Ask HN: Ways to gamify development? (make it more interesting) | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Ways to gamify development? (make it more interesting)

2 pointsge966 comments

The context is single technical founder, no money.

So it's just a mountain of work I'm slowly chipping away at. I'm not even sure if when we get our customers if it will be fun then.

I will admit I'm not 100% into what I'm making but I got into this situation where I'm a founder in this thing/have a partnership.

Still I just have so much work to do. It is hard to stay consistent.

I'm trying to find ways to keep me engaged. I'm doing stuff like small checklists so I feel good like I got things done. Another idea is to keep a status/errors page to see things happening/usage that might help me get more drive to make it good/see the numbers.

The plus side is I have complete control of the tech and it has various domains that I can work in.

Anyway I have a few more months before something has to happen (we make money or I leave).

Edit: there is pay, but I make 40% of what I used to make so I'm sinking further into my existing debt.

I always enjoy coding once I get started. You mentioned staying consistent so maybe a gamified habit tracker like Habitica could help? Track small habits like opening up the editor or committing some code, see that helps you start longer coding sessions.

Ha that's cool, that's literally "gamify" eg. the RPG

Cool idea, yeah one thing I've been doing too is multiplying hours against hourly rate ha. I'm paid a fixed amount per month so doesn't really matter how many hours I work (of course usually work more than 40 hrs) but that helps too regarding tabulating.

Is there any way you can get a few customers right now?

Seeing even drops of money pour in every day, even if it's only a few bucks, is a consistent hit of dopamine. Very motivating.

Yeah we're trying, our stuff is not cheap eg. $100 to $1000+ per month price range

It's also scary being the person to test/make sure it doesn't fail/look bad

Unfortunately our main guy passed away who's the face/best at technical comprehension to present our product, now the two others besides me are not that good at presenting it. So not sure what will happen, maybe we'll bring on a sales person idk.

There is probably a product fit issue as well.

Edit:

Unfortunately too there was a lot of lofty optimism like "we'll be the first # of employees billion dollar company" haha... idk. Was like unvetted pretend startup, sucks to say. We have backers but prior to me the history of this group/product that we branched from was not good eg. stagnant for several years.

This used to be a side gig I was paid for to work on/maintain then I joined full time at the terms above (partner/some pay).

Anyway I will see how it goes.

If nothing else it's a good challenge regarding patience.

What does light a fire under your ass is when your product fails. Ugh... test test test or fail gracefully.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com