How to never complete anything

The technology aspect is really only 10% of it. Sure, it's the essential 0-to-1 kicker that gets you going, but once that's done you still have to find product-market fit. That quickly assumes second-job status and can wreck your personal life. I've seen it happen.

A side project means you're taking all that on yourself without any help or real guidance. Not having that help means that when you finally do ship your side project, it's probably not going to achieve the kind of rapid growth you need to make scaling up possible.

And you really need rapid growth in order for working on a startup of your own creation to beat out having a reasonably-decent job. And if you don't have a reasonably-decent job, it's way easier to switch jobs / industries than it is to build out your own company.

What I want out of a side project is the kind of deliberate practice that is often lacking in my real job. Also to chase down random mind hares that seize my interest.

The key difference is that my project was a video game (this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwXl8lDrxn8) and that takes a lot of temptation to do what the OP is writing about, rewriting stuff in Haskell for example. The interesting bit when it comes to side projects (and now my full time projects) for me isn't actually the tools or the methodology or anything like that, but the end result. I spent my teenage years building games that I never finished, and it made me quite miserable, because I so just wanted to finish something. Anything.

I remember the first game I ever finished was a clone of Snake. There was nothing remotely interesting in the implementation or in the design, but I was so flipping pleased with myself, I had finished something! And that let me slowly build my projects up to more interesting endeavours, and eventually to one that could be sold. Starting small was the key for me, as I learned two things: 1 - what was 'too much' for me to try and tackle at the time and 2 - self-discipline, not chucking the project the moment I got bored, or had a 'better idea'.

This is the advice I can give to anyone who has a side project. Get to the point where you can show something to the users and just start adding stuff.

Even if it's just two lines of code or changing the favicon - still worth it. In practice, it's harder to do than it sounds, but I've been doing it for some time and it's been going great.

In reality, you won't have millions of users on day 1 no matter how great your product is. If you start small and keep adding stuff you will have more success.

In fact, the biggest challenge for side projects is marketing and not the tech or infrastructure.

However, it also depends on the goal - if you want to build the project that makes money it's completely different story to experimenting with tech. In the end, you get the experience.

For example, a few years ago I managed to build an overengineered CDN product that compressed images on the fly (almost on the fly). I shipped the project and it even worked great for testers, but I didn't get to the point where it makes money, so I shut it down as with half unfinished features as it was taking too much time.

While building it I managed to learn Go, improve my AWS skills, plus some other tricks. Now it sounds like a great investment even though I feel that I haven't completed the project.

I discovered this late, but am glad I did. Are you ready for it?

The secret is this:

don't start something till you finish the last thing, no matter how poorly.

This goes even at a "micro" level, so don't start distributing the load on servers till you finish the last thing (interface), no matter how poorly you finish the last thing.

Now you have the secret. Go forth and complete.

Not EXACTLY the same problem as the author, because I am not building out scalable infrastructure. I just spent a ton of time learning the fundamentals of angular and node, then try to understand express, then grunt, and mocha and bower and... now I have weeks into this pile of stuff... nothing working and I am frustrated, disappointed, and oh look Overwatch patch notes.. time to try out the new hero.

My advice: pick three "side projects": one that you can build in a day, one that you can build in a week, and one that you can build in a month.

Build the first one in a day and ship it. This will motivate you and build your confidence in your shipping abilities. Then build the second one in a week and ship it. Then build the third one in a month and ship it. You've now shipped three projects, good going!

That said, I want to echo what @vinceguidry said. Side project != business. If you want to build a business, the same logic applies... just get something out the door. But you need to be serious about ongoing support and maintenance. Whereas a side project could be anything, like a fun open source project, a personal website, experimenting with new frameworks, etc.

p.s. Don't be so hard on yourself. You just shipped a blog post to the top of HN. And you've got a long history of blog posts on there. Maybe you should ask yourself why you can ship blog posts but not side projects?

Side projects tend to be small , fast and enjoyable. This is the way the human brain works and is actually much more efficient than taking big steps.

Also make sure that your main goal is fun, if it is not, it will only get worse. Fun is the fuel of the brain. You cannot fight fun, because you cannot fight the brain. The brain always win.

Make your brain your ally and success will come. You are not your brain , your brain is a lot more than you.

Let me say once more , brain.

Brain

Oh and if you think your code will never sell , remember that fortunes have been built selling rubber bands for hair. There is always a way.

" use the brain Luke "

It's true that a lot of programmers do jump from shiny new tech to the next shiny new tech. If it's to start a business, it's probably best to stick with boring stacks.

I think the author's intent is a good one and it overcomes the "perfect is the enemy of the good" trap we can all fall into at times. As the technical lead on a multi-team project last year, I had to beg my developers to just check in anything at one meeting because they were terrified of having the other teams see their imperfect code. When I assured them their code couldn't be any worse than mine, which I had checked it several times and actually had rejected by the version manager, that they were able to laugh and agree to start committing their work to the repository.

Your code is going to get criticized no matter how much you polish and engineer it. If you can accept that, then I think you will find yourself free to be more productive.

Trying to build something in your free time forces you to think about dividing work up into very small pieces (what can I do with a free hour, etc). I've found this very beneficial in a work environment.

If you get to the point where you can show people, showing people changes how you think about the project - some invisible social pressure to do better, similar to code reviews.

You also have to think through the structure of the entire project on your own - often in a work environment, you're joining something in progress.

This is also a great way to research new tools. Instead of thinking how cool they are, you evaluate how they fit into a "real" project, but without the pressure to actually make it work.

Do the Work - https://www.amazon.com/Do-Work-Overcome-Resistance-Your/dp/1...

The War of Art - https://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Through-Creative-Battles/dp/1...

You have to build a muscle for this stuff. It's hard.

I do get occasional this feature not working mails but at least I'm creating new sites again and making more money. If there is anything you want to take from this rant is don't waste your time doing things that other people are telling you to (how ironic). Do what you love and you will get shit done.

The problem is when this behaviour crosses over into your professional life, because you're not delivering value to your customers quickly enough and as a result you'll either get sacked or the company can go bust. Having someone else to keep you in line works great, it doesn't even need to be a Product Manager or Product Owner. And if you don't have someone else to keep you disciplined, then you better work hard on improving this area where you're lacking. Write down ideas on paper for example and ruthlessly prioritise and prune them every morning. Sayings like "work on what's highest priority", "do the least amount of effort that results in the greatest value", "keep it simple", "reduce scope", "you aren't gonna need it", "defer nice to haves", and so on are things we hear so often because it really is good advice that you should follow.

I've realized that finishing a project is roughly 10% exploration another 20% getting to working and at least 70% polish. The exploration phase is very enjoyable and it's what keeps me hopping from project to project. Occasionally, the enjoyment will phase will encourage me to keep plugging away at it until I get to working. This is the minority of my projects, but it happens naturally to some extent. But I rarely put in the time and work to do that other, much larger bit to get to a done state. Because that part is actually work and it's not fun.

But what I've discovered in looking at my projects that actually got to done is that there's one thing that, for me, leads me to finish...having a social pressure. The projects that I've discussed with friends and gotten them excited about are the ones that I finish. My attention will wane and I'll drop it for a bit, but then I'll have a conversation where someone asks what what the status is and I'll pick it up and work more. And if that repeats enough, I finish. The best case scenario is getting someone excited enough to actually code with me on a project. In those cases, we usually get to done pretty quickly.

I think this is why being a solo founder is so difficult. You're going to run into difficult stretches and you'll want to focus on something else. It's a very rare person that can continually return their focus to a single problem, even in the face of adversity. But if you've got someone else to steer your focus back, you can keep working long enough to succeed.

So here's my advice to a coder who's never finished. For your next side project, when you get the inspiration, instead of immediately sitting down at a keyboard, contact a friend, go out for drinks and tell them about your project. Better yet, get a group of friends and discuss it. Get them excited about it and let them know that you're excited about it. Only after that step should you start coding.

1. External Deadlines. I'm a career teacher, mostly self-taught Python/Django developer, and am applying for dev jobs. The school year's over in June, and I want to be able to step into a new jr position in July/August. I'm planning to resign my position this spring, and cannot be out of work. My benefits and salary will stop in September. I'm f'ed if I'm not working by then. The need to ship projects (if only into my portfolio) is high.

2. "Deep Work" for time management. Ideas from Cal Newport's book "Deep Work" have been foundational in my getting more done. It's hard to find the energy to build my side projects/portfolio after wrangling eight year olds all day, so I started getting up at 5 am solely to work on my projects. I make coffee and toast then get to my desk. I close all applications except Atom, Dash, and Firefox; turn on Do Not Disturb; look at my to-do list in my notebook; then get to work. Having 75 un-interrupted minutes before my wife gets up allows me to get a huge amount done, and it's become gratifying to watch the 6 am commits pile up on my github punch card. I've also found that exerting discipline in this facet of my life has had a positive knock-on effect in other areas.

Michael Abrash has some books on optimizing code in assembly language, and he takes special care to talk about why & when to optimize that would also apply here. The point he makes repeatedly is to optimize from the user's point of view - don't do something the user won't notice.

http://www.phatcode.net/res/224/files/html/ch01/01-01.html#H...

We all do it though, this is a human trait, but we programmers and computer scientists often amplify the problem. We love obsessing over what's "best", without regard to whether we actually need the best. We are taught during our Computer Science degrees to generalize and abstract at every opportunity, to plan for future problems we might have, and for future problems others have had that we might never have. We discuss incessantly how important it is for software to be scalable, and how to use the "best" everything, best language, best database, best algorithm, etc.

Strive to solve only the problems you're already personally experiencing, wait to solve problems until you are already experiencing pain, and ignore the problems that only "might" happen, then it will be easier to finish things.

I chuckled at that, because while it makes for a good joke, I've learned from experience that writing stuff in less mainstream languages like Haskell is probably the best way to avoid getting distracted by trendy new frameworks all the time, since they tend to have smaller, more niche focused communities that don't produce new frameworks every week that would even be relevant to you.

Acquiring all that knowledge leads to a feeling that you _potentially_ can do more. You are _potentially_ more powerful. It is a good feeling. You can never be disappointed in yourself if you don't finish anything.

Am I missing something? It's a nice set of thoughts, but I can't imagine paying to have read somebody's personal blog, and would have been vaguely weirded-out at him having ads on it.

People have built million dollar business that had it's first iteration in MS Excel, if it is useful to someone and kind of serves the purpose then that is enough for a start.

I've wanted to write for years but thought I had to pen esoteric essays composed of thousands of words. Recently I just started writing short, simple posts that are helping me establish a habit, develop fluency and enjoy the process of writing.

My first post was on this idea of atomic actions: https://alexsingh.svbtle.com/atomic-actions

Maybe it'll be of help to someone else :)

Or teach people how to use the new shiny thing.

Or help them decide the pros and cons of new technologies by talking about the subtle distinctions you have noticed between them through your experimentation.

You (probably) don't need the microservices and the complexity that comes with it, upfront. A monolith (and the simplicity in terms of deployment, logging, monitoring, etc. etc.) will probably do early on.

However, you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot for when it turns out you do need those things.

I try to write code in self-contained modules, with well defined boundaries, and glue it together in a monolith. If/when it needs to be split out into separate services, it becomes much easier.

So, application/business logic code: keep the standards high, do shit properly. Glue code to keep it all together? Less important. You can rip that out later and move to different infrastructure with the same code.

That's very generic advice, and I seem to always break my own rule on this at some point... but I find it's a better mentality for when shit just needs to get done.

Doesn't help with tech choice in general though (and I'm often guilty of this as well...).

It does make me feel a little better knowing I'm not alone in my shame though. And hearing about other's solutions is really helpful too.

Some of my stuff is good enough to use (as in early alpha), but doing the final 20% won't pay off anyway.

Also did I mention that you are an introvert by nature (read susain cain). You are easily distracted by shiny things.

P.S. I am no expert, those are just the things that I realized about myself....

P.P.S Shit. I think I am still like you, because otherwise I would have worked on the code review that I was supposed to do....

I wonder if OP has ever question why he wants to create these startups.

I found a while ago, that I like kids, I like playing with them, I would never have one though, I see Startups as the same way, it's something you'd be stuck forever, like my JQuery Mobile based product of my own startup, I can tell you now that I get to fuck around in my free time, now I'm happier.

You need to question yourself more, are you a programmer or an entrepreneur?

It's crazy how the little things add up, like sounds, icons, animations, hosting, advertising, analytics, websites, landing pages, facebook pages, codepush, in-app purchases, etc. etc.

Hopefully I'll launch soon though, and be able to share it on HN.

I have been developing professionally for 7 years now and had similar experiences. It's important to allow yourself to stand still, if vacations aren't possible, exercise and meditation might help you a lot too.

Usually some well-funded competitor comes up later with the same idea and takes all the market.

My advice: Don't bother starting a side project unless it's really niche, easy to implement and you just want to make enough money to replace your own income (the market has to be small).

Unless you personally know people who have tons of money to invest in your side project, then it's a complete waste of time. It has to be people first.

9 out of 10 businesses fail and it has nothing to do with abilities, drive or persistence; it's only about luck.

I've met a 17 year old who built a wordpress website that generated $10K per month after just 6 months (though it already had tons of traffic in the first month) and couldn't write a single line of code. I've heard of hundreds of similar stories.

Some random person somewhere on planet earth randomly puts together an app because they think it's cool without any thought whatsoever; it blows up in popularity out of nowhere; then some smart engineers/people who actually understand the potential find out about it early enough and join up in exchange for a stake in the project; that's how actual smart people do business.

You can put that off until you have a successful startup and I bet by then you'll realize you don't need it anyways.

Personally, my problem is that I just have too many side-projects. I have one startup side project, but I probably have a half dozen of other OS side projects that I'm either working on here-and-there or I'm at least thinking about when I should be thinking about my startup.

I think this is one of the disadvantages of doing a startup as a side project while still working full time. Even though I allocate 1 hour and a 1/2 to 2 hours a day to work on my startup I still find myself working on other hobby stuff nearly half the time :( A lot of those hobby OS projects come out of some problem I'm experiencing at my day job but don't have the time to solve in the elegant OS way I would prefer to.

I'm super happy to have read this article and plan to take the advise. No more side-projects, just get my startup shipped. ‍️

I guess all of us learn something similar to this at some point in our lives.

In the quiet times, I ask myself these questions and get sheepish, embarrassed answers. When you can give reasoned, confident answers on hard, painful questions about your future business rather than current tech demo, then your project has a shot at life.

I have an amazeballs tech demo for my side project. It is scoped way too huge. Heroics and not knowing what I was signing up for got it to where it is today.

Honestly, if I were to do it again, my first features would have been user management and payment processing. I wish I could take users and have them pay me as soon as they saw value in my growing hobby project. But I can't because I didn't prioritize getting users and using their subscriptions to fund my work. I have a ton of neat features and no users, argh!!

Perhaps you simply "haven't learned to finish what [you've] started", but sometimes there are deeper issues at play.

Tinkering with stuff to figure out how it fits together is good. When the right project presents itself, the persistent tinkerer will be ready. She or he will have the advantage of knowing how to do the project.

I used to dream up grand plans, start building, and before I got to the end I'd have thought up three more things I wanted to build. That isn't any way to finish anything, it's a good way to learn about limitations and develop new skills.

By scope way down, have a few ideas and consider what they share between them. What single feature will I need. I build that. But, that feature in and of itself has a lot of parts so I pick one and I build that. If it has smaller parts, I build one of those.

Instead of building some grand machine, I build gears. It's far more satisfying.

It also helps to remember that software projects are never finished - only abandoned.

I finally bit the bullet and launched http://www.survivalscout.com in January. It's a definitely whole new set of challenges going from coding to trying to market and sell your project.

I wrote a post titled Side Projects: Avoiding Failures to Launch[1] a few months ago that touches on these same ideas in more detail.

1: https://blog.benroux.me/avoiding-failures-to-launch/

Also, using Pivotal Tracker or some agile tool to track stories gives me a kick to doing things. Commit to a small number stories per defined sprint period and get it done.

So I've became more picky about the side projects and if I'm unwilling to commit to finishing it in the wee hours of the morning then it probably isn't worth doing at all.

(if its a bad joke, dont vote me down :) )

I'm highly motivated to find something that people want and the only way to do that is complete things.

This can be a good thing, if it helps you move forward, as long as you pay it off + don't let too much build up.

Here here my friend.

What exactly are build pipe-lines ? is it javascript webpack kind of stuff?

I first started creating a project or two that were completely free. These projects helped me learn what people like and if people were even interested in using anything I created. Turns out.. I've got good ideas that people actually find useful. I'm not after creating the next Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. Rather, I'm after creating things on a much smaller scale that help with everyday life. Once I got that concept down and accepted that I would not be creating something huge like a social media network, but other useful things on a much smaller scale, more specialized and to the point -- many programs start off great -- then the developers add too many things to it and it becomes bloated and no longer focused on what it was originally meant to do.

So whenever I start a project: I write out all the things it should do; its function and purpose. I do my best never to deter from what I had intended it to do. This keeps me focused and helps me complete projects much faster. I did more research in how to charge for the things I made. I would love to give away everything for free, but I need to eat and pay my mortgage too. I'm certainly not looking to charge anyone an arm and a leg, but if I charge a fair price for the products I create, taking the time and consideration, and how some of it does actually make life easier, than why not ask my users to pay a small fee to use the product that helps them in their everyday life?

If everyone pays a small fee to me, than I can continue supporting my products and creating more. I've certainly lost motivation and interest too many times to count, but money is certainly a motivating factor. To help stay motivated, I originally calculated how much potential income I could make from X amount of people signing up and paying the monthly or yearly recurring fee from any project I start. Anytime I lose motivation, I look at those numbers as the potential revenue that I could be making and it instantly puts me back in the mood to continue my side projects.

I was so serious about my side projects that I registered an LLC in my state, opened a business bank account in order to collect money via Stripe, and I talk about and act like I am already a business owner creating products for my business. I have a few "solid products" out there, but the ones I'm charging for are still in beta and testing phases. My journey into understanding how to design products for people began at the end of 2015 and it is now the beginning of 2017. So I'm about a year in so far. I will eventually get to where I want to be.

The other thing that keeps me motivated: I'm tired of working for someone. I've done it for almost 20 years... I have dealt with my fair share of arrogant asshole bosses, backstabbing co-workers, or just being under-appreciated or under-paid. It is exhausting to have to show up to a place for 8 to 9 hours a day, only to be treated like you are just a means to an end for a company. I get it: they need to make their money too, but to treat you as a human being and show respect and help you to keep your dignity and sanity goes a long way.

I get to watch other departments who are all eligible for things like "CEO's Club" or "Honored Vacations" or "Gold Member Status" while my department is "not eligible" and completely ignored and treated as if we don't matter, despite the fact that we bring in millions of dollars every year for our company. We design the products for the entire business and control how things are distributed and what they look like. We literally influence how web design looks on the Internet. I'm tired of watching my co-workers make mistakes and not get in trouble for it, while I make a single mistake, far less worse than theirs, and I am singled out, and a whole meeting is called to address the issue. Sure, I'm probably held to a higher stand because I have been there much longer than my co-workers, but everyone should be held to that high standard. I've worked on projects that have brought the company in tens of thousands of dollars in a single shift. I'm also tired of being the developer who can complete 4 or 5 projects in a single shift, while my co-workers can hardly complete one or two projects, yet there is no bonus to me for doing that, yet it is expected that I am the one to be the sort of "sweeper" who ensures that all projects meet their deadlines, no matter what, while it is okay for my co-workers to leave me those projects to do because they know I will do them -- and I have no choice.

I'm certainly not complaining about my job or the money. I love both! I love web developing. I love web designing. My paycheck isn't the greatest (because most of us.. could always stand to make a little bit more -- and more never seems to be enough), but it allows me to pay my mortgage and other bills and feed myself and my family and enjoy life a bit. I also live about 10 minutes from my job which is awesome. Imagine all that money saved in gas and car repairs. On the warmer days, I ride my bike to work. It is such a relief to be so close to work! But giving 8 or 9 hours of your life every single day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks out of the year... it is very draining. It is like I am paying for my house to sit there all day and be empty.

So this is why when I go home.. and I am working on my side projects, I feel I am working for a better life: Designing products for others to use, hopefully products that don't have too many bugs in them, and my hope is to create that recurring income, so that I can work 20 hours a week and not 40 or 50 hours a week.

Sure, this is totally "first world problems" -- I'm happy that I'm not working in fast food. I'm happy I'm not in construction or that my job is not backbreaking work or intensive labor. I'm happy I'm not working for minimum wage. I probably have a better life than most people do. Again: I am not complaining about my job or the money. I'm not even really complaining about my company. The issue lies in not being treated with more dignity and respect and appreciation, which I think is completely lost in much larger corporations, where you are just one among thousands of employees.

So to never complete a side project means you are content with your life as it is. The only way to get ahead in life is to create things that other people like, want to use, enjoy using, and would actually pay you for it (or win the lottery or manage to successfully sue some corporation or whatever).

You could try to create something like Facebook, though Google Plus showed us it is not possible to even contend with that type of influence and stronghold. To not charge any money at all, you have to basically get to the point where you are receiving so many visitors that advertisers love you. Therefore, your only option is to charge a small fee for the usage of your product. You may not become the next Mark Zuckerberg, and that is okay. But if you can generate enough income to actually quit your day job, than I'd say that is success right there.. at least, it is success for me and certainly keeps me motivated to complete those side projects!