New year, new stuff to make

I’m not one for new year’s resolutions, but a desire to improve myself coincided with the end of the year, so I’m gonna give it a crack.

My aim for the next 12 months:

Build one thing a month that makes money

Build one thing a month that makes my life easier

Over the last 3/4 years, I’ve built dozens of websites, app and random junk online. Most were started with a dream of selling for 6-digit figures, but as reality set in my mind wandered onto the next project. You know, the one that would definitely work because of some reason that doesn’t actually exist.

I’m able to build stuff, stuff that actually looks alright. Some of them are even useful for people. But none of them make money.

A clothing aggregator made me £5.17, a gift-suggestor made £16.39, and a drinking map earned about £100 worth of free drinks.

So I aim to rectify this by spending the first week of a month refining an idea and preparing it, the next week building an MVP, the next week getting the first 20 customers, the week after refining it, and then the last few days attempting to scale.

I’ve found that I can normally tell within a couple of weeks if:

1. The thing I’ve made fills a need
2. It’ll capture my attention for the next few weeks

So if after a month the thing I’ve made makes money, and is still interesting to me, I’ll keep it up for the next month. I’m genuinely not sure this will happen, so I‘m planning for something new each month.

I also know that I get side-tracked easily, so I’m going to try to make something to improve my own life each month, purely for me.

I’m going to write up as I make each thing so that I can keep track of my learnings, and maybe help someone else avoid my inevitable mistakes.

If anyone wants to join me in making some cool things, please shout.

Happy new year everyone.