Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by Akcium | Hacker News Reader

Full thread

Akcium

I work on my side project https://pingr.io while having full time job.

Well, I'm not sure about validating idea. I just used the idea that was already validated by others.

My daily schedule was like:

Variant A:

- 8 AM to 11 AM work in a cafe on my side project

- 12PM - 8PM work at full-time job at office

----------

Variant B:

- 10AM - 6PM work on fulltime job at office

- 7PM - 11PM work on side project in a cafe, then go home

So actually I was able to get 3-4 hours for side project either in the mornings or in the evenings.

Plus, of course, the weekends were dedicated to the side project too.

Regarding validation, as I said, I didn't validate my idea, because the idea was already validated by others.

Pros: you know people need this Cons: a lot of competitors

View on HN

Also it very much depends on the full-time job itself. I mean, some people work strict hours, like they cannot afford work less.

My conditions are quite mild, meaning that the most important is the result, not hours.

The only problem I have ALL the time is finding right place to work. I don't work on my side project while sitting in office, of course.

Cafes might be noisy, expensive etc :)

Kind of off-topic, I've seen a whole lot of solo devs tackle this problem over the last 1-2 years, seems as if the market can support a lot of competition. How did you find going into a crowded space and how did you differentiate? As you mention, I'm guessing it makes the validation part a lot simpler.

Landing page looks great btw.

At first I didn't even think about differentiation. Well, the only thing is that I'm in love with good UI/UX, so I'm trying to make it pleasant to use.

So, few points which made me decide to work on the side project:

1. I saw few successful examples of exactly the same products, whose founders are solo founders just like me. I knew exactly that they were successful

2. I saw few examples of bad UI/UX, so I decided that I could do better (if it was that simple, sigh...)

3. I instantly got the idea what these services are all about, so I liked it

But I'm not successful, yet.

I was wondering, did you do the UI/UX yourself? Or you hired someone?

Did you have any paying customers while you were having day job? Did you had to disclose this with your employer?

I haven't told my employer anything. Well, if you work in your free time, you don't have to say anything :)

Yes, I have, and right now I have few customers while still working on full time job.

Btw, if you're afraid about supporting users, it will take much time only if you get quite a lot of them (depends on the project though)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com