[HN Gopher] Six Months of Tiny Projects
___________________________________________________________________
Six Months of Tiny Projects
Author : tinyprojects
Score : 731 points
Date : 2020-11-18 11:48 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tinyprojects.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (tinyprojects.dev)
| kaetemi wrote:
| This is a good exercise in estimating workload.
|
| While the article says one week is insufficient to make something
| meaningful, I've found personally that you can write useful
| software even in a single day, as long as your feature scope is
| finely targeted. Actual real life needs of real people are also
| more interesting to write software for.
| lallysingh wrote:
| This is great! You should put out a book.
|
| Also a meta-site on 'minimal way to do X' on all the random tech
| you've had to setup and assemble would be useful.
|
| I guess that's 2 more tiny projects. Hmm, I guess they'd be tiny
| meta projects.
| cgreinhold wrote:
| That's really cool and inspiring. I began the year with a similar
| idea of creating small projects weekly, although my goals were
| less ambitious. In the beginning of it I already felt in the
| "insane schedule" hole and realized that it wouldn't work, so I
| changed plans to at least creating a blog post each week. With
| that, I could create a better habit and manage to (almost) handle
| it.
|
| This approach didn't block me from creating small programs/game
| clones in this period, which I'm keeping in my blog[0] as well,
| but seeing projects like yours motivates to push harder for
| bigger projects.
|
| I wish you luck on keeping your pace as well!
|
| [0] https://cgreinhold.dev/
| dspillett wrote:
| _> I 'm anxious for the month I can't find any new social
| platforms._
|
| I doubt that'll be an issue for some time, there are so many
| startups out there either trying to be the next big one or
| specifically to address the needs of a niche set of users.
|
| Once the project hits a certain level of public awareness new
| social projects will be contacting the author to ask to be
| included, there will be no "looking for them" involved (though
| perhaps some due diligence checking to make sure the platform
| isn't in some way a project they'd rather not be associated
| with).
| skinkestek wrote:
| Snormal is really cool even at this stage!
| visionofmaster wrote:
| I really liked this post. 6 months of great experience series.
|
| Keep going man!
|
| I also added it to the https://mastermind.vision I hope you don't
| mind.
| chancecbrown wrote:
| I find this inspiring and think I might do this myself. I have a
| huge list that makes me anxious to work on, but doing so publicly
| might force me to do some of them.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Really cool. Most people wouldnt post if they were 6 for 26 but
| honestly this is so insightful. I was planning on doing something
| similar with having 4 weeks to finish 4 upcoming projects. I knew
| they would probably take longer than the time allotted. This is
| helpful feedback.
| lganzzzo wrote:
| Nice! Just build it!
|
| It's a blessing to see that there are people who can just build
| things instead of whining around like: ohh it's not a business...
| ohh it won't make any money... ohh it's not so simple to build a
| product... mkay
| bobbydreamer wrote:
| snormal is really good
| uhtred wrote:
| Don't worry young padawan, your enthusiasm will dwindle in time.
| gallerdude wrote:
| You don't need to be so negative.
| [deleted]
| mettamage wrote:
| Not sure if I read it (or if I was just thinking it), but if I
| were him I'd also use Earlyname as a sort of PH type of service.
| Social (media) websites want to be promoted and get users. Having
| an influx of early users via Earlyname would help with that. So
| on the longer term, I'd focus on framing the message to new
| companies as well. It also means he wouldn't need to search all
| the time for new social (media) sites.
| aadilmaan wrote:
| This is such a great way to keep the sword sharpened. I am really
| excited to see and quite inspiring that the author even embarked
| on this mission.
| jhunter1016 wrote:
| Build to learn. I love it. One thing I think many engineers and
| founders discover is they like creating more than they like
| running a business. A lot of places will look down on that
| mentality, but you don't have to be a CEO. You can just be a
| person who likes to tinker and makes some money on the side.
| flixic wrote:
| That is going to be my 2021. Definitely not a launch per week,
| but aiming to launch a new project every 2 months. I suspect some
| will even generate something like $1.60!
| ticmasta wrote:
| >> 1-2 months is a more reasonable tiny project timeframe. It
| gives you enough time to build something with substance, and test
| the idea thoroughly.
|
| This is a similar timeframe that Basecamp uses for internal
| initiatives. I've been pushing for us to switch from 2-week
| sprints to something closer to 6-week features. If you're
| building on existing product or a brand new one 1-2 weeks is just
| not enough time for meaningful progress.
| batt4good wrote:
| Wow, OneItemStore is awesome. Any chance there's a way to peak at
| the source? I'm just starting to dip my toes in front-end
| anything and simple projects like OneItemStore still seem quite
| daunting.
| sharker8 wrote:
| Which facebook one did you buy? I saw an ingenious one a few
| years ago called checkfacebook.com
| picodguyo wrote:
| Don't pay attention to the negative nellies. Even these tiny
| "worthless" projects end up having value because they build a
| tool chest of skills and code snippets that make each subsequent
| project quicker and more sophisticated. Eventually you'll
| Frankenstein pieces of a dozen of these together into something
| big.
| penguin_booze wrote:
| Much of the stuff on which I tinker are useless/masochistic.
| But: "what I cannot create, I do not understand"!
| hnrodey wrote:
| 100% and aligns with my personal experiences as well. I've
| built countless things that never went anywhere or
| materialized.
|
| Yet even today I continue to refer back to these old projects
| because I need to use again something I've built before.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| As a reader of that site and a student in tech, my friends and
| I have already received value from it.
| gallerdude wrote:
| I don't understand why the other comments are being so negative,
| this is _awesome_. There 's a Jony Ive quote along the lines of
| "when you build something, you get the actual thing, but even
| more valuable is how you've grown and changed from building that
| thing.
|
| Best of luck on your future projects, great on you to make
| awesome stuff and grow as a person!
| dang wrote:
| > I don't understand why the other comments are being so
| negative, this is _awesome_.
|
| This is the contrarian dynamic at work:
| https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22contrarian%20dynamic%22%20o...
|
| The first posts in a thread are usually negative because
| negative reactions are the easiest to feel and fastest to
| write. Also, most internet comments are objections to
| something, and when the thread is blank, the only thing there
| to object to is the article.
|
| After that, other comments show up to object to the objections.
| These tend to get upvoted, and that explains the paradox of why
| so often the top comment says something like "I don't
| understand why everyone here is so negative".
|
| The main thing to understand is that this has nothing to do
| with the topic! It's a generic effect of the forum mechanism
| and group psychology.
| justiceforsaas wrote:
| In one comment you said that the contrarian dynamic works on
| HN threads and to internet comments in general.
|
| I just went and opened 10 random Reddit threads on the front
| page to read the top comments, and found only 2 where this
| was true, and 8 where this was totally false, most notably
| [1].
|
| The main reason for negative comments here on HN (IMO) is a
| self-fulfilling prophecy. People have learned that usually
| the #1 comment is a negative one, so you have a bunch of
| people "competing" to be #1 by trying to nitpick whatever is
| wrong with the original article (even if there is none) in
| hope to win the popularity contest.
|
| This is why I've seen some friends recently leave HN (their
| exact words: "couldn't hand the toxicity"). I hope that you,
| as a Head of Growth, can actively work to break this cycle.
|
| [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueOffMyChest/comments/jw8xbe/i
| f_w...
| dsabanin wrote:
| I think those negative commenters tend to miss what in my
| opinion is the most critical ingredient of what being a true
| "hacker" is - doing some things just because you want to,
| because you're having fun and because you want to see where it
| may lead. It breeds creativity and original ideas.
|
| A silly idea in the beginning may turn out to not be so silly
| in the end.
| mgreenleaf wrote:
| I've been doing a similar thing where I build lots of
| different SAAS type projects, lots of them will go nowhere,
| but what I have learned about design, abstraction, and trade-
| offs is enormous. Definitely worth the time to do something
| like this. One of my first priorities in hiring someone is to
| see if they have side projects where they learn things
| unconstrained by the normal grind of daily professional life.
| chongli wrote:
| Well it's inevitable that the culture of a community is going
| to drift as it grows. We even have a name for the effect in
| the hacker community: Eternal September.
|
| I also think the negativity may be reflective of the mood of
| society overall. This has been a very tough year for so many
| people. When people are having a tough time I think they can
| latch on to one of their pet peeves and use it to blow off
| some steam. We just need to be careful as a community that we
| don't allow the discussion to devolve into a toxic flame war.
| Our tireless moderator dang has been tremendous at that thus
| far.
| Impossible wrote:
| It's good that he built some side projects and seems like he
| learned a lot. And the process and write ups are entertaining,
| but I understand some of the negativity. He comes off as peak
| tech bro, instead of talking about how he's making the projects
| for fun or for learning everything is about monetizing or
| getting views on (admittedly!) poor quality hackathon projects.
| Dialing down some of the tech bro and the focus on making
| "products" and I believe the negativity would go away. It
| doesn't help that his idea process seems to be "what can I make
| that is like something else, but significantly worse" :). I
| think it's a great achievement in rapid development, however
| franl wrote:
| What is your definition of "tech bro"? The post comes off to
| me as someone who is humble, introspective, interested in
| technology, interested in testing out new ideas, and
| interested in getting better. Not sure what's "tech bro"
| about any of that, but maybe that means I'm a tech bro, bro!
| /joke
| Impossible wrote:
| You're right, it appears that tech bro is insulting to the
| HN audience. Too late to delete or edit my comment, but
| maybe future readers can ignore the offensive parts of the
| post. I still stand by the focus on product and selling for
| projects that were largely about learning could lead to
| negative comments. I attempted to get some balance in my
| original comment but it seems like using tech bro negated
| any of that
| franl wrote:
| No offense taken here! I asked from a place of trying to
| learn what you meant. Part of why I like HN is because I
| can find posts that go deep in the technical aspects of
| things, posts that delve more into the product/business
| side of things, and lots of stuff in between. I think I
| understand the spirit of your original reply better now!
| cpow85 wrote:
| I agree, This was a fun read. I also think this is a really
| excellent way to gain some experience, do something fun, and
| potentially hit on a big idea.
|
| I can definitely see the excitement of creating something small
| but semi-viral on the internet
| antupis wrote:
| Yeah I bet generally that doing 12 different thing and in
| year and then pivot best one fields better outcome than
| grinding one thing.
| chuckSu wrote:
| No matter what someone does HN will always be filled with a
| bunch of negative comments because this place is filled with a
| bunch of haters... Dare I say bitter ass haters
| victor106 wrote:
| > Today, people have created over 1400 stores, selling everything
| from t-shirts, to human beings.
|
| Selling human beings!!! really?
| A_No_Name_Mouse wrote:
| If you're interested, my mother in law is for sale. Very cheap
| but she comes with a no return policy.
| xwdv wrote:
| If anyone is thinking of replicating this challenge, I would
| recommend focusing on building tiny projects within a specific
| domain or set of customers, to boost creativity.
| mring33621 wrote:
| I wish I could give this more than 1 upvote.
|
| Pure initiative and positivity.
|
| I love it!
| keyle wrote:
| I remember the origin of this idea. Glad to see him plodding
| along. I wish I had the stamina. Although I've done 3 things in 6
| months that are finished and shipped, I really dislike the
| "putting myself out there" part. I just quietly move onto the
| next idea.
| pettycashstash2 wrote:
| I applaud this. Its progressive learning improving and
| continually stacking learned patterns. Congrats.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| I love this, and I believe this is what so many more programmers
| ought to be doing. There's nothing like actually owning a product
| end-to-end to teach you about which engineering principles
| actually matter and when.
| NKosmatos wrote:
| I'm jealous of what Ben is doing. That's the correct mentality
| when you're a young, full stack developer, full of energy, with
| nice ideas and with plenty of time to "play" and showcase your
| skills. Wondering if he's open to new tiny project ideas ;-) P.S.
| He is available for hire over at https://benstokes.dev
| Fumtumi wrote:
| I would be just to afraid for certain ideas like the shop thing.
|
| One credit card fraud going through my system and i might in a
| big dept if i did this under a company format which doesn't
| protect me from personal liability.
|
| While i like the idea very much of getting exercise in this way,
| i'm wondering what the main motivation is?
|
| I would like to earn money through my own company but only with
| my product i like and find 'worthy'. Trying out small concepts
| over and over again, might not bring any fruit in finding the
| thing you are passionate about and then the question arrives if
| it wouldn't be much more beneficial to optimize your own career
| instead.
| delusional wrote:
| I find that passion is much more about investment than inherent
| joy. When I invest in a project, I become passionate.
| Fumtumi wrote:
| I do think its possible to become passinate about things over
| time.
|
| If you ask me if i want to work on x or y, i will tell you
| quite easy what i would prefer which i would relate to
| passion?
|
| Wikipedia would agree on both ways of seeing passion:
| "Passion (Greek paskho "to suffer, to be acted on"[1] and
| Late Latin (chiefly Christian[2]) passio "passion; suffering"
| (from Latin pati "to suffer"; participle: passus)) is a
| feeling of intense enthusiasm towards or compelling desire
| for someone or something. "
|
| But i think what makes it more interesting or more
| motivationg for me is that one thing might have something
| special in comparison to other things i wanna do.
|
| Like if i work on a product which helps the world vs. a
| product which is 'just a normal product' i might see more
| reason to work on the first product.
|
| I probably need to ask you what makes you invest in a
| project.
| justinlloyd wrote:
| All of these projects (even the failures and the flameouts) are
| 100% fantastic. Some I look at and think "That looks like shit!"
| Some I look at and think "I don't see the point." Some I look at
| and think "Wish I'd thought of that." But every single one of
| them, the shit ones, the pointless ones, the really neat ones,
| they all have value. Massive learning opportunities, the fact you
| published something, the fact you experimented. I cannot commend
| you enough for what you have achieved.
|
| I get involved in "weekend projects" (sometimes they go a little
| longer than a weekend), and I find that without the pressure to
| deliver something useful it lets me explore whimsical ideas and
| learning opportunities I don't get in my day job.
| greatNespresso wrote:
| Really inspiring, I feel like your projects grew in complexity
| over time, which is all the more consistent with the tiny
| philosophy.
| krm01 wrote:
| Job well done. If anything, more people should build their tiny
| projects in public and document their journey like you did.
| Dribbble used to be this place for designers, where a community
| came together to show work in progress and get feedback from one
| an other. (then it turned into a marketing platform). There isn't
| really something like that for tiny software projects. If there
| was, I would be checking in on a daily basis.
| Jaruzel wrote:
| Well your first tiny project could be a HN-alike for people to
| showcase their tiny projects. :)
| oli-g wrote:
| > There isn't really something like that for tiny software
| projects
|
| IndieHackers seems close enough to me
| gilli wrote:
| Yeah I was going to suggest IndieHackers, plenty of tiny
| projects going on there.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| My school has something called devgarden[0] although it is more
| of a curation of student built project repo than a detailed
| site like tinyprojects.
|
| [0] https://devgarden.macalester.edu
| mirzmaster wrote:
| This is fantastic! Do you know if there's an open source
| project/framework powering this site? Seems really valuable
| for powering inner-source and private developer communities.
| justiceforsaas wrote:
| The gist of the article is: The OP created a tiny project,
| launched it on Product Hunt/Hacker News, and moved to creating
| another project. I'm glad he acknowledges the problem with this:
|
| "A Product Hunt launch can easily get you a spike in traffic, but
| afterwards I really don't know what I'm doing".
|
| Here are some tips to help with this:
|
| 1) Explore more "steady" acquisition channels. Yes, PH/HN are
| "spike-y" channels and they're often not enough to have a
| business generating sustainable income. Read "Traction" by
| Gabriel Weinberg (I'm also doing some research on this topic
| [1]).
|
| 2) Maybe flip the script and do the opposite? Choose 1 or 2
| promising projects, and do "six months of exploring user
| acquisition". Test SEO, FB/Google Ads, partnerships, affiliates,
| appstores and so on.
|
| Good luck!
|
| [1] https://firstpayingusers.com
| dang wrote:
| Please stop spamming HN with your link. We just asked you about
| this yesterday:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25128211
| asadlionpk wrote:
| It's amazing you are able to discover this kind of not-so-
| submarine-spamming.
| justiceforsaas wrote:
| Oh, sorry, I haven't seen it. Saw it now. Is there a way to
| get in touch?
| mritchie712 wrote:
| +1 for Traction. I reached out to Gabriel on Twitter about
| creating an app companion to the book to guide you thru the
| process. He was supportive and it's on my side project list for
| December or early next year.
| batt4good wrote:
| Does anyone have advice for taking a simple project like this and
| hiring a designer to make it look a bit more polished?
| reggieband wrote:
| There is an old story about pottery students. A school split a
| pottery class into two groups. They instructed the first group to
| focus on making a few exceptional pieces. They judged the second
| group based on the number of pieces they created measured by
| weight. The result was that the best pieces came from the second
| group; those that focused on quantity.
|
| There is value in the experience gained when focusing on quantity
| instead of quality. Early in ones career it seems wise to spend
| some time on increasing quantity.
| bluedevil2k wrote:
| > I believe there's a big advantage to this "micro-bet" approach
| of launching many tiny businesses
|
| These aren't businesses. These are websites. Most people on HN
| can build a website. It takes some coding and some tech
| knowledge. Not everyone can build a business. That involves
| marketing, advertising, customer acquisition, cash flow
| management, legal, on and on.
|
| While what the author did was neat and fun for him, let's not
| pretend this is the path to a successful web business. I'd bet
| there's few "micro-bets" that are generating any meaningful
| amount of money.
| ryangittins wrote:
| This is a prime example of the "No true Scotsman" fallacy.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
| optional_value wrote:
| Reminds me of the book "The E-Myth: Why Most Small Businesses
| Don't Work".
|
| Just because you are a good engineer, does not mean you are a
| good entrepreneur. Most engineers think it's just about
| building a good product. This is not true.
| shrimpx wrote:
| It actually is entirely about building a good product if by
| good product you mean something people want.
| hyperpallium2 wrote:
| If no one links to your good product, it's not in the
| webgraph.
| pfortuny wrote:
| If your product makes money that is irrelevant.
| [deleted]
| optional_value wrote:
| You are proving my point
| mjklin wrote:
| First "actually" reply I've read today, congratulations.
| 8:08 AM is a bit early though.
| cambalache wrote:
| Your is the first sarcastic, no-content answer I have
| read today. 7:30 AM local time.
| jesuscyborg wrote:
| Building a good product will get you a pat on the back.
| What you need is a good product + leverage.
| http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html
| state_less wrote:
| Please keep in mind that we may not all share the same idea of
| what a business is, what a meaningful amount of money is and
| what success looks like.
|
| When you repeatedly make sales and profit, you're past the
| hurdle of not losing money on the operation. It's a nice
| milestone on the entrepreneurship journey and worthy of a bit
| of celebration.
| scrozart wrote:
| Exactly. By definition, in the US, this is a sole
| proprietorship and has no hard requirement s for legal
| filings/business plan/etc.
| mhb wrote:
| What definition? You can call anything a sole
| proprietorship. It doesn't ever have to make money.
| OldHand2018 wrote:
| > we may not all share the same idea of what a business is
|
| The IRS has an opinion [1], and its a really good list! Make
| a copy of it and put a recurring appointment in your calendar
| to revisit it, think about it, and write down your comments.
|
| [1] https://www.irs.gov/faqs/small-business-self-employed-
| other-...
| jedimastert wrote:
| > That involves marketing, advertising, customer acquisition,
| cash flow management
|
| The most projects mentions involved at least a few of hese
| things, and the last one, Earlyname[0], had them all and has
| been more profitable than many many "businesses" in SV right
| now...
|
| [0]: https://tinyprojects.dev/projects/earlyname
| ChefboyOG wrote:
| Out of curiosity, who do you worry is "pretending this is the
| path to a successful web business?" Because the author
| certainly isn't doing so.
|
| If you scroll down just a few paragraphs from the sentence
| fragment you quoted, the author says:
|
| > "My main goal for the next six months of Tiny Projects is to
| learn how to get better at making money on the internet from my
| projects.
|
| A Product Hunt launch can easily get you a spike in traffic,
| but afterwards I really don't know what I'm doing. There's this
| whole other level afterwards called "sales & marketing" that I
| want to master."
|
| The author is extremely explicit throughout the piece that
| these are not built to become large businesses--hence the
| constant use modifiers like "tiny" and "micro." He also makes
| it clear that he treats this as a training routine for getting
| better at idea generation, shipping products, etc.
| bluedevil2k wrote:
| In my opinion he'd be better off focusing on 1, maybe 2,
| projects and seeing those through to "completion" (whether
| that's positive MRR or closing). Which 1 or 2 products? Well
| he should have done his market research ahead of time and
| known from his list which ones were most viable. Better yet,
| he should have found customers ready to hand over their CC
| information.
| OJFord wrote:
| This is addressed in the 'negatives of tiny projects' and
| 'conclusions' sections of TFA.
| spzb wrote:
| While there is a danger of spreading yourself too thin (as the
| author notes, one project a week was far too intensive) there's
| mileage in the idea of "throw a load of ideas at the wall and
| see what sticks". It helps you validate an idea quickly and, if
| nothing else, builds a portfolio you can show to potential
| employers or clients.
|
| Rob Walling has some good stuff on building micro-SaaS
| businesses https://robwalling.com/
| justiceforsaas wrote:
| > I'd bet there's few "micro-bets" that are generating any
| meaningful amount of money.
|
| That's the whole point of micro-bets. You acknowledge the fact
| that a small % of them will generate any meaningful $, so you
| deliberately minimize your losses by making the bets small.
| petercooper wrote:
| _I'd bet there's few "micro-bets" that are generating any
| meaningful amount of money._
|
| The narrative would change and it wouldn't be getting called a
| "micro-bet" anymore if it did though, no? ;-) We used to just
| call these "side projects" which I prefer as a term for any
| sort of cheap experiment you throw at the wall to see if it
| sticks. I've had several, had two acquired for non-negligible
| amounts, and another has been my full time business for 10
| years now.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| > let's not pretend this is the path to a successful web
| business.
|
| I disagree. There is no point in setting up legal and marketing
| and advertising if the business is not functional. This is a
| perfectly suitable path to a successful web business. Obviously
| he would need to expand on those areas you mentioned if he
| wanted to make one of these his career but this is the first
| step on that path.
| qw wrote:
| The full quote is:
|
| > I believe there's a big advantage to this "micro-bet"
| approach of launching many tiny businesses, and then sticking
| with the ones that become successful.
|
| The full quote changes the context. From what I understand, he
| sees it as a way to validate business ideas with small amount
| of effort.
| bluedevil2k wrote:
| Small amount of effort? He put 6 months into this. That's not
| small. We see sooooo many articles on HN saying "know your
| customer before you write a line of code" or "find people who
| are ready to write a check". Like a dozen of these articles a
| month from coders who are writing a post-mortem or telling us
| lessons learned. It's like we all forgot those important
| lessons when we read this article.
| graderjs wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
| superasn wrote:
| But sometimes this is what it takes to find something that
| sticks or find some meaningful spin-off that generates hundreds
| and thousands in revenue.
|
| This is the best approach starting out to see what the audience
| responds to, but the next critical step is to stick with what
| works for at least 5 full years doing all the things you've
| mentioned plus SEO (which is a big big).
| elorant wrote:
| My main business started as a side-project. Not as tiny as the
| ones in the article, but it wasn't meant to be my main source
| of income. And yes, it took years of marketing to reach a
| mature state, but the essence is that experimenting is what
| usually brings the real money.
| bluedevil2k wrote:
| You kind of make my point. You turned your website into a
| business by spending the time to convert it. Experimenting is
| fine and it's fun to build websites and web apps, I do it
| too. But if I'm not willing to spend the time to listen to
| clients, figure out what they want and what they'll pay for,
| then to me it's just a hobby.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| You are too negative. "tiny businesses" implies that the author
| himself does not believe these to be fully fledged businesses,
| for probably the same reasons you are listing.
|
| I applaud this initiative, instead. It's commendable that
| someone decided to build not just one, but several things; for
| fun, and perhaps some profit.
|
| Then, if one of those ideas turns out to be very promising, the
| rest of the "business" can be quite trivial to setup, at least
| initially.
| agwa wrote:
| This is one of the most disappointing comments I've read on HN.
| The patronizing negativity is bad enough, but it's not even
| accurate. Read the article about Earlyname. The author
| absolutely understands marketing, advertising, and customer
| acquisition. Oh, he also owns a real-life ice cream business
| with two locations and (as of 2018) three non-founder employees
| (https://rippleandroll.com/), so I assume he knows about cash
| flow and legal matters too.
| bluedevil2k wrote:
| I never said he didn't know these skills, I said if he's not
| willing to put the time to marketing and advertise each of
| these websites, then they're not businesses. There's nothing
| wrong with having a hobby of building web apps, I do it too.
| But a business is more than tech.
| agwa wrote:
| Read the Earlyname post. He is putting in the time to do
| those things.
| wayneftw wrote:
| > These aren't businesses. These are websites. [...] Not
| everyone can build a business. That involves marketing,
| advertising, customer acquisition, cash flow management, legal,
| on and on.
|
| Incorrect. The word business is defined simply as "the practice
| of making one's living by engaging in commerce." or "a person's
| regular occupation, profession, or trade."
|
| A kid with a lemonade stand has a business. My dad ran a
| plumbing business that did zero marketing or advertising and
| had no regular lawyer. According to your definition neither of
| these are businesses.
|
| Gee, you know come to think of it - Knowing who your customers
| are is marketing, talking/blogging about your business (however
| small it is) is advertising, accepting cash and knowing what's
| in your bank account is cash flow management and avoiding
| breaking any laws is legal. So, whichever way you look at it -
| you're wrong.
| pfortuny wrote:
| It is easy to mistake "business" with "being incorporated".
| This is terrible because it assumes economic action requires
| a kind of social legal structure, which is totally false.
| Viz. jails, war times, very small business...
| bemmu wrote:
| I took this same approach and from about ~50 things, 5 made
| enough money to make it time well spent overall.
|
| They were tiny like the projects listed here, so it's possible
| it could work out for the author, and I'm still sticking to the
| same approach now.
|
| Launch something quick with little self-criticism, then double
| down on anything that seems to have traction.
| fiftyacorn wrote:
| So 10% worked - is that not about normal for business?
| marcosdumay wrote:
| It's normal for boom or burst startups. It's way bellow
| normal for small business.
|
| But well, it's a perfectly fine ratio here.
| fiftyacorn wrote:
| Even on a small business/startup average youd maybe see
| 50 businesses start, and 5 succeed
| zanellato19 wrote:
| This is what MVP actually is.
| tartoran wrote:
| MVP as in minimally viable product?
| mettamage wrote:
| Yep, that's how I'm reading it at least.
| zanellato19 wrote:
| Yep
| peter_retief wrote:
| I am not so sure it didn't work. What if you had a massive
| success every 100 tries? That would be worth it, almost the
| same as VC funding.
| aazaa wrote:
| From the author's description of the One Item Store:
|
| > Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with the final product, I think
| its actually really cool. But building it.. it was just a bit
| boring. There were lots of bugs, and I started to get a bit burnt
| out thinking about the endless list of things required for a good
| online store builder.
|
| https://tinyprojects.dev/projects/one_item_store
|
| This is a fascinating observation. In a couple of weeks he's both
| built something from scratch and figured out that the work of
| doing it wasn't enjoyable. It takes some people years to get to
| that point.
|
| To figure out what you want to do, you often have to sift through
| a lot of fool's gold - junk that looks appealing as an idea but
| isn't appealing as a part of your life. The tiny projects idea
| offers a way to accelerate that process.
|
| But the key here is to _finish_. To have an end point in mind and
| then reach it. 20% completion may get you 80% of the
| functionality. But by god, getting that last 20% could be the
| hardest, grinding work you will ever do. It 's going to be very
| difficult to finish unless it's aligned in some fundamental way
| with your life.
| gtrhtrhtrhtr wrote:
| My guess is that he had to deal with payment APIs (like Stripe)
| and it's really not fun to integrate with external APIs that
| take a lot of doc reading and understanding of a different
| field.
| x87678r wrote:
| I get that with every project though, the first 90% takes 10%
| of the time and is the most enjoyable.
| marvinkennis wrote:
| This makes a lot of sense, and I've recently experienced the
| same thing. You start out with a blank canvas, everything's
| easy, you can code what you want and you move fast. As your
| product evolves, so does its complexity. Suddenly you're no
| longer just 'quickly going add this', because the constraints
| of what you already built hold you back. This is especially
| true for supposedly small projects without a lot of planning.
| bluedevil2k wrote:
| There are a dozen articles a month on HN from founders or
| coders with websites that all say "know your customer before
| you write a line of code" or "find customers ready to write a
| check" before you start. "Sift through fool's gold" - that's
| what that advice is helping you avoid, time wasted coding a
| website that has no business validation. Adding features no one
| wants.
|
| If the author pushed One Item Store and said "I'm going to
| market it cause it's cool now, I'll add features when people
| ask for them" then he might enjoy it more and be surprised to
| find people who will use it and pay for it as is.
| kubanczyk wrote:
| Talk about misunderstanding.
|
| GP said nothing about customers. They said to align your work
| with your life. I'd re-phrase what you said as: align your
| work with the lives of your customers. That might be fool's
| gold for somebody, nevermind how many HN posts assume
| otherwise.
| Garlef wrote:
| In chase the creator is reading:
|
| Regarding OneItemShop:
|
| I think you should provide an optional way to specify a proper
| imprint (legal requirement in germany) instead of only a contact
| email.
| jcun4128 wrote:
| imo I don't agree with the "buy domain name right away" since it
| may cause you to lose motivation/drive. Having the thought "build
| it first then when it's done buy a domain" is my thought. As I
| often buy domains and end up not using them/not finishing the
| project... still I can see the issue of securing a nice domain
| name.
|
| I think that would be great to make some project that has returns
| even a seemingly low sum of $200/mo. That's like a fifth of what
| I need to live a month, not bad.
|
| Facebook ads for market interest check is an interesting thought
| albeit maybe expenisve.
|
| edit: the other thing stories like these(pertaining to EarlyName)
| seem to gloss over is the legal aspect. It is easy to throw up a
| payment form but who is it paid to and say you're sued for
| whatever reason... does the few hundred a month justify an LLC
| sort of thing. That's the part that sucks/part of a business I
| guess. Some options like fastpring I think. Maybe general
| ToS/Privacy is enough
|
| It is funny it's like a "solve that problem when you actually
| have it" sort of scenario. But I do wonder about creating some
| general LLC that can be an umbrella to random micro saas
| projects.
| pjettter wrote:
| A domain name can help you keep focus. Then when you need to
| pivot, you can just buy another one, ad nauseum.
| snazz wrote:
| It has for me in the past. I have at least _something_ at
| every domain name in my portfolio for that reason.
| corobo wrote:
| I think that bit was a joke, haha. "Pro tip" for not so pro
| tips is an elder meme
| jcun4128 wrote:
| Oh dang yeah I took it literal.
| pastorhudson wrote:
| I find it best to deploy something as soon as I buy the domain.
| I try to setup the CI/CD pipeline from day 1 with the framework
| of my choice and an ugly landing page. That first deploy is a
| fairly easy early win. And then I'm motivated to keep
| iterating.
| ninaevangeli wrote:
| Please mentor me you're a genius
| QuelqueChose wrote:
| With all my love to Mr. Levels[1], I'm personally glad the author
| decided to approach this as their little "Tiny projects" rather
| than "Follow me as I build six startups in six months". I feel it
| nicely sets expectations to what I can get out of checking out
| each project and thinking "well, it's just a tiny project after
| all, why can't I have made something like this ever month too?".
| The 12 startups idea was also inspiring to me but I disliked how
| the term so frequently leads people to (IMO) somewhat pointless
| analysis of "Is this even a real startup?" around each individual
| project.
|
| [1]https://levels.io/12-startups-12-months/
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