[HN Gopher] I launched 17 side projects. Result? I'm rich in exp...
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I launched 17 side projects. Result? I'm rich in expired domains
I think I'm officially a side project collector. I've had it all:
A SaaS for freelancers... that I never had time to finish because
I'm a freelancer. A revolutionary AI tool that I abandoned as soon
as GPT-4 came out. And the famous "anti-social media social
network" (spoiler: it was just me). I buy a domain name - I code
for 3 all-nighters - I lose interest - I start again. My Google
Domains look like a graveyard of unfinished dreams. But honestly,
I've never learned so much, nor enjoyed it so much. And one day, I
might release one that takes off. Or not. But I'll be ready. Any
other serial side-projectors here? Share your greatest
fails/unlikely successes
Author : cesargstn
Score : 159 points
Date : 2025-07-30 13:15 UTC (9 hours ago)
| sturza wrote:
| Anything you want to do differently next time? Like find a
| representative user and build until you solve that problem?
| module17 wrote:
| Keep pushing.
| billy99k wrote:
| We've all been there. I lost track of the domains I registered
| for a great business idea and then let them expire.
| dustincoates wrote:
| This is timely, as I've got a domain expiring in the next week.
| It's a .bingo TLD, so at $50+, I'm going to just let it expire.
|
| "Vibe coding" has actually been a boon for me on this front.
| Fewer than 10% of my side projects are serious and 95% of it are
| static pages, so there's no big security concerns to worry about.
| Most of them are joke pages anyway, which I've started calling
| "Sh _t Coding, " as in Vibe Coding + Sh_t Posting.
| poojasinha12 wrote:
| been there
| jonplackett wrote:
| I have now reached the point where I won't buy the domain name
| until I get a prototype ready.
|
| I've only bought one domain name since then and got the project
| out!
|
| I think the domain name is your reward for finishing your minimum
| viable product.
| LanceH wrote:
| I think of this as the "garage band problem". Imagine a bunch
| of teens deciding to make a band. They come up with a name,
| make t-shirts, even get the cover for the bass drum -- but how
| much did they actually play?
|
| Personally, I'll snag a domain if it's really good -- like one
| word or a proper combo of words, spellable, etc... I won't set
| it to renew, though.
| geldedus wrote:
| never bought a domain until i had the first production version
| ready
| jonplackett wrote:
| So pessimistic
| cornfieldlabs wrote:
| > I won't buy the domain name until I get a prototype ready.
|
| Me too. I learnt it after 6 expired domains
| OldfieldFund wrote:
| I learned after 600. Or did I? :)
| goqu wrote:
| I'll say as long as you're not repeating the same mistakes and
| each project teaches you something, you're getting closer to the
| exit of the maze.
| deadbabe wrote:
| Honestly I doubt this. You can learn endlessly and never get
| any closer to succeeding in something. It's like the developer
| equivalent of people who keep reading business books and case
| studies and going to network events because they want to start
| a business.
|
| After 1 or 2 failed side projects, you should have learned
| roughly 80% of what you need to know. A few more might get you
| the next 20%, but 17 failed projects is likely not teaching you
| anything you couldn't have learned before, you're just wasting
| time at that point.
|
| The optimal amount of failures before a successful project is
| probably about 3. After that, you need to seriously consider
| that maybe you just don't have what it takes and move on.
| Otherwise you spend your whole life chasing something that will
| probably never happen, and avoiding better opportunities.
| jon-wood wrote:
| I think whether your take on this is correct depends on why
| people are doing side projects. Personally I do them for fun,
| there's some tool I kind of want to use, or a new programming
| language I want an excuse to play with. The side project is
| just a vehicle for that rather than something I expect to
| become a source of income.
|
| I've got way more than 17 failed projects, and that's fine,
| because the project was never the point.
| hellojesus wrote:
| > Otherwise you spend your whole life chasing something that
| will probably never happen, and avoiding better
| opportunities.
|
| I'm also have a decent graveyard of domains. I've all but
| accepted that I'll never create anything of value in my life
| or even anything awesome.
|
| But the dark side of that is now there's no point to being
| alive, so I'm planning to die. What are these better
| opportunities you referenced? Anything that will make a life
| of mediocrity bearable?
| canadaduane wrote:
| This is brutally honest. In all seriousness, consider that
| external metrics are not the only way to value life.
| Economics looks from the outside and judges value. Art
| looks from the inside and expresses experience. Also, check
| out Internal Family Systems therapists. I'm learning a lot,
| and believe this is a very valuable line of inquiry into
| self & getting unstuck.
| deadbabe wrote:
| A life is still worth living even if you never make
| anything of value or awesome. Find something you don't
| understand at all, and feels impossible, and try to
| understand it. Repeat until you die or find something else
| you want to do.
| hellojesus wrote:
| This is mostly what I do, and it's how I got into and
| continue to progress in tech from an unrelated degree.
| But I realize that it's unlikely I'll ever outpace the
| competition as a late 30s father, so my career
| progression and earnings seem somewhat terminal.
|
| A life without side projects seems pointless, but at the
| same time the projects are probably ultimately pointless
| or of too slow progression to merit career leverage.
|
| I seem to have found a path too late in life. Catchup or
| die seems to be transforming solely into die.
| deadbabe wrote:
| Even if a side project were successful, in time it would
| also be pointless.
| hellojesus wrote:
| As are all things in time. But I estimate the impact of
| creating something successful would allow me to feel
| successful from success until natural end of life vs.
| feeling like a failure from now until end of life. Plus
| it will generate higher quality of life for my offspring,
| and my genetic code likes that.
|
| The question is then reduced to the expected value of
| success achieved at some point, discounted by how close
| it is to my stastical life expectancy. Is it positive?
| Seemingly not. Then I ask what's the point of a life with
| negative expected value?
|
| It seems like lots of people believe that life itself is
| a positive, so even a mean existence is worthy. This
| isn't something I'm able to accept for whatever reason,
| as I consider life to be EV+ only when it is one, if not
| two, standard deviations above the mean.
| perilunar wrote:
| You may never create a successful web business but that's a
| long way from never creating _anything_ of value.
|
| By definition most people lead mediocre lives -- few doing
| anything extraordinary. What makes it 'bearable' are the
| simple things: family, friends, work, hobbies, helping
| other people, contributing to society, etc.
|
| Planning to end it because life seems pointless is
| depression. Please get professional help.
| hellojesus wrote:
| > What makes it 'bearable' are the simple things: family,
| friends, work, hobbies, helping other people,
| contributing to society, etc.
|
| I've heard these things and have thought about them
| previously, but then I think, "How can I meaningfully
| contribute to society?" And then I get stuck in a loop
| realizing my contributions will not be anything of merit.
| And then I think, what would cause a lasting impact _and_
| be achievable? And then I realize how mass shooters are
| born.
| dcminter wrote:
| Ha, I wrote this the other day:
|
| > I think it's part of the procrastination cycle; buying a domain
| name feels like progress towards the goal, but is incredibly low
| effort, and thus feeling like I'm making progress I wander off
| and get attracted to the next shiny thing.
|
| So, yup, except that it sounds like you typically make more
| progress than me!
|
| Edit: Context is https://paperstack.com/hntags/
| fourneau wrote:
| We should start a club with the amount of us in the same boat...
| what should our domain be?
| volkk wrote:
| foreverwip.com
| jve wrote:
| underconstruction.com
| lurn_mor wrote:
| www.awebsiteyouwillnevergoto.org
| thorio wrote:
| Sometime it's funny to look at the packages list of your domain
| provider and realize for example, that at some point in the past
| I was indeed convinced "thewienerway.com" would one day be the go
| to merch shop for everything around wiener dogs :-).
|
| Okay, there were some beers involved...
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| i feel this when i get porkbun emails w expirations nearly every
| month.
|
| i have a lot of cool ones i tried to give away or at least start
| the conversation w a few relevant sites but i guess that seems
| weird to randomly get
| jimhi wrote:
| Yep https://dare.fail/ but also at least finish the things
| th1nhng0 wrote:
| We are on the same boat
| moralestapia wrote:
| RIP
|
| I have my own graveyard here moralestapia.com
|
| It's a hobby, like any other.
| whatamidoingyo wrote:
| Of course. I had like 50 domains at one point. There's nothing
| worse than an auto-renewal hitting your bank account on a project
| you gave up on.
|
| In 2025, with new vibe-coding projects being pushed every second,
| I think it's not even worth the time unless you have $$$ upfront
| for marketing (and/or a massive audience). Otherwise, you're
| wasting your time.
| barrell wrote:
| Man I built an app a while back called Kanji Plus. The idea was
| to build a small side project to generate an income, then use
| that to fund my magnum opus, Phrasing [1]
|
| I built the prototype in a weekend. I spent the next 8 months
| turning it into a product people cared about. As soon as people
| started using it, I realized I was going to spend the next 10
| years beating around the bush on a product with a very low
| ceiling.
|
| I eventually decided to build Phrasing [1]... and kanji plus just
| kind of disappeared. Dependencies updated, subscriptions expired,
| service providers went offline. I feel bad because I sold some
| lifetime memberships - genuinely expecting to just leave it on
| the internet forever - but man, apparently websites don't do that
| out of the box anymore.
|
| Luckily the entire product of kanji plus will fit nicely as a
| feature in Phrasing, and it's written with the same front end
| tech so it should be a very simple copy paste. 2 weeks of work
| max (famous last words).
|
| Still, I feel really bad that people paid me money and the
| service just went offline. I didn't know I was being _so_ naive
| just expecting things to work for more than 6 months unattended.
|
| If any old kanji plus subscribers are reading this, please feel
| free to get in touch. I'm planning to give all my old supporters
| a free lifetime membership to phrasing once it's ready to go! (a
| membership tier that will not be available to the general public)
|
| [1]: https://phrasing.app/
| freeone3000 wrote:
| I would not subscribe to your new app that is not yet finished
| when you have a previous product that was cancelled without
| fanfare.
| barrell wrote:
| I think that's fair! The question was greatest fails though,
| I would say that is par for the course.
|
| Check back in 10 years though, Phrasing will still be
| running, and it will have had all the features of kanji plus
| for 9 years and then some :-)
| NetOpWibby wrote:
| See you in 10 years!
|
| https://archive.is/gnhIi
| rorylaitila wrote:
| 12 years into my graveyard of side projects and making a modest
| income, nothing has ever "taken off", but I have survived. I
| yearn to be "pulled" by the market inextricably, but that is
| unlikely. The reality is almost every business (and I mean almost
| every one) is "pushed" up the hill, interminably, like Sisyphus.
| Even my most successful clients never feel "ahead". Something
| always breaks in the business model, given enough time.
| donatj wrote:
| I created a rule almost ten years ago that I won't buy the domain
| until I actually have something to host, and it's done me
| reasonably well.
|
| I however have a similar but more expensive problem, I develop
| side projects to an MVP and leave them up for literal decades
| with no one but myself using them, paying for the domain and
| hosting. I can't let things go.
|
| I rewrote a number of things in Go recently so they could scale
| down to zero on Fly.io and save me some money.
|
| For example though I have been developing a note keeping SaaS for
| fifteen years. It fits my own needs perfectly and I use it every
| day, but everyone I have ever had try it has bounced in a couple
| minutes. I literally removed the sign up after GDPR scared me in
| 2018 and never put it back. I should put it back, everything is
| client side encrypted and I don't keep any PII.
|
| I have an ad free emojipedia-esq tool, a tool for making API
| controlled README badges, a tool for converting MIDIs into print
| outs of colored sheet music for children's keyboards, a joke API,
| so much more.
|
| I did accidentally let the domain expire for my Wordle knockoff
| where you guess the soup based on the ingredients. It never
| worked very well anyway.
| parpfish wrote:
| if i search for a domain and it's available, i feel
| unreasonable pressure to buy it IMMEDIATELY.
|
| I'm paranoid that some squatter can tell which domains i'm
| searching for and they'll swoop in and get it as soon as they
| know there's one interested party
| cornfieldlabs wrote:
| > I'm paranoid that some squatter can tell which domains i'm
| searching
|
| Don't search on GoDaddy. I read somewhere GoDaddy raises the
| prices of high value domains by choosing them from searches
| quesera wrote:
| I do the same.
|
| And FWIW, your (our) paranoia is justifiable. As mentioned in
| another comment, GoDaddy is historically-notorious for front-
| running domain searches. ICANN tried to make that a bit less
| practical, but I just assume that they (and other sketchy
| registrars) still do it.
|
| If you search directly through whois (i.e. from the command
| line), you should be OK. That's been my strategy, and I think
| it works.
| baduiux wrote:
| I decided for myself that there's no need to buy a domain
| up front. I don't even let myself look for potential domain
| names or start asking ChatGPT to provide me with some
| naming ideas. Most of the time, the project don't even
| reach MVP state. During development and research I also
| learn more about my project and similar products thus
| helping me decide on a good name.
| quesera wrote:
| I agree that there's no need, and that yours is the
| reasonable approach.
|
| That said, I often have project/product ideas at times
| when I cannot work on them. In fact, always. But I enjoy
| noodling on names and branding, and if I come up with a
| really good name that's available in .com, I register it.
|
| I have revived project ideas 15-20 years later, and have
| been happy to have a great domain for it which would
| absolutely not have been available "now".
|
| Of course I have many more domains that are patiently
| awaiting their prioritization.
|
| The registration fees add up (and I do feel bad about
| reserving them for myself, although I've given a few away
| to persuasive requesters, and I've sold a few which, in
| aggregate, more than cover all of the registration fees).
| baduiux wrote:
| As many pointed out: you could simply use subdomains for all
| the services that you use for yourself only.
| jdonaldson wrote:
| I once owned both cakefax.com, and faxcake.com. I was going to
| corner the market.
| ted537 wrote:
| Is this happy-birthdaying a fax machine or what? haha
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| The corners have the most frosting!
| zamalek wrote:
| I recently went and killed off ~10 domains :). Current project:
| something like eww[1], only using lua and a UI idea that I think
| may actually be ergonomic in Rust (immediate/imgui style and
| actors). Maybe I'll finish it this time.
|
| One the other hand, I have a great idea for CI and it's an itch I
| am currently suffering...
|
| [1]: https://github.com/elkowar/eww
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| > _I buy a domain name - I code for 3 all-nighters - I lose
| interest - I start again._
|
| At least you're actually doing the "I code for 3 all-nighters"
| step!
|
| I've stopped too many projects at the "I buy a domain name"
| stage, and added an intermediate "I create a Trello board" step
| between that and starting to write code. No need to pull all-
| nighters, which are hard to do with family and a full-time job,
| if all I need to do is add a card to a feature wishlist. _Maybe_
| prototype a few key functions to see how they work, wireframe a
| unique piece of UI, or follow the tutorial to create "hello
| world" in a new framework, but it turns out that those steps are
| also optional.
|
| The problem seems to be that my brain gives me a dopamine buzz
| for merely _imagining_ accomplishing the project, whether or not
| I eventually implement, publish, and get users for the it. I can
| give myself a similar cognitive reward for simply reading on HN
| about other people completing projects, and even (at my lowest)
| passively watching YouTube videos of other people building cool
| stuff. It's all the mental rewards of participating in a group
| project where the tribe accomplished something great, except I'm
| barely in a parasocial relationship with a dude on Patreon or
| Discord a thousand miles away who actually performed 100% of the
| work. Maybe he likes my comment "Nice work! I really liked how
| you did [thing], have you considered [alternative strategy]?".
| Maybe he even comments back. Bang! Neurotransmitter pump engaged,
| dopamine boost received.
|
| It's a scary thing to realize that you're doing this, and very,
| very hard to train yourself out of those bad habits. I find it's
| important to write down and consciously review my
| daily/weekly/monthly/yearly goals, my productive and unproductive
| activity towards those goals, and my actual accomplishments. It's
| too easy to get addicted to fake reward loops, whether because
| they're engineered by social media companies who make money off
| my attention span or because brains are just vulnerable to low-
| effort high-reward stimuli. What did I do in July? X hours of
| Reddit, Y hours of HN, Z hours of Youtube... and a half dozen
| things I'm actually proud of.
|
| (Note to self: Don't get too excited about upvotes or replies to
| this comment, acquiring HN or Reddit fake Internet points are not
| part of my actual goals and should not be considered real
| accomplishments.)
| dcminter wrote:
| Upvoted, but just in a friendly "hello, I recognise myself in
| this comment" sort of way :)
|
| I currently have a little stack of index cards with in-play
| projects scrawled on them and at the end of the year the plan
| is to weed those and shut down any resources that aren't
| required for the ones still in the list. Hmm, maybe I need a
| domain name for that though...
|
| One thing I will add is that it's ok to recognise that one
| _enjoys_ some of these behaviours. There 's no moral element to
| being a starter-not-a-finisher of personal projects so long as
| you're paying appropriate attention to your important
| commitments (family, the day job, etc.)
| skeezyboy wrote:
| > whether because they're engineered by social media companies
| who make money off my attention span or because brains are just
| vulnerable to low-effort high-reward stimuli you couldnt be
| bothered, i wouldnt overthink it mate. youll end up diagnosing
| yourself with ADHD
| busssard wrote:
| i actually buy the domain name at the end. i am stingy. which
| means i do not buy domain names as i always loose interest
| after some allnighters. but the code base remains until the
| motivation returns
| alexitosrv wrote:
| Very well said! In this struggle, and as I'm in a new job, and
| I've tried to not get carried away by the common distractions
| in not logging in on the corporate laptop on hn, reddit, and a
| few others. As you can see I already failed, but what a great
| thought that I could not resist to agree with a longer comment
| saying the same that an upvote. :)
| titusjohnson wrote:
| > The problem seems to be that my brain gives me a dopamine
| buzz for merely _imagining_ accomplishing the project, whether
| or not I eventually implement, publish, and get users for the
| it.
|
| I get this same buzz from talking about my projects. So today,
| I do not talk about anything I'm working on because I know I
| can drain myself of all motivation with one excited
| conversation.
|
| If I want daydream fuel I buy a Powerball ticket for $2. I get
| the same dopamine rush doing fictional estate planning as I did
| spending $10=$50 on a domain and fantasizing about the project
| succeeding. The Powerball ticket also doesn't circle back
| around next year asking for more money.
|
| I've also found that having a small homelab that can support
| Dokku or similar is also very helpful when I want to be
| productive. Deployable from Day 1 and after every change is a
| game changer for me, and deploying to an internal host lets me
| be lazy in all the right ways, as long as I keep track of the
| sins I commit (you can go a long, long way on a project before
| you have to add the boring boilerplate that is proper auth, for
| instance).
| hnuser123456 wrote:
| I feel like even doing this is keeping yourself sharp enough
| for when someone else makes a tool that lets you bring your
| idea to life in a more realistically achievable and complete-
| able fashion, for some definition of complete.
| andoando wrote:
| Im the same way. I wish I was rich enough to hire like 10
| developers and assign them to all the different projects I have
| in mind.
| nxobject wrote:
| > I can give myself a similar cognitive reward for simply
| reading on HN about other people completing projects, and even
| (at my lowest) passively watching YouTube videos of other
| people building cool stuff.
|
| I struggle with the same thing -- I'm resigned to the solution
| that _even_ (or _especially_ ) when you're doing hobby
| projects, you might have to resort to blocking HN or other
| distractors for a bit.
| mathiaspoint wrote:
| I always buy a domain well after I've finished the MVP and have
| been using it myself for months. Am I doing it wrong?
| jononor wrote:
| Only if your goal is collecting unused domains!
| DWBH wrote:
| Adderall?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > My Google Domains look like a graveyard of unfinished dreams.
|
| So does my github or the 5 rack servers in my homelab lol. At
| least the servers aren't running and consuming power 24/7
| zabzonk wrote:
| Why buy a domain at all these days? Can't you simply use github?
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| github.com is taken, but github.mx is available!
| cschep wrote:
| no.
| wonkyfruit wrote:
| There's one Peter Levels, and I don't even think he's actually
| Peter Levels. I think he's a dude who went viral, so now anything
| he does gets traffic.
|
| ALWAYS, it comes down to one thing. If you built the best thing
| in the world, and no one visits it, then it's a "failure" at
| least in terms of earning anything.
| OldfieldFund wrote:
| It's not so much about what you build, but about the "secret
| sauce"/marketing that most people who actually succeed big time
| will never reveal.
| bugjoey wrote:
| I'm a person just like you, I have dozens of side-projects
| around. The difference is that I've never went "far" enough to
| buy domains for any of those.
|
| But I have a decent half-baked AI based investment portfolio
| manager, one month of hard work (nights/weekends) dreaming of
| selling it for a bank. Projects of such complexity are impossible
| for people stuck in the ordinary life (job/family). PS: I'm not
| complaining - I love my family. But it demands energy.
| parpfish wrote:
| sounds like you just discovered a product niche: build an AI to
| do all your family stuff
| paulwilsonn wrote:
| This feels way too real.
|
| I've done the same , bought many domain names, got super hyped,
| coded for a few nights... then lost interest. Now I've got a
| bunch of random projects that never saw the light of day.
|
| But honestly, I learned a lot from each one. Even if they didn't
| go anywhere, I got better at building stuff. And who knows, maybe
| one of them will work out someday.
|
| Glad I'm not the only one doing this.
| dashdashu wrote:
| I've got ADHD and that has been my whole life - an endless list
| of side projects and hobbies that were hyperfixated on in the
| beginning, drained of all dopamine and then abandoned once it
| actually became "work"
| anyg wrote:
| I was going down the same path and that's why i bought a domain
| to use as the base for all side projects, Pieter Levels style. If
| it takes off, i can then find a separate domain for it.
| geminiboy wrote:
| I have been doing this for the past 15 years. Countless domains
| have been bought and expired worthless after I lose interest.
|
| Vibe coding actually helped me get a few projects out of the door
| finally! But even now I can't resist the urge to buy a domain
| when I get an idea for a new side project.
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| Hello brother from a different mother. Luckily, I sold some of
| high-priced domains a while back. So far, in my 15+ years of the
| cost of buying domains have yet to cross the amount that I sold
| them for. That keeps me going and I feel happy. Of course, I have
| also let domains expire just to realize that the registrar is re-
| selling them for high single-digit thousands of dollars.
|
| And, I bought my last domain less than 10-days back. Built a
| landing but left it to research further and talk to customers.
| :-)
| parpfish wrote:
| tangential question for the HN side-project crowd:
|
| i have lots of ideas for fun little side projects that would
| never be revenue generating.
|
| i'll go on a tear and start building it, but when it comes time
| to figure out how much it'd cost each month for domains/cloud
| services/etc I talk myself out of it. I'm not talking about big
| LLM bills here, just things like $25/month for the database,
| $10-50/year for a domain, etc.
|
| I don't _think_ it 's just that I'm being cheap, it's that I
| don't like the idea of having to pay for something _in
| perpetuity_. Because that leads to me thinking about how long I
| plan to keep it active and when I 'll sunset it. And once you
| start thinking about that before you've even launched, it's
| pretty easy to conclude it's not worth the time to build it given
| its limited shelf life. If I could just do a one-time upfront
| payment I'd probably go through with it.
|
| The solutions to this are either buying a server and self-hosting
| (no thanks) OR making peace with having a recurring 'goofy
| computer stuff' monthly bill.
|
| So... how much do yall spend each month on your side-projects?
| Having some numbers would help me contextualize and justify this
| cornfieldlabs wrote:
| I have had a single cheapest ec2 server at 5$ per month and
| hosted both db and server in it. Sqlite for db so easy to back
| up. It didn't contain any important data though.
|
| I ran many projects in it
| titusjohnson wrote:
| I have an old Mac mini in a closet that runs Ubuntu and serves
| as a Dokku [1] host. My side projects run for free and are
| accessible inside my network or if I'm on VPN. If the project
| gets enough love eventually it'll graduate to public hosting
| and the transition is easy because the app is already built
| with deployment in mind.
|
| I have saved so much money over the years just not having to
| pay $20/mo * IDEA_QTY. The Mac mini doesn't take much power and
| is dead silent.
|
| [1] https://dokku.com
| lelanthran wrote:
| What's wrong with a single domain and a $5/m VPS that keeps
| both DB and application on it?
|
| I ran a paid business app on a $5/m VPS. No complaints.
|
| If your $5/m VPS cannot handle some load, then _that 's_ when
| you upgrade it. And, TBH, at the point that your $5/m VPS is at
| 80% load on a paid product, you're already getting a few
| thousands of dollars of revenue from it anyway.
| Spastche wrote:
| >But honestly, I've never learned so much, nor enjoyed it so
| much.
|
| that's all that matters. it's important to enjoy the process of
| making things.
| niklasbabel wrote:
| tldr: looking for a partner
|
| i know how to start. i know how to ship. i don't know how to pick
| what's worth staying with.
|
| and i still don't know what my next thing is.
|
| i've shipped real SaaS apps.
|
| - https://truereviews.co // OAuth-based verified customer
| reviews.
|
| - https://refersend.com // Referral tracking via email for non-
| digital industries.
|
| - https://postpov.com AI-powered content machine for
| professionals with AI content simulation.
|
| if you're also in that "smart but tired" phase, DM me or reply.
| maybe we can get out of it together.
|
| here's the pattern: i sprint hard. i get it live. i stall.
|
| not because I'm lazy. b/c promotion/selling burns me out way more
| than building.
|
| i'm not some weekend hacker. i've been a Chief of Staff, a
| founder, a fixer, a builder. i've managed up, down, and sideways
| in a real company. i've coached teams. i've been coached. it's
| helped friends escape the corporate treadmill.
|
| i still don't know what my next thing is.
|
| i'm not writing this for pity. i'm writing it because i see
| myself in this post, and maybe someone else sees themselves in
| mine.
|
| niklasbabel.com
| ChemiSpan wrote:
| > i sprint hard. i get it live. i stall. > b/c
| promotion/selling burns me out way more than building
|
| Describes me perfectly. Engineer with 7 years exp and can build
| anything. Let me know if you'd want to chat.
|
| My most recent project: deepswe.io
| theanonymousone wrote:
| I have one 4-letter domain to which all my side projects are
| subdomains :)
| yomismoaqui wrote:
| The trick is just buying 1 domain and putting every project on a
| different subdomain.
|
| Apart from this I see myself represented in this post.
| pan69 wrote:
| Yes! Build a "platform". I learned that as well. Also saves
| your from having to come up with snazzy names for your "new
| product" as you can just name it after its function,
| notes.mydomain.com
| cs02rm0 wrote:
| You can do that for the odd small tool, but you can't launch
| GreatNewThing(tm) without having it's own full domain!
|
| Except it never gets any users.
|
| I suppose the plus side to spending months rather than days on
| projects that never go anywhere is I have fewer domains. Only 7
| here. _Sigh_.
| al_borland wrote:
| PuTTY is hosted from a user home directory[0]. Maybe having a
| fancy URL isn't everything.
|
| [0] https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
| cornfieldlabs wrote:
| > And the famous "anti-social media social network" (spoiler: it
| was just me).
|
| Haha we are building one too!
|
| Got any advice for us?
|
| Here's the waitlist page with all the features: https://waitlist-
| tx.pages.dev
|
| Email is in profile if you want to connect.
|
| Thanks in advance!
|
| I myself have left 6 domains expired over the last 4 years so you
| are not alone! 3 are from this year alone
|
| Now a days I don't buy the domain until I have actually set up
| the server with the codebase. Project might get dropped just
| before that. It has happened
|
| Edit: I feel validated after reading the replies. I am not alone!
| kassner wrote:
| Thankfully I got domain-sober before the 2012 gTLD round,
| otherwise I'd have gone bankrupt from renewal fees.
|
| A tip to everyone: subdomains are free, and you can set up a 301
| redirect once the project gets some traction. As others have
| mentioned, I only buy a domain once there is some traction, or
| when I start getting organic/indirectly referred traffic.
| 8200_unit wrote:
| I am in a similar boat. My problem is that once I lose momentum
| on a project I have no interest in every revisiting the work I
| have done. Sometimes it is a full day of coding, sometimes it is
| a couple continuous days coding. Once I break away from the
| computer and start living life it feels like to much work to load
| all of the project back into my brain. I would finish more
| projects if I didn't have friends, family, a house, or a life and
| sometimes I wish for that.
| baduiux wrote:
| I think that the problem is not that you lose momentum but
| rather that you start with momentum. I prefer having a clear
| mind and no need to rush (this happens when I'm excited about
| the project / have the initial momentum). This helps me a lot
| at deciding what I want/need/should/must do and what not. It
| also helps me to prioritize the project over/below family,
| friends, and house.
|
| It helped me a lot that every time a have a new idea or want to
| start a new side-project that I wait at least two days before I
| dig deeper and get really started. Only then I really know if I
| really want this or if it's just the initial hype/momentum.
| matt_opmistro wrote:
| At least you've got the building + pivoting down!
|
| Looking back, how do you think you did on the marketing/sales
| front? I don't mean the results of the efforts but I mean the
| input front.
|
| Curious if those pivots were caused because the problem addressed
| wasn't painful enough, the solutions didn't address that pain
| well enough, or if it was simply distribution.
|
| If the former two, I imagine it's only a matter of time until you
| strike gold. But if it's the final third, there's a chance one of
| the 17 could have worked out well.
| heathrow83829 wrote:
| is anyone else here tired of building products for which there is
| little to no demand?
|
| What if we started with a product idea for which we know there is
| demand for: things people are already paying money for. For
| example: apples, or tires, or etc. something you know people are
| paying money for. and then try and either build that product or
| another product that makes building the product easier.
| karmakaze wrote:
| I only once finished the development and deployment of one
| product. It was complete down to landing page, pricing, signup,
| automatic provisioning, and billing.
|
| Then it came down to producing customers not artifacts and I ran
| out of steam. I posted on Product Hunt and a few other places but
| never took it further. I'm glad I did it once as a solo dev, but
| now I know how far I'll go on my own.
| msephton wrote:
| I'm similar but my ratio of prototypes to launching is higher. I
| find it helps to pace yourself, it increases the chance of
| finishing exponentially. But the most important things is good
| scoping and resisting gesture creep. After 35+ years I'm now
| really good at both. My list of projects is at
| https://www.gingerbeardman.com and details of my 2023, the year
| one of my projects got Game Of The Year, are at
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39636937
| corentin88 wrote:
| You built emojipedia? I'm impressed.
|
| By the way the link is broken on your website.
| stillsut wrote:
| Currently working on a python package: agro.
|
| It helps devs build parallel agents from the cli. (think claude
| code, gemini, aider)
|
| And simplifies the git workflow for testing and accepting the
| best solution.
|
| Check it out: https://github.com/sutt/agro
|
| I keep a little text file pr.txt and try to link my project to HN
| / X / other aggregators once a day...
|
| This way I spend a few hours each day coding, and a few minutes
| each day promoting and refining me message.
| NetOpWibby wrote:
| My most recent one was a social network: https://socii.network
|
| Stopped working on it because Mastodon is good enough for me.
|
| I had a Handshake domain registry/registrar: https://neuenet.com
|
| Stopped working on it because Andrew Lee tried to take over the
| blockchain.
|
| An analytics tool: https://chew.sh
|
| Gauges shut down and I enjoyed that service. My previous domain
| is now owned by someone who's last name is Chew, which is cool.
|
| Forgot I just let https://design2code.me expire because I didn't
| put in the work to get my name/services out there.
|
| ---
|
| I'm currently working on https://nickel.video and think I'll
| stick with it for awhile. I also registered https://neue.host a
| few weeks ago, with the idea that a lot of the side projects I
| had in the past would actually work as a collection of services.
| steinvakt2 wrote:
| https://munin.watch
|
| It offers searching in transcriptions of all Norwegian podcasts
| in (roughly) real-time. Also offers subscribing to alerts, for
| example if anyone mentions your business name. Launched some days
| ago
| itsthecourier wrote:
| great work
| ei23 wrote:
| yeah, totally me as well.
| glax wrote:
| There were 6 domains that were bought by me in the last 12 years.
|
| side project, business partnership, personal music streaming
| site, serverless blog.
|
| It's hard to do if you have a regular 9 to 5 and also some other
| hobby(I'm into motorcycles :D).
|
| Only remaining domain is of my name pusparaj.com (but it's in
| auction mode)
|
| I have also lost ownership 2 times or more i think, because i
| tend to rotate registrars and forgot to renew it.
|
| now 3 domains are remaining, will let them expire.
| henriquegodoy wrote:
| Ever thinked on automating this process of creating this side
| projects? i think that more and more future feels like a lot of
| ones having really big swarms of "agents" that can like research
| about ideas on the internet (like finding problems on twitter,
| reddit, ... that a saas can solve it) and a team implementing and
| deploying since from code to marketing in a frenetic rhythm
| danudey wrote:
| > I buy a domain name - I code for 3 all-nighters - I lose
| interest - I start again.
|
| That's ADHD for you.
|
| A former coworker of mine lamented this - "I start so many
| projects or hobbies, but just when I feel like I've learned a lot
| I lose interest". I had to point out to him that his hobby isn't
| - whatever, sheep shearing or book bindery or underwater basket
| weaving - but rather his hobby is _learning things_. That 's a
| common thing for ADHD people, absorbing all you can in a rapid
| amount of time, devoting every minute of thought to something,
| and then suddenly completely forgetting it exists until you get
| the domain renewal notice.
|
| At least you (seem to) have (some degree of) acceptance of the
| circumstance and recognize the benefits of this behavior rather
| than just focusing on the drawbacks; too many people have this
| behavior and think it's a personal failing, when really they just
| have a different hobby than they think they have.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I don't think it has to be ADHD. I don't have ADHD, and none of
| my friends have it that I know of. We all start things we don't
| finish, though. I was going to post some of the more ridiculous
| domain names I've purchased for personal projects, before I
| realized I'd be doxxing myself. Too bad, there are some good
| ones.
|
| I think in many cases, we fail to finish projects because it's
| so much easier to start than it is to finish. The first 90% is
| easy, as the saying goes, but the second 90% is much harder.
|
| And I use the word 'fail' advisedly. I think it's fine to not
| finish everything you start, but it's not good to never finish
| anything, ever. Not if your intention was to finish it anyway.
| I think finishing things is a crucial skill, and we need to
| practice it in order to get good at it, and we won't do that if
| we tell ourselves it's _about as good_ to give up as it is to
| keep going.
|
| ADHD is a real diagnosis, but I'm hesitant to pathologize not
| finishing projects, since that will end up being an excuse
| rather than an explanation for a lot of people.
| MrGilbert wrote:
| However, as it can be a valid indicator for ADHD, it is fine
| to do a test, like[1] offers. It's difficult to diagnose
| adults, but I was surprised to see a quite high rate of
| matches in the test. I share the same "problems" as OP: I
| quit projects because I was able to solve the problem at
| hand.
|
| [1]: https://www.adxs.org/en/
| al_borland wrote:
| I didn't think I had ADHD. Then I saw some video on autism
| that hit a little too close to home. I went and got tested,
| and just had them test for everything while I was at it,
| which included testing for ADHD. Turns out I do have ADHD.
| The more I learn about it, and autism, the more my entire
| life comes into focus.
|
| I have mixed feelings about finding this out late in life
| (early 40s). I do think there was a lot of value in not
| having it as an excuse when I was younger, to force myself to
| figure things out and get to where I am today. On the other
| hand, I spent a good 20 years looking everywhere to try and
| figure out what is wrong with me. Lots of time and money down
| the drain... and the YouTube algorithm is what ultimately
| pointed me in the right direction.
|
| I used to think that these psychiatrists were just trying to
| diagnose the human condition, as so many of the things I
| heard just seemed like normal life for me. But I guess I now
| know why that seemed normal for me, but maybe aren't normal
| for everyone.
| reactordev wrote:
| Aspb '83 baby, that's 80s parenting for you. Boomers saying
| "Oh he's just hyper" or "Oh he's shy" or "Oh she's just in
| her own world" and brushing it under the rug. Combine that
| with processed food additives of the 90s and I look exactly
| the same as I did in high school only with grey hair
| instead of brown!
| al_borland wrote:
| I actually remember telling my dad in the late 80s or
| early 90s that I thought I had ADD after I first heard
| about it. He simply said, "no son of mine has ADD,"
| without even breaking stride. That was that. I was never
| a problem in school, so no one had any reason to question
| it and I moved on.
|
| Funny enough, when I told my dad about the diagnosis,
| within 90 seconds he said, "I think I might have that
| too." Then he went off and did a bunch of research. He
| doesn't feel it's worth getting a diagnosis in his 70s,
| but is pretty sure he has it as well after the research.
| Funny how life works out. This actually helped me forgive
| some of the harder parts of my childhood, as I could
| better understand where he was coming from.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > "I start so many projects or hobbies, but just when I feel
| like I've learned a lot I lose interest".
|
| Similar problem for me.
|
| Every project I've wanted to do, there's usually some technical
| hurdle I need to achieve, and once I've achieved it, I lose
| interest and have something that's not even enough to be
| considered a proof-of-concept, let alone an MVP.
|
| For example, there's an arcade game called Killer Queen that I
| loved, and thought it was a travesty that there wasn't a PC
| version, since it's a 10-player game that's played on 2
| cabinets, and who has that many friends going to the arcade at
| the same time? It needed to be online!
|
| So I decided I was going to create a clone of it. The big
| hurdle I needed to figure out was how to make a realtime
| multiplayer platforming game that kept clients in sync while
| also compensating for latency. My implementation worked by
| having both client and server keeping copies of the last 60
| frames of game state, and the client would merely send their
| inputs and a time stamp (Really a frame number) to the server,
| which would then go back to the frame state for that number and
| re-simulate the game with that input. It would also stream the
| current state (It was only ~300 bytes) to other players with
| their inputs, which would also do a similar re-simulation.
|
| I even made it mostly cheat-proof. There's no hidden
| information (All players see the exact same screen), but I
| figured a modded client could simply see what other players
| have done, then send inputs with time stamps in the past to put
| themselves into an advantageous position, but I prevent that by
| making the server reject inputs older than 250 ms.
|
| But...after getting all that working, and basic platforming
| working...I got bored. Never touched the project again.
|
| EDIT: I've got another game I worked on and actually got to the
| MVP part, but it needs a heavy refactor and I just haven't
| bothered. Mainly because I hate writing and testing front-end
| code, and I feel like I've already written it once and don't
| want to write it again. I haven't bought a domain for it yet,
| thankfully. I'm going to insist on a .game domain for it, which
| is like $400/year.
| al_borland wrote:
| This is a good way to look at it. My issue is that I hate
| acquiring all the stuff to learn something when I know there is
| a high likelihood of losing interest after a few days or weeks.
| I've done this far too many times and got really sick of it. It
| feels so wasteful.
|
| Maybe this is where a lot of my stress comes from. I need that
| outlet, but I suppress it to avoid collecting future trash or
| losing money selling a bunch of like-new stuff (and having to
| deal with the process of selling things all the time).
| clocker wrote:
| I'd call it impulse coding.
| bashmelek wrote:
| I do like learning things, but I wish I could retain better.
| Abandoning hobbies has set me back in that way, making it
| harder to pick up more advanced interests. It feels like lost
| time. I have needed to restart instruments and various maths
| several times. Perhaps a proper system based on spaced
| repetition could help, but organization is a hurdle
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| This is not really ADHD but simply the fun part of new
| projects. The exciting start vs. the grind. Is the difference
| between 17 abandoned side projects and an overnight success ten
| years (or more) in the making.
| baduiux wrote:
| I called this Opportunity FOMO for myself. I always wish to
| jump on the bandwagon with the next idea/project instead of
| sticking to the one I currently work on.
|
| I wrote a short blog post on this a few weeks ago:
| https://baduiux.de/posts/opportunity-fear-of-missing-out/
| slackpad wrote:
| I ended up using one of my more generic domains
| (https://www.modulecollective.com/) and then launching things as
| <product>.modulecollective.com. It's a little wordy but it's free
| and creates kind of a natural place to catalog things. I figure
| if any of them take off then I can go buy a better name later and
| move it over, having the old one redirect. That would be a good
| problem to have :-)
|
| That particular domain was going to be like a Netflix DVD style
| subscription product for Eurorack modules but I never even ended
| up trying to build that after buying the domain.
| WheelsAtLarge wrote:
| I suggest you don't code at all. Do a very detailed mind map of
| the project. It will include, the users you are targeting, what's
| the goal -- why are they better off with your project, how will
| you get customers, and there is so much before you start to code.
|
| As a learning project, copy a successful project and mind map it,
| program it and find customers. You will learn so much that you
| can apply to whatever project you come up with. You'll get
| frustrated because you will need to go out and learn a lot but
| power thru it. You'll be better off for the hard work. Good luck!
| monkmartinez wrote:
| L.A.M.E.[1] !!!! 99.9999999999% of the fun is the code.
|
| [1] Lacking Any Major Excitement
| ill0gicity wrote:
| I've been attacked by name. Yes, very ADHD.
| clocker wrote:
| Its almost like impulse buying so I call it impulse coding. I
| have done it before I am sure will do it again.
| neilv wrote:
| I register my side project domain names on Namecheap now...
| partly because they have a marketplace for selling the domain
| when I decide to scratch the launch.
|
| (Most recent example: I made an unreleased browser extension for
| HN, the MVP feature of which is to let you block annoying users,
| such that any of their comments are replaced with poop emoji. But
| since I can't put an AI spin on that, to attract funding or job
| offers, I'm better off selling the domain names, and not spending
| any more time on it.)
| tnt128 wrote:
| My advice: It's probably not that you've lost interest in your
| project -- it's more likely that you don't know what to do next
| and you're defaulting to your comfort zone: building the product.
|
| Here's an easy way to test this: imagine your product suddenly
| takes off -- it gets picked up on Reddit or Hacker News, you
| start getting lots of users and feedback. Would you still feel
| uninterested? Or would you find yourself energized, working late
| into the night to improve it?
|
| That thought experiment reveals something important: there's a
| gap between building a product and getting people to use it. You
| haven't figured out how to bridge that gap yet, so you stay in
| "builder mode" -- because it feels safe and familiar.
| al_borland wrote:
| I made the mistake of buying a 10 years for the last one I
| bought. I used it for maybe a few weeks. Now I have to wait the
| better part of a decade for it to expire.
| delduca wrote:
| I was the same page 2 years and half ago. Now I am full on my 2D
| engine (besides the paid work of course)
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