Talked to a senior dev in Portland that flipped my whole view on side projects

Ran into a guy named Mike at a coffee shop near Pioneer Square. He told me he spent 8 years building random apps nobody used, then made $40k off a simple tool he coded in one weekend. Made me realize I was overthinking my own projects, trying to make everything perfect before launching. Anyone else have a conversation that totally shifted how you approach your career?

3 comments

3 Comments

mason_reed4712d ago

Wait, did Mike really say it took him 8 years? That seems like a lot of time to be building stuff nobody used. I mean, after about a year of nothing, most people would probably realize they need to talk to actual users or pivot. Maybe he meant 8 years total of messing around with side projects on and off? Its easy to lose track of time when youre just coding for fun. But the real point you made about not overthinking things is solid. People get so caught up in making stuff perfect they never ship anything.

amyh1212d ago

Honestly, isnt that just how most people approach things in general though? We spend months planning a home project or researching the perfect car but then freeze up when its time to actually pull the trigger. Its that gap between wanting things just right and accepting that good enough is sometimes the better move.

evan54312d ago

Oh man, that "8 years" part got me. I had to laugh because I'm probably about 5 years into my own stretch of building stuff nobody used. Its honestly kind of comforting to hear someone else took that long. My first real project was a habit tracker that I spent 18 months making look perfect with all these animations and custom colors. One user total, and it was my mom. She used it for three days. I wish I could get those years back but then again, if I hadn't wasted them maybe I wouldn't have learned that shipping a rough version is way better than polishing a turd nobody will ever see. Good enough really is the move, even if it took me a decade to figure that out.