I'm going to simplify the framework here:<p>- give yourself a stable income<p>- give yourself energy<p>- manage your well-being<p>Unfortunately, this is also a framework for being a non-producer of side-projects. One element that's missing is <i>drive</i>.<p>You need something driving you to take on side projects. And it doesn't matter if you're a solo developer or a well-paid worker bee at FANGMAN.<p>Without drive, you'll have no courage to take on a side project. After all, what will you gain by it?<p>Without drive, you'll lack the guts to stick with a side project that spins out and seems to go nowhere.<p>Without drive, you won't keep looking for the next thing to fill your notebook to overflowing with ideas that might someday work.
Probably worth repeating here an old comment of mine for “side-project” disambiguation.<p>The term "side-project" has a lot of possible interpretations:<p>A - Hobby project to play with some tech just because you find it interesting<p>B - Hobby project to play with some tech that might help your career in the future by learning it<p>C - Homework project to learn about the tech you currently use at work<p>D - For-profit project to hopefully earn some extra money on the side and keep it that way<p>E - For-profit project to hopefully earn enough money that will allow you to quit your day job and make it your main job<p>F - Portfolio-making projects to show at job-interviews as a junior developer<p>The OP is about case E apparently (maybe D).
There's a huge push I've noticed recently on the social media to sell 'How to' guides in the tech industry.<p>How to build side projects, how to ace the technical interview, how to get a tech job, how to learn to code, and on and on ad nauseum.<p>It seems in the tech gold rush people are selling shovels.<p>It's like this new age self help mentality but instead of preying on people who want to lose weight or have larger privates... they're preying on people who need a job/money and selling the idea that learning to code will skyrocket people to financial success.<p>I don't know if it's good or not, just an interesting observation/comparison I've noticed.
It's been said the typical founder of a successful startup is on their 7th attempt. It would seem the secret to success then is to be the founder of 6 duds!
> You can follow me on Twitter as I continue to share my journey, building small side projects from my home office.<p>How important is building a "personal brand" in the success of side projects? I see he has 1000 followers on Twitter (whereas I just <i>barely</i> dusted off the twitter account I made in 2016 and I have 2 followers). I had a few "dud" side projects in the past (in the sense that they didn't make money; they were still fun to make and scratched a creative itch) and I still have creative sparks to make more, but I can't help but think I need a <i>lot</i> more Twitter followers in order to boost visibility of my future side projects. Anyone have more insight?
I don’t follow the logic of “It's not certain that [a project] will start making money, but it's certain that one of my next small projects will, again.”<p>If the success of any one project is uncertain, then summing (so to speak) projects doesn’t make any future project <i>certain</i>. On some intuitive level it does seem like the likelihood of each successive project doing well does go up (as you develop skills and learn about markets, etc.), but no single project is “due” for success because N prior projects failed.<p>This seems obvious to me, but I didn’t see anyone else specifically comment on it so I figured I would.
> You can follow me on Twitter as I continue to share my journey, building small side projects from my home office.<p>Talking about how to bootstrap side projects is a side project in itself.
That's so clear that this article had no intention to inform, but to generate traffic to his twitter and own startup, that we should have something against it in the guidelines. I don't like his product already, even not really taking a look on that.
Wow!
Thats so nice! I want to share me project with you: <a href="https://itmaster-soft.com/en/custom-web-application-development" rel="nofollow">https://itmaster-soft.com/en/custom-web-application-developm...</a>
I think one of the many reasons so many side projects are never finished is the complexity.<p>Its important to focus on a MVP and keep it minimal.<p>In the development there are always great ideas but they lead away from finishing the project.