Why would you start a side project if it’s doomed to fail
Ever since my college days, I’ve always been drawn to tech and entrepreneurship.
Although not formally trained in software development, I started a Bs in Computer Science, but quit because was too much about advanced maths and electronics, I have a deep interest in tech products and have learned to design and code through more than a couple online bootcamps to start conceiving and building functioning products by myself.
However, the perspective of throwing myself into the wild with no net, no savings, and no financial guarantees wasn’t particularly appealing. In part, because my social context and references were not embracing of that kind of risks. Like it or not, it ends up embedded and propagated in your brain and it requires enourmous amounts of effort to override.
It wasn’t until I came across the writing and strong opinions of a couple of guys, that I realized there are alternatives. That the romanticized idea of entrepreneurship sold by magazines and TV propaganda leaves a lot of bodies on the road, that there is certainly another, less rushed, slower but also more sustainable, way of approaching business.
David Henemeier Hensen (a.k.a DHH) and Jason Fried are the founders of the project management software company Basecamp, and have been shouting for more than a decade against the headline-catching and soul-crushing operative of Silicon Valley and the VC ecosystem. They write frequently at their Medium blog Signal v. Noise and wrote 3 books on how they have done and still do things differently in how they run their business and teams.
“If someone wants to start a new business, if he or she wants to be an entrepreneur, especially in software, he or she should be able to look at least two paths, not just the silicon-valley way.”~ DHH
They started up 37Signals, which later became Basecamp, on the side while keeping respective design and development jobs. Building it in their spare time, slowly, steadily but without burning themselves out in the process. DHH has stated several times that he didn’t put more than 10 hours a week on the product development until it took off to become their primary gig.
“Basecamp was done almost entirely without risk. It was completely self-funded. We treated it as a side-product and a side-project until it could pay the bills.” ~ DHH
Nowadays, managing a very successful yet deliberately small business, they still maintain and preach that unconventional philosophy and particular practices, not working more than 7 hours a day, crunching at least a 4–5 hour block of uninterrupted time for deep work, while avoiding toxic meetings at all cost.
Their example, the work of folks like Derek Sivers and a great recent book by Patrick McGinnis, The 10% Entrepreneur, have led me to start some projects on the side in the last 3 years while still keeping, and surely fostering, my career on a consistent and accelerated pace.
In that time I…
- Developed my personal website to share my articles and, to be honest, market myself a bit out there.
- Started up eShelves, an app-based service aimed to curate the best articles on the Internet and serve them to its users narrated by professional voice-over artists.
- Jumped up to Medium to expand my writing through this publication StrongOpinions.
However, starting and growing projects is hard and, specially if they are held on the side, they have an extremely high probability of crashing. And, that’s totally fine with me.
This precise week, I began the process of shutting down eShelves. And that’s totally fine.
It’s not I’ve stopped thinking that is a wonderful product and an exciting service to build. Is not even a matter of lack of interest by potential users (Its mailing list has grown to more than a couple thousand emails, in less than a year, with little to no paid advertising). Is just that it doesn’t excite me anymore and it simply doesn’t fit in my current ambitions and lifestyle.
Having to hire people, contact and contract narrators, keeping an online marketing agenda and juggling to keep it all running, doesn’t align with my interests anymore. So I closed it… and that’s still fine.
“Whatever excites you, go do it. Whatever drains you, stop doing it.” ~ Derek Sivers
Although it hasn’t take of and my website blog posts have been stripped down and moved to Medium, it’s the process what has enriched me greatly, providing extremely valuable knowledge both for future ventures and my professional career.
Having learned…
- How to build an app and online service from scratch. The coding language alternatives, the backend infrastructure, the UI design and everything involved in it.
- How to hire, communicate and engage freelancers to help with all sorts of aspects: mobile development, API programming, legal documentation, Amazon infrastructureetc.
- How to leverage the myriad of Cloud services and how they all interact. Spending countless hours trying to figure out how Amazon Web Services like EC2, ELB, S3, Security Groups operate and help tiny groups to compete with tech giants.
- How to market a tech product online. The storytelling, services, costs, segmentation alternatives, landing pages, sales funnels etc.
- How to really use design software like Photoshop, Sketch and AfterEffects to create my own marketing material and user experience.
It has become crystal clear to me. Even if it doesn’t stand a chance of being a unicorn or even succeeding in any way. Even if totally crashes upon the floor. Experimenting with side projects, with 10% investments is a fantastic way of growing up your skills, experience and perspective. It might help you in your professional career immensely, arm you with abilities and relationships to expand your horizons or, who knows, set you on the path of building a healthy million dollar company.
What are you going to start?
