmins »

brailsafe wrote: post #59

What a lot of loud successful people wouldn't like to admit, is that even if you show up and do the work, you have to be very lucky to get traction for anything, regardless of novelty. True for being an employee or a business. For the latter, it helps to be very lucky and opportunistic with timing to begin with.

Maybe with consumer tech, but this isn’t the case with enterprise. Successful companies identify a market need then figure out how to sell it. It’s appealing to say it’s luck from the outside, but the successful playbook is consistent enough that it seems naive to attribute it to luck.

Re: 5 side projects in 6 years, earning $0

#112

Post by Gigachad »

martincmartin wrote: post #25
herval wrote: post #15

All these have a thing in common: he gave up because they weren’t immediate successes. Some even had traction: 5 users in 3 months isn’t the incredible outlier story you hear time and time again, but it’s 5 people you can talk to, listen to what they want (and why they signed up anyway), then you gear up from there. We’re too conditioned to believe in the stories of immediate success and MVPs making tens of thousands…

Reminds me of "Good Software Takes Ten Years. Get Used To it." by Joel Spolsky. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/07/21/good-software-take...

This seems true of small scale things but companies like google have been able to release good software on the first try. I don't remember it vividly but I used google docs and drive on the first year and I don't remember having a single issue with them and I can't even think of anything it does now almost 10 years later that I would have wanted back then.

Re: 5 side projects in 6 years, earning $0

#113

Post by tekstar »

I think it's important to have inspired ideas if you're going to follow a project through to completion.

I've met my personal goals with side projects with the following criteria: - I really really want something - It doesn't exist

I've got 2 iOS apps that I built with the above formula - one is free and gets about 100 downloads a week, the other is paid and makes about $80/week. It helps that I'm working in a niche I know well, and where people spend money.

Don't try to make something generic. Even if nobody else ends up using it at least you've made something interesting.

Re: 5 side projects in 6 years, earning $0

#114

Post by ezekg »

spiderice wrote: post #97
ezekg wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another day, another person saying Rails is dead. *sigh*

I didn't get the impression that GP was saying that at all. Just that, in 2020, Rails is most definitely not "new".

You’re right, may have misunderstood. If that’s the case, my bad. Text can be hard sometimes.

Re: 5 side projects in 6 years, earning $0

#115

Post by unobatbayar »

One thing I've learned from doing side projects is that; If you're not going to spend any time/money on marketing then stop giving your projects obscure names.

I know we programmers want some Googly names that is not currently in the dictionary but no one will EVER find it and it's very hard to grow organically.

If you're not making any money it doesn't mean your product is bad. It mostly means people can't find it. It's highly possible to make at least +$100 more just by using a name that a normal human would search for. Do anything so that people will can find it easily.

Re: 5 side projects in 6 years, earning $0

#116

Post by underwater »

This is the most telling quote for me:

> I started developing scrapers gathering data. I spent maybe 2 weeks on it when I realized the level of complexity. This was too much work for just one person.

When the complexity was in the technical domain he was able to (relatively) quickly understand the scope and effort required and cut his losses.

For the other projects he's been able to constrain the technical complexity and thus "finish" the projects. But has been blind to non-technical complexity, whether that is game design, art design, marketing, or sales.

One silly little example that stood out to me was the iOS game, which has the evocative name of "Planetoid". I can imagine a space themed game where planets battle to the death. But the video shows a white screen with minimalist graphics. Isn't this a space game? What a missed opportunity to sell the game with interesting visuals.

Re: 5 side projects in 6 years, earning $0

#117

Post by 71a54xd »

This is why even at 26 as someone who enjoys working at startups, I'm very apprehensive when it comes to the idea of doing my own. I've leveled out income wise as far as startup comp goes - very motivated to make the jump to a Stripe scale company and not look back instead of trying to do a startup. At this point, I'd just rather have the money and less stress.

Re: 5 side projects in 6 years, earning $0

#118

Post by pm »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #79
martincmartin wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of "Good Software Takes Ten Years. Get Used To it." by Joel Spolsky. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/07/21/good-software-take...

This has been my experience. I'm working on an app that will be released in the next few months (we don't have a definite ship date, yet). It's based on two servers that I wrote. One, I wrote eleven or twelve years ago, and has become a world standard; but only in the last three years. Since it's a specialized demographic, the numbers are quite small, for "world standard." The other server is one that I wrote, about…

I'm working on social software at the moment, and when I explain it to potential users, they seem to love the concept (which gives me confidence), but truthfully I don't know if will live up to expectations. I've found it best to downplay any potential success in my own mind so that I'm not disappointed if it doesn't take off. I hope your launch goes well; your comments are always insightful and glad to have someone of your experience around the traps.

Re: 5 side projects in 6 years, earning $0

#119

Post by bumby »

zeroc8 wrote: post #71
prox wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As Guy Kawasaki once said in Art of the Start : “You want to be high and on the right.” You make something everyone wants and is of great value, and only you can make it. The worst place is making something that 50 others do and is of no value to the customer.

The only problem is that pretty much anything I can do has been done a zillion times by others.

I think one way to narrow down to something relatively unique is to look for the Ven diagram of skills and interests. If you layer enough, there's bound to be some areas where relatively few people how the knowledge and passion to pursue. It's no guarantee you'll make money, but it at least helps identify areas you can stand out.

Re: 5 side projects in 6 years, earning $0

#120

Post by bumby »

kjksf wrote: post #91
zepolen wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That list really drives home the 'ideas are cheap' phrase. I guess the good ideas are expensive.

I very much agree that ideas are cheap. I don't agree that "good ideas are expensive". The issue is: we don't know which ideas are good or bad. The stats from Venture Capital markets are showing that clearly. Before someone even gets a meeting with a good VC firm the idea is already filtered 100-1 if not 1000-1. Of those who get the meeting, maybe 1 in 100 get an investment. Of those that get an investment, out of 10…

>ideas that, when well executed

I think this is part of the issue. Unlike the GP, I think the expectation is often both difficult and sometimes expensive. Often ideas seem bad only because they were executed poorly; good execution acts as a type of filter.

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