Hello!<p>I was thinking about this. As engineer, developer I keep myself in shape by constantly challenging myself with various side-project, experiments and proof-of-concepts. A lot of this projects are there just to test technology, to learn and mostly to have fun.<p>So my question is this. Where do you get inspiration for your experiments and side-projects or even side hustles?<p>I was thinking about creating a platform where people would submit ideas for small and highly experimental projects. And then then people like myself would crack them. Mostly just for fun and not-so-much for profit.<p>I obviously don't wanna encourage people to work for free and there are legal aspects to it; but still. Would you give it a shot?<p>Cheers!<p>- @otobrglez
<i>Where do you get inspiration for your experiments and side-projects or even side hustles?</i><p>From my every day life. If I see a problem, or an interesting bit of tech, or if I see something someone else has made that I'd like to recreate, or someone mentions something they'd like a tool that does X then I write it down. Often it'll tick over in the back of my head for a while and I'll keep coming back to it. If it remains interesting I'll have a go at building something.<p>For a very long time I didn't write the ideas down and then I forgot them. I think this is common. Everyone has a ton of creative ideas all the time, but they don't make enough impact to be memorable. That means people <i>think</i> they struggle to come up with ideas. Really they don't, they just have ideas that they quickly forget. Making notes is key.
Two ways:<p>The first is nostalgia. My first computer was a North Star Horizon Z80 'home computer' which ran at first North Star DOS and then CP/M. Over the years I have written emulators for that particular machine which slowly evolved from CLI to curses-based, through to several GTK+ versions. Each new iteration getting closer and closer and then surpassing the capabilities of my first computer.<p>Second is the 'Wow, that'd be cool' factor. Just be aware of your own thinking. Every now and then, you read about something and your mind says "Wow. That'd be cool.' and then you move on to some other thing. But why not see if you can turn that 'cool idea' into some form of reality?<p>The problem with both of those approaches is that they are 'internal to you'. Maybe somebody else could be imbued with the same fire, but maybe not. I don't have a solution for you. But then again, I don't want to discourage you either.<p>Do your platform. It may work. But don't be discouraged if it doesn't. Like many of my/our side projects, they <i>don't</i> all work. <grin>