I'm not sure about you, but the more experienced I am, as a developer or "builder", the smaller things I end up making.<p>For instance, I launched a bunch of games that are, frankly, more fun to watch, than to play (e.g. an All-hands meeting simulator: <a href="https://rafsters.itch.io/all-hands" rel="nofollow">https://rafsters.itch.io/all-hands</a>) or
little tools this one <a href="https://sonnet.io/posts/reactive-hole/" rel="nofollow">https://sonnet.io/posts/reactive-hole/</a> (it's stupid, completely replaceable, but somewhat adorable).<p>I come from a family with 4 generations of carpenters. It's a profession more similar to software engineering that most engineering jobs I can think of. The main difference is that in our domain so often the results of our work just don't feel real.<p>If you're in this situation and this frustrates you, either build something small that people would use OR go ahead build something useless, but intentionally.
The latent value of irreverence has been a pillar of the project I've been working on full time since last October.<p>Like, I just added printer support.. <a href="https://twitter.com/LeapJosh/status/1413803026062745600" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/LeapJosh/status/1413803026062745600</a><p>But for the sake of the trees I'm making it grueling <a href="https://twitter.com/LeapJosh/status/1414411610844803072" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/LeapJosh/status/1414411610844803072</a>
<a href="https://twitter.com/LeapJosh/status/1414678420177440769" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/LeapJosh/status/1414678420177440769</a><p>Does anyone even own a printer these days? Who knows? Don't care! The feature's true purpose is to try and draw out a smile, and from there maybe a look. The fact it actually works is a nice side effect.
IMO making toys is the hardest thing of all designs... too long-shot/perspective to cover.. like while some adult may be able to tell what he likes/dislikes about a thing, it not so for kids.. esp. in long run.<p>it's a blessing that some (physical or not at all) toys still exist without being monetized.. although the trends with everything-being-appz might kill that some day<p>maybe OT, but some 10+y ago, i passed through few continents and cultures within 3-4 months, and while looking for toys for the kids to bring home from that journey, in plenty of places, i realized something.. the culture/society is somehow representable by what toys it makes for it's kids. Somewhat like the cultural dimensions thing, but in different aspects.. Like shallow vs deep, curiousness vs just-grinding, beautiful vs ugly, well crafted vs cheaply, etc. And funny, Rich/expensive as $$$ doesnot always correspond to richness of toy-experience/perception.
Of course it's rather subjective, YMMV
Exactly. I have a lot of the same feelings, so 6 weeks ago I wrote a similar blog post, "Why I prefer making making useless stuff". I haven't quite figured out how to convert my "useless stuff" into a company yet though...<p>Blog post: <a href="https://web.eecs.utk.edu/~azh/blog/makinguselessstuff.html" rel="nofollow">https://web.eecs.utk.edu/~azh/blog/makinguselessstuff.html</a><p>HN discussion: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27256867" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27256867</a><p>Reddit discussion: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/njcpxt/why_i_prefer_making_useless_stuff/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/njcpxt/why_i_p...</a>
Similar to this one from a16z: <a href="https://cdixon.org/2010/01/03/the-next-big-thing-will-start-out-looking-like-a-toy" rel="nofollow">https://cdixon.org/2010/01/03/the-next-big-thing-will-start-...</a><p>While Aaron's essay approaches the analogy from the perspective of those building, the linked essay approaches it from the market's perspective. For builders, don't take yourself so seriously -- but on the flip side, don't be so quick to write new things off as silly.
Anki (the robotics toy company, not the flash cards) comes to mind. IIRC they had aspirations to build non-toy tech. It didn't work out, though, as they shut down last year.
It's unfortunate - I got one of their vector robots for cheap after they shut down and it's a fun little gadget.
now on topic.. quoting "Business is about making money and working with customers. These are very serious and scary things. Toys are for playing and trying new things. This isn’t serious at all":<p>Maybe the problem is that what is called/accepted as "serious" is the opposite of it? A toy for shapeing a mind (of kids) may be looooots more serious/important that some $$$$$ made per-day..
kind-a the 4th planet the little prince visited..
It's insane people automatically use the word "useless" for anything that cannot directly or indirectly turn into capital or material gain, a lot of cases it just brings happiness directly (which is the desired result of any capital and material gain).
The toys that you build not necessarily have to make the users happy, but it needs to connect at some emotional level. The more visceral the emotion, the better is the connection. For example, I'm never happy when I use blind in fact it mostly just makes me depressed. But it invokes a deep emotional reaction that I want to go back to using it time and again. Similarly, the echo chambers in social media don't make people happy but provide an emotional vent that makes these applications a huge success.
A friend of mine has spent a lot of time recently programming his own ray tracer in OpenGL. He has no intention of turning it into work, not in developing the skill into one that would change his career trajectory. He just thought it would be cool to learn how to make a ray-tracer.<p>I came across an article[1] recently that suggests that everything we do doesn’t have to turn into a business. I get why people want that, but my anxiety dropped a bit when I decided to just build the thing I wanted to.<p>[1] <a href="https://repeller.com/trap-of-turning-hobbies-into-hustles/" rel="nofollow">https://repeller.com/trap-of-turning-hobbies-into-hustles/</a>
Great article.<p>I'm happy developers have the ability to build and work on things they love. And create something fun.<p>But, at the same time, endless warnings about the seriousness of toys becoming monster businesses would be more believable if aborting companies and anti-trust wasn't still a shitshow a century after the big trusts.<p>This isn't the author's fault, but mixing "Let's have a conversation on Big Tech." with warnings about havoc seems disingenuous at best.<p>We understand that organizations are these complex things that take over everything and shit everywhere. And at the same time build things that make you smile and facilitate community.<p>We don't as citizens have all the tools to manage that without drama.
I love this idea to get at least a pipeline of people to talk to in order to get closer to PMF. Sometimes its abysmally hard to even get people to get feedback from in the early days of a product it's like the great filter for pre-seed/early-seed startups are you actually building something someone, anyone, even just like one person wants to use? However, this could be a huge trap for founders or people with passion projects which they just want to be passion projects.<p>I guess the one thing I've realized is the problem with this is the one more feature trap. Sometimes those people who like your toy will never pay for it, which may be fine depending on your goals, but the issue is there just as relentlessly demanding as paying customers. It's demoralizing to have a side-hobby project which you don't want to monetize but still has all the demands from "adopters/customers" that a paid solution would. It just destroys your passion for that project because it ultimately it just becomes work.<p>Really charging for a product is great and I think hacker culture seems to dismiss it because its not in the ethos but if there's anything in retrospect I think I've learned so far with my many failed side-projects is charging for them is the best way to have a great personal experience and best experience for who your building that product for. Mostly because it aligns incentives appropriately.<p>As much as I've enjoyed some of my passion projects I can't think of one I ended up "finishing" which I wouldn't get some monetary gain from. Because let's be honest whose passionate about setting up a Jenkins server, or implementing git checks, writing unit tests or creating onboarding documentation for cranky free or OS users? At a certain point a successful side-project/product requires you to do things you wont enjoy doing, and honestly some of those things may be the most important things you do for the "success" of that side-project/product.<p>I'd rather be spending that time with loved ones, enjoying the sun, which is ultimately far more rewarding than a few git stars or upvotes for ego. With that being said I think if you utilize this approach which is basically just freemium for B2B like projects it could be a powerful step towards finding your ideal customer and getting paid users, but it has to be just that a step towards acquiring paid users.<p>Just my 2c
I get disappointed when I see someone build something cool, but maybe not commercializable, and the comments come in asking: “yeah, but how are you planning to monetize it”.<p>90% of the side projects I embark in are likely to have no commercial value, but are pretty cool, at least I’d like to think.
My favorite tool for thinking visually is totally in that mindset: <a href="https://kinopio.club/" rel="nofollow">https://kinopio.club/</a>
<i>Airbnb looked like a doofy hipster thing to hotels for a very long time. And then, when it was too late, they realized that it wasn’t a toy at all.</i><p>I always thought Airbnb was an awful idea. I didn't pay attention to it for a long time, except to be surprised it was still around when I would see it mentioned. I'm sure the big hotel companies feel worse about that mentality than I do, though it's probably a good thing I'm not a venture capitalist.