[HN Gopher] I spent two years launching tiny projects
___________________________________________________________________
I spent two years launching tiny projects
Author : tinyprojects
Score : 571 points
Date : 2022-05-18 11:17 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tinyprojects.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (tinyprojects.dev)
| dcchambers wrote:
| Does anyone let the tax implications of launching (several) tiny
| projects prevent them from even starting?
|
| I know LLCs allow for pass-through taxation and you don't have to
| file as a business, but I get frozen by the idea that generating
| a few hundred dollars in revenue from some silly side project
| means I have to spend hours/days of my time the next Spring
| figuring out how to properly pay taxes on it.
| strbean wrote:
| Maybe you should start a tiny project called TinyTaxes to
| handle simple tax filing for such unprofitable tiny projects!
| moffkalast wrote:
| And then TurboTax sues you into the ground.
| chrisa wrote:
| You can launch multiple tiny projects under a single LLC, then
| just pay taxes on the total income from all of them for the
| year - you wouldn't have to do any separate filing
| frollo wrote:
| That's me. Note that I'm not a US citizen (in fact, I never set
| foot on US soil, nor I intend to, in my whole life), so your
| mileage may vary.
|
| In the end, I decided to launch all my side-projects for free
| (sometimes I outright include a "non commercial" clause because
| I don't see why somebody should profit off my free work). I
| find this reduces all the project related stress to a fraction.
| maxverse wrote:
| A past manager once gave me great advice for situations like
| these when I was thinking about applying to grad school
| worrying about my then-job if I got in: "deal with this problem
| if you get in." The chances of you making a few hundred dollars
| in revenue by next Spring are statistically very low. And if
| you are persistent and talented and lucky enough to generate
| hundreds of dollars in revenue, you're certainly capable of
| paying taxes on your earnings.
|
| The fact that you're asking this question means you're
| interested in launching things. If so, the cliched, true advice
| is: launch.
|
| If you want practical advice: I run a one-person LLC in the US.
| Taxes on a few hundred dollars are nothing to worry about.
|
| For inevitable naysayers: my manager's advice doesn't mean you
| shouldn't ever plan or prepare. Just that when your chances of
| success are very low, don't worry too much about the
| repercussions of success. I applied to grad school, and didn't
| get in. My career continued on just fine.
| zrail wrote:
| (assuming you're in the US) if you've never had a business
| before, a couple hundred dollars of extra income is not
| material to your taxes and I wouldn't worry about it at all.
|
| Once you get to the scale of a few thousand dollars a year, you
| can file what's called a Form 1040 Schedule C which allows you
| to declare your business income, claim expenses and other
| deductions, and include it in your taxable income. For that
| scale it's an extra 10 minutes with your tax software or even
| by hand, as long as you keep good records, and you're done.
|
| The point at which an LLC or other more formal business
| structure makes sense is fuzzy and can have different ranges
| depending on the business, but typically you probably don't
| need or want to invoke the expense of a CPA until you're making
| more than six figures (or if you've taken outside investment,
| obv).
| LocalPCGuy wrote:
| The part about "just don't worry about it" is not really
| great advice, IMO. I think the rest is good, particularly the
| part about using tax software and/or doing a Schedule C. Just
| do what it says - it's pretty simple for small businesses -
| the amount in taxes paid will be fairly minimal. If you use
| tax software, use the business version and answer the
| questions and it'll figure it all out for you basically
| (might even find some deductions if you had expenses, like
| domain names, hosting, etc.).
|
| While the IRS likely won't audit you for a few hundred
| dollars (US), there are laws about what you have to do. You
| don't need to become a tax expert, but knowing the very
| basics so you don't run afoul of any laws and end up owing
| some $$ or penalties is probably worth taking a bit of time
| to do at the end of the year.
| zrail wrote:
| That's fair, and I'm definitely not advocating tax fraud or
| anything of the sort. There's a $400 minimum for filing
| Schedule SE but no minimum for Schedule C. That said, it's
| _exceedingly_ unlikely (basically impossible, afaict) that
| the IRS will audit for Schedule C if you've never filed one
| and you don't exceed the filing requirements for 1099-NEC
| or 1099-K. The maximum tax in that case is measured in
| dozens of dollars.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| A few hundred dollars?
|
| Put it on Schedule 1 line 8z and work on making it a few
| thousand dollars for next time!
|
| https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040s1.pdf
| jhassell wrote:
| As a side hustler, even with pass-through taxation, you will
| still have to pay the self-employment tax (15.3% of net
| earnings) on top of taxes at your federal and state tax
| bracket. However, side-hustle money spent on qualified business
| expenses, is not taxable. (Tax people please chime in.)
| zrail wrote:
| Also, Social Security tax has a cap. If your day job + side
| project net income exceeds the cap, the excess will only
| incur Medicare tax.
| petercooper wrote:
| I know HN leans heavily US, but if anyone is in the UK, you can
| now earn up to PS1000 in side income without having to declare
| it or file a self assessment tax return.
| vmception wrote:
| Thats a dumb reason to get frozen. Just in case you needed that
| perspective.
|
| All your costs are tax deductions, whether you incorporate or
| not. The incorporation cost is negligible and you can ignore
| everything about a local/foreign llc registration simply
| because the consequences are improbable and inconsequential,
| just make the llc in the best states. If your employer is
| withholding any taxes, you'll get so much more of it back
| because you have so many deductions now.
|
| If you make any revenue its easy to count.
|
| Your standing in society is based on gross revenue, your tax
| footprint is _a fraction_ of net revenues. Its low key perfect.
| Net operating losses are the greatest of all time.
|
| In addition, You get massively disproportionate security and
| anonymity by operating under entities you created. And you can
| prove product market fit in private and then inherit all the
| credit for it when it works.
| galactus wrote:
| I loved this post. Congratulations, really cool tiny projects,
| I'm jealous.
| Sinidir wrote:
| General Question for people who do these tiny projects, which
| might make some money. Do you register a company for this? How do
| you deal with taxes if you made a small amount of money from
| them?
| danvoell wrote:
| Work off an existing Llc. Spin it out if you have traction.
| munro wrote:
| > Previously I'd used this code to buy facebook.Wang Zhan , only
| for Marky Z to snatch it back from me. Cheeky bugger.
|
| LMAO. The emoji emails is really cool though. [1]
|
| [1] https://tinyprojects.dev/projects/mailoji
| moffkalast wrote:
| I find it kind of hilarious how many domain names have been
| bought during these projects, renewing all that must be a full
| time job.
|
| Suppose he'll just make a tinydomainmanager.com or something.
| itake wrote:
| That is odd that he would be involved with auditing duplicate
| domain names. You'd think FB the company would of done the
| snatching, not Mark Zuckerberg. neat.
| spicyramen_ wrote:
| Amazing advise, always been thinking of my next great idea and
| never have time to complete it
| techsin101 wrote:
| what's the fastest tech stack or other way to go from idea to
| product...
| Geste wrote:
| I'd say the one you know ? For me it's react and firebase.
| techsin101 wrote:
| i always felt firebase was a trap, but i can see how having
| minimal backend can help you move forward fast. i guess ill
| learn it properly
| pnelson wrote:
| This is awesome and what I initially set out to do but always
| found a way to talk myself out of it. I dream big. I found a
| project to stick to "completion" but it took me two years to
| build alone. I've only lost money but it's been a wild ride of an
| experience. This tiny project approach sounds like a lot of fun
| and conveniently my project will help me down that path while I
| try to market my work.
| abhishek945 wrote:
| I really like this idea of creating small projects instead of
| just building a startup as it would be too much work for me. Can
| you guys give me more examples about projects that generate money
| or least a lot of people use it for free.
| danenania wrote:
| Check out the #buildinpublic hashtag on Twitter. You'll find
| many good examples.
|
| Also Indiehackers.
| marban wrote:
| I started my professional life ~25y ago with a side project that
| by 2022 led to roughly 50 more side projects -- The vast majority
| failed, some turned into 200 employee businesses, some others got
| acquired. In essence, I make a living out of side projects. Side
| projects are life.
| techsin101 wrote:
| how do you stay motivated? what's your stack? do you talk it
| out with someone?
| marban wrote:
| 2h sports and a 1h walk every day but that's it. I get
| motivated from failures because they're the default I expect
| from having taking actions. Also helps to lower your
| expectations from life and stay away from comparing your
| track record with those of others. You know, those 18y olds
| who flipped their newsletter for 20 millions.
| pid-1 wrote:
| > but that's it
|
| That's waaay more than your avg office worker though.
| xwowsersx wrote:
| Could you share the projects here? Took a look at thomas.me but
| couldn't quite find the projects. Thanks!
| herodoturtle wrote:
| > some turned into 200 employee businesses
|
| Incredible comment overall but this line was particularly Woah!
|
| What advice would have for solo founders of a side project
| (that later becomes a full time day job) in terms of evolving
| to a large team?
|
| First hire(s), things to look out for, etc.
|
| I'd find this insight incredible! Hope I'm not asking too much.
| But such an incredible story you have.
| marban wrote:
| To be honest, I would never do something that requires a
| single employee ever again. I sold my first company because
| soon enough, all you get to do is manage politics and not the
| thing you signed up for -- Sounds infantile but at some point
| you have to stay true to yourself no matter the benefits. If
| you're more of a team-player, there are obviously better
| options today (remote, etc.) -- The only thing I would
| recommend is not getting too romantic with a co-founder,
| having clear responsibilities from day one and don't try to
| make friends along the way -- in the end it's all about
| building success.
| UmbertoNoEco wrote:
| This advice aligns beautifully with my experience. It's
| obvious you have walked the walk.
| herodoturtle wrote:
| Doesn't sound infantile at all. I strongly resonate with
| everything you're saying.
|
| A little over a year ago I submitted this Ask HN, which
| helps shed light on my situation:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27039701
|
| It is now a year later and I'm still wondering the same
| thing as I was back then (as in, I haven't changed up my
| work setup at all / haven't hired people). I do rely on
| contractors here and there, but it's rare.
|
| I quite enjoy the peace and quiet that comes with no
| employees. These days I just do a bit of focused work each
| day, prioritise spending time with my family, and enjoy
| sticking to my daily training regiment (the latter has been
| a key aspect of my life ever since I started my
| entrepreneurial journey).
|
| Every time I consider hiring people for the sake of more
| growth, I find myself asking if it'll be worth it, and
| whether I'll regret it.
|
| I doubt I'd be able to enjoy the work/life balance I
| currently have if I were responsible for managing people at
| scale.
|
| Perhaps I'm being narrow-minded here, but it's good to
| receive affirmation from someone whose done it all before.
|
| Cheers mate.
| marban wrote:
| Sounds good to me -- Feeding one or a thousand employees
| doesn't make a lot of difference because you can lose
| only so many hours of sleep over it each night.
| etewiah wrote:
| Shame your Ask HN did not get traction. Might be worth
| posting it again. It is a bit of a lottery on here.
| danielvaughn wrote:
| Your career is what I aspired to when I started in this
| industry over a decade ago. But what ended up happening was
| that I (a) worked full-time while dabbling on nights and
| weekends, (b) spent several years trying to decide which
| project I wanted to really pursue in earnest, and then (c)
| after picking the project, obsessing over it so much that I
| never felt it was ready to release. So it's...not going well so
| far lol.
|
| Can you recall any specific thing you did that brought you
| success?
| guerrilla wrote:
| I'm probably the last person you'd want to ask about this but
| it sounds like you failed to take risk, possibly due to mild
| (or not so mild?) perfectionism.
| acuozzo wrote:
| This is my story as well, more or less. Want to compare
| notes? Perhaps figuring out what we have in common would help
| us understand what we're doing wrong.
| marban wrote:
| I think first and foremost is bringing yourself into a
| position that gets you enough runway (time and money) to be
| able to take things seriously -- even if that sounds like the
| opposite of a side project. For me it was skipping university
| and having kids in favour of starting a web agency in the
| dotcom days. Also, I don't believe in working on something
| you love -- you just need to hate it a little less than the
| other ideas and be positive that someone will find it useful.
| Like I mentioned below, luck and timing play an important
| role and these days I'd say you will also need one unfair
| advantage (contacts, cash, distribution, etc) to increase
| your chances.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| Was there a general goal for each one or any sort of
| decision tree you used to decide on what to build next...
| for example, did you only work on things that could
| potentially be big, or huge, etc? Did you analyze the
| market size of each idea before starting, etc?
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| What are some of your favorite stories from that life, if you
| don't mind me asking?
| codazoda wrote:
| I'm not the person you're responding too but I thought I'd
| mention some of mine. I wrote a blog post called "How to Lose
| Money With 25 Years of Failed Businesses" where I discuss
| some of the little side hustles I've managed to kill over the
| years.
|
| https://joeldare.com/how-to-lose-money-with-25-years-of-
| fail...
|
| I build a lot of tiny projects and Ben (original blog post)
| is inspiring me to get them better organized.
| marban wrote:
| Besides maximising luck, the only real strategy I follow is
| buy low, sell high in a sense of keeping the burn low and
| counting on a win every 3-4 years that will create enough
| cash to finance the next period of failures -- because what
| got you here won't get you there ...
| marban wrote:
| I built the first Android Twitter client, sold that to
| Idealab* and given our huge market share (~40% IIRC ) pitched
| them the idea to build our own Twitter clone in order to move
| those users over. Twitter took notice and locked all our apps
| which eventually kicked off the anti-third-party tendency
| that we see today. Good times.
|
| * https://bgr.com/general/tweetup-acquires-twidroid-
| renaming-a...
| marban wrote:
| Another time I turned my private news aggregator into a
| public service (Popurls) which kicked off thousands of
| clones and was at one time the number one traffic referrer
| to Digg and Reddit. A year later Guy Kawasaki cloned it,
| and I find myself invited to a Ramen lunch with Kevin Kelly
| who blogged about it as being his favorite website. 15
| years later, I got funding from Mark Cuban for building a
| successor. All from a private solo side project that
| started as a 20-line Perl script.
| twox2 wrote:
| How I loved the original popurls!!
| marban wrote:
| Butterfly FTW!
| [deleted]
| acuozzo wrote:
| If you have some time, would you mind replying to my "Ask HN"?
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31217221
|
| Thanks!
| pflanze wrote:
| It's too late to reply there (IIRC the commenting period
| closes after (about) 15d).
| acuozzo wrote:
| Got it. Thanks! Perhaps he can just reply here instead (if
| he's interested, of course).
| acegopher wrote:
| Perhaps a more important question is when do you know to pull
| the plug? At what point do you stop investing resources into
| the project?
| marban wrote:
| There's no exact rule but I'd say 12 to 16 months is a good
| time to expect some sort of positive trend. I don't do any of
| that MVP stuff and go full-blown right away because user
| expecations are high and I'm too old to get pleasure from
| starting something out of a notion-hosted website. Cash-wise
| I try to keep it under 20k - keeping in mind that I don't do
| physical projects and all by myself (no freelancers,
| contractors, etc).
| cgg1 wrote:
| How do you decide whether a side project/idea is worth
| pursuing? You mentioned in another comment that you don't "do
| the MVP stuff" and go full blown from the beginning. That seems
| like a big time sink without a rigorous way of validating
| whether users want what you're building.
| p5v wrote:
| Same here, and one of them made it into an actual business:
| https://murmel.social
|
| One of these days, I need to sit down and write th origin story
| of Murmel, and how I came to it.
|
| Cheers!
| twox2 wrote:
| How many people pay for this?
| alin23 wrote:
| I started doing the same but with macOS apps:
| https://lowtechguys.com
|
| Reading about the author's projects in the past is actually what
| inspired me to do it.
|
| I used Windows for a long time before as a power user (living my
| life in FarManager and WinAPI), then switched to Ubuntu with i3.
|
| After finally switching to the Mac, I loved its simplicity and
| how it freed my mind from micro-managing the system, but I also
| noticed its shortcomings and how some things were better on
| Windows/Linux.
|
| Nowadays I'm making small apps to overcome those macOS
| shortcomings, and help others find their carefree macOS setup
| where the system doesn't get in the way of real work.
|
| And it's going pretty well! I've also shared the source of the
| framework [1] I'm using for these apps, so that I don't have to
| constantly reimplement payments, licensing [2], SwiftUI
| styles/components and utility functions on each new project.
|
| [1] https://github.com/FuzzyIdeas/Lowtech [2]
| https://github.com/FuzzyIdeas/LowtechPro
| xwowsersx wrote:
| rcmd looks great. Going to give that a try. Nice work!
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| Any chance you could add licenses and maybe a screenshot to
| each of those repos?
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| $18000 off of emoji email in kazakhstan? what the hell?
| littlevache wrote:
| Of 700 different emoji domains, people love their cats, hearts,
| watermelon, rockets, smileys, etc ...
| hamiecod wrote:
| While reading the post, I realised that it was a really great
| idea to say the least but I was very shocked when I saw that OP
| earned $18000 off the project. Although, one down-side of using
| email addresses which contain emojis is that some email clients
| do not support them.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Also, are domains not $5-$10 say? ~$2000 on 'tiny projects'?
|
| ...ahh, read the full breakdown, it is approximately something
| like that, which seems crazy, but I dunno, guy has some money
| to spare and went nuts with the project and sold a bunch of
| accounts. (also weird, but tiktokers susceptible to random
| stuff I guess)
| brianmcc wrote:
| There's an undercurrent of subversive genius here, which is
| awesome. Great read!
| Melatonic wrote:
| How do you get people interested in your projects both from a
| consumer and production standpoint? Basically I am wondering what
| the best ways you have found to SELL whatever project you are
| working on (even if say the project is technically free to the
| end user) and also how do you sell someone else on collaborating
| with you?
| softwarebeware wrote:
| As someone who has written down probably 100's of little ideas
| over the years, and never built even a single one of them ... I
| applaud you
| kokanee wrote:
| My problem is a bit different, and I'm curious if others can
| relate. I constantly have a project in the works, but once I
| solve the interesting technical hurdles and prove that the
| concept works, I suddenly think of a "better idea" and never
| actually release anything. I've been in this cycle for the
| better part of a decade now.
|
| But let me tell you, if my current project works out, I'll
| never have to work a W2 job again!
| SCUSKU wrote:
| 100% this. I have become better about not nixing projects I
| am working on when I hit technical walls recently. My
| strategy has basically become to just do the bare minimum to
| test whether an idea is good or not and if it sucks I will at
| least have fulfilled my intellectual curiosity and then I can
| stop being distracted by that idea.
|
| For example, I am currently working on a project to send
| personalized slack messages in bulk. But I then became really
| interested in the idea of automatic podcast transcription
| using GPT-3. So I ended up just one night banging out a
| prototype on jupyter notebook and it turns out the auto
| transcription was pretty bad and expensive, but at least I
| know now. So now I don't feel as bad and I can focus on the
| boring aspects of building this slack plugin, like accepting
| payments.
| acuozzo wrote:
| I do this too, but the larger issue I face is that none of my
| ideas are even the slightest bit marketable.
|
| I suppose I naturally gravitate to problem domains with
| little market potential. I don't know why.
|
| I go into more detail here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31217221
| mittermayr wrote:
| Maybe, as a suggestion, launch a Notion page with your "100
| side-project ideas I never got around to making" -- perhaps
| this will get that juices flowing?
| l5870uoo9y wrote:
| Properly want to vet ideas a bit before executing.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Bad idea, for a bunch of reasons, the largest being the fact
| that your "vetting" process is at best a very rough facsimile
| of reality.
|
| Quick, iterative feedback is _by far_ a superior approach when
| attempting to understand how to build a successful product.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Depends on how much time you plan on putting into it and if it
| sounds like fun. Most people have a bit of free time to spend
| on side projects, even if they're silly.
| MattGrommes wrote:
| Or if you're going to learn something new. I do side projects
| when I want to learn websockets or something like that. Even
| when the project doesn't go anywhere, I got something out of
| it.
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| Considering the amount of success and audience he's reached
| with this I'd say he's done just fine.
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| _'Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I know
| several thousand things that won't work.'_
| softwarebeware wrote:
| I actually agree with this. There are a bunch of low-cost ways
| to prototype and collect user feedback. The paper notebook idea
| could have started with surveying people and finding if anyone
| actually existed who say it would be useful and they would pay
| for it. Or even just launch a one-page product site with an
| email sign-up list to get notified when the alpha version
| releases and wait until it reached some critical mass. All of
| this would have taken less investment than actually building it
| first lol.
| criddell wrote:
| > It's a paradox, but I've found that my best ideas now come
| from building other ideas.
|
| Building and failing and building and failing might be a
| faster way of getting to something great than vetting,
| vetting, vetting, building, vetting, vetting building...
| acuozzo wrote:
| You have to, at the very least, vet the problem domain
| first though, no?
|
| Building hundreds of AviSynth filters won't bring in a
| cent.
| criddell wrote:
| Part of this is learning from the "failures". If you are
| building AviSynth filter #742, then maybe you are
| skipping that step.
|
| On the other hand, if you are having fun and learning
| something along the way, who cares?
| tchock23 wrote:
| It's only faster if you have the skills personally to build
| (which is many, but not all, HN users). If you don't then
| vetting is a better place to start.
| reiichiroh wrote:
| This reminds me of Don Lapre's placing tiny classified ads
| verbiage.
| hardwaresofton wrote:
| One thing I would have loved to read about is more about how they
| did market validation for these ideas. For a micro-bet strategy
| knowing which one (outside of really interesting projects that
| would trend on HN), it feels like market validation chops would
| be crucial.
|
| The author seems to be batting an insanely high average for just
| building things and having them actually get some traction, and
| be exit-able.
|
| > When I started this mission, I had a big list of project ideas
| that I'd built up in my phone. Maybe you have one of those lists
| too.
|
| > Two years later, I've realised a lot of these initial ideas
| were pretty terrible.
|
| > It's a paradox, but I've found that my best ideas now come from
| building other ideas.
|
| Funnily enough, I went the other way and started sharing my large
| list of ideas with others (I send 3 non-terrible ones to
| subscribers every week[0]). Of course, running a mailing list and
| sharing the ideas was one of the ideas...
|
| At this point market validation (and practice validating ideas)
| is starting to seem like the most important thing. Knowing you
| _should_ take the month to build before you do, but reading the
| post it feels like maybe bounding initial development time
| sometimes can work in lieu of validating the market.
|
| [EDIT] - please see previous discussion about the mailing list as
| well![1] -- it's released every sunday night.
|
| [EDIT2] - is anyone having trouble sending email to the author?
| I'm using protonmail and wanted to get in touch but I can't --
| email looks to be no bueno for proton mail. I guess I'll either
| try thunderbird or twitter.
|
| [EDIT3] - Looks like proton mail does not like emoji email
| addresses currently... Thunderbird happily sent.
|
| [EDIT4] - Nope, nvm I'm getting a mail lookup error (hn strips
| the emoji)...
|
| > Delivery to tinyprojects@.gg failed with error: MX lookup error
|
| [0]: https://unvalidated-ideas.vadosware.io
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31388399
| criddell wrote:
| Market validation might take more work than building a tiny
| project.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| The whole point, I would imagine, is to _not_ do very much
| market validation, and to just build the tiny project.
|
| If it does fit or is close to fitting, great! If it doesn't
| fit, oh well, not much is lost (after all, it is a tiny
| project).
| jonathanberger wrote:
| I love this post. Thanks Ben. It's especially generous to share
| pageviews and revenue numbers which are so frequently kept
| private. I didn't though understand this point from the post:
|
| > One other weird downside is that .. I sometimes catch myself
| thinking "should I build something just for the upvotes".
|
| Is the author saying the attention from social media sites like
| Hacker News sometimes seems like motivation enough to build the
| next project?
| toto444 wrote:
| That was actually a pleasant read. I especially like the
| conclusion to which I can relate.
|
| > If you're stuck for ideas, I recommend just building something;
| anything; even if it's terrible, and I guarantee a better idea
| will pop into your brain shortly after.
|
| I have been working on a long project for a few years now and it
| will not be finished before another few years and I envy the
| speed at which the author gets feedback after he launches his
| products.
| lancesells wrote:
| That conclusion is really applicable to just about everything.
| Want to start woodworking? Start building something. Want to
| become a runner? Start running. Want to be a musician? Start
| making some songs.
|
| A lot of the initial tries will be terrible but it only gets
| better from there.
| giarc wrote:
| When I lived in an apartment building, a guy in the next
| building decided he wanted to learn to play the saxophone and
| practiced on his balcony everyday. I hate the advice "just
| start playing" :)
| lancesells wrote:
| Luckily he wasn't interested in explosives. Ha
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| Dan Harmon (Community, Rick and Morty, etc) has some advice on
| this:
|
| > Switch from team "I will one day write something good" to
| team "I have no choice but to write a piece of shit" and then
| take off your "bad writer" hat and replace it with a "petty
| critic" hat and go to town on that poor hack's draft and that's
| your second draft.
|
| https://www.vulture.com/2016/11/read-dan-harmons-excellent-a...
| samwillis wrote:
| I completely agree with this, I almost have too many ideas and
| find combining them and building "something" usually results in
| filtering out the bad ones and brining the better ones to the
| forefront. Sometimes you just find that something "new" and
| better comes out of the process of trying to build "anything".
| drieddust wrote:
| While I want to execute the idea I am always put off by the
| essential administrative stuff such as user management, payment
| gateway linking, subscription management.
|
| Are there any open source plug and play options available out
| there which can take away this tedious but important work?
| reducesuffering wrote:
| There are templates like SaaSPegasus for Django (costs $) that
| will do all of those for you. I'm sure there are open source
| ones of various quality.
| axg11 wrote:
| There are a few SaaS templates out there and services such as
| Memberstack that make it easier to implement the boilerplate
| SaaS features in Webflow. I'd also recommend just doing the
| boring work once and keeping that as a template for future
| projects.
| giarc wrote:
| They other option is to not worry about those things. Start
| with a free product and see if people will even use that. Then
| worry about payment and subscriptions once you validate that
| people will use it.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Try to think about a way your product (or at least a minimal
| version of it) could work without "user management." Sounds
| counterintuitive but sometimes it is a requirement that has
| never really been thought about, just assumed to be necessary.
| UmbertoNoEco wrote:
| immigrantheart wrote:
| How do you even find ideas for these?
| dkasper wrote:
| IMO tiny ideas like this are mostly for fun and learning, they
| don't need to be unique. Build another take on a blog or a game
| or utility or whatever you like to do online, but put your own
| spin on it.
| muttled wrote:
| Speaking from personal experience: just seeing what unsolved
| needs you have yields a lot of ideas. I had coworkers who would
| go to email something confidential to someone and click the
| wrong auto-complete contact and then we had a full-blown
| crisis. I thought "is there a way to stop that without the user
| hating me?" and that's how I got the idea for
| https://jiminyclick.com
| m3047 wrote:
| Ummm. Interesting about mailoji. Not actually legit according to
| ICANN to use "non collating" punycode or multiple languages in an
| ICANN-controlled domain: you can't register them.
|
| But, it's a CC TLD, in fact it's .kz who I still carry a scar or
| two from when they issued some domains starting with "-": you
| know what happens when you "dig -yo.tld"? OWASP applies to domain
| names.
|
| However, the RFCs for the actual _protocol_ declare a label can
| contain "any octet", so you can use and abuse this in FQDNs under
| your control and the internet police won't come to get you.
| "poop".example.com would be fine if you control example.com
| (either as a quoted string or as an emoji), so would "rm -rf
| *.example.com".
| klaussilveira wrote:
| I enjoy building stuff, but rarely have any ideas. Congrats on
| mastering the art of both!
| leros wrote:
| I was going to ask how your host your projects since lots of
| small hosting fees can add up. I saw a guide on your site where
| you use Firebase, which would explain how you keep things cheap.
| Is that still your strategy?
| blobbers wrote:
| Very cool that you're launching projects!
|
| I endeavour to do this as well.
|
| Out of curiosity, what do you do to generate food to eat though?
| The projects don't appear to bring in much bread.
| mft_ wrote:
| Have you written anywhere about the technology you use underneath
| - from languages to libraries to hosting?
|
| I've got a few ideas somewhere between just started and half-
| written, but I often grind to a halt when it comes to figuring
| out sensible hosting. As an amateur, the world of AWS vs. GCE vs.
| Azure vs. Heroku vs. many, many others is difficult, and there
| are scary stories about out of control costs abound.
| cinntaile wrote:
| Pick what you know, that way you can focus on the project.
| dostojevski1 wrote:
| What's the main advice you can give to a newbie, wanting to start
| more tiny projects himself?
| ishjoh wrote:
| Great projects, has already kicked off some ideas for myself.
| Thank you for the inspiration!
| _pdp_ wrote:
| I believe this is a good way to quickly filter through a bunch of
| ideas that may or may not work and stick with those that have
| potential. Luckily these days launching new ideas is easy. You
| don't need to invest too much money and time as long as you keep
| it simple and to the point.
| dafelst wrote:
| As someone who perpetually overscopes side projects and ends up
| biting off more than I can reasonably chew given my free time, I
| really love this idea. What happens with me is I start a new
| project, then add a new feature here and there (because coding is
| fun) and end up never reaching anything close to "done" then
| getting into analysis paralysis of what to do next because there
| is so much. Ultimately it gets abandoned and forgotten and put on
| the graveyard of all the other side projects - not that this is
| horrible, I do them for fun and not profit, but it would be nice
| to launch a few.
|
| If OP is actually the author, a question - what was your approach
| in keeping the projects tightly scoped and not introducing
| feature creep? Deadlines or time-boxing? Pre-emptive deciding on
| what you will and won't do? Lowering your standards for "good
| enough"? Just plain old discipline? Something else?
| cjohnson318 wrote:
| This idea comes up in painting. The rule of thumb is that it's
| done when there's nothing left to add; when adding the next
| thing does not provide much more value value than it costs in
| terms complexity.
|
| With coding, it seems like it's much more difficult question to
| answer.
| ohlookabird wrote:
| With coding, I often find Antoine de Saint-Exupery helping me
| to limit myself: "Perfection is achieved, not when there is
| nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take
| away."
| soperj wrote:
| I feel like this quote is why I can't have a removable
| battery, a headphone jack and an sd card in a new phone.
| mmcdermott wrote:
| Perhaps. I always assumed it had more to do with offering
| better waterproofing, but maybe that's naive.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| I swam for three hours today with my stock iPhone taking
| incredible 4K video of our diving and surfing adventure.
|
| that advanced waterproofing is awesome.
| soperj wrote:
| Wouldn't sea water be corrosive?
| eftychis wrote:
| Or maybe more to do with users buying more of a
| particular brand of Bluetooth headphones and not having
| an arbitrary and universal input (you can do a lot of
| crazy stuff with an audio jack see square).
| drewzero1 wrote:
| I suppose that might be one reading, though IMO the
| battery, jack, and card slot have just been replaced by
| more bells and whistles like more/fancier cameras,
| biometric sensors, NFC, and other gobbledygook that was
| more important to someone than being able to plug into
| the cassette adapter in my car. Not exactly what I think
| of when I hear "nothing left to take away."
| danhak wrote:
| Unlike a painting, software can be continually improved and
| enhanced after it's released.
| bodge5000 wrote:
| > Ultimately it gets abandoned and forgotten and put on the
| graveyard of all the other side projects
|
| Could be worse. I used to have this problem all the time, and
| at some point managed to fix it. Now I've spent 3 years on a
| side project (which I originally thought should take a couple
| of months, and considering its lack of complexity really only
| should have taken at most a year), and even though I'm fully
| aware its an "unworkable" idea, I can't stop until its done.
|
| I've read tiny projects in the past though and really like it,
| I really want to try a similar thing at some point...just as
| soon as this current project is done ;)
| mNovak wrote:
| I've been following these, and it seems like such a fun thing to
| do. He seems to have been lucky that he caught on to his real
| product on day 1 -- semi-viral blog posts.
|
| Still I imagine it's hard for most people to go 2 years on a few
| thousand of sporadic revenue.
| bemmu wrote:
| I basically launch tiny projects full time, and have noticed
| that these have a power law to them. He'll mostly hit $0, with
| some occasional mid-hits as he has listed, but if he keeps at
| it I wouldn't be surprised to see one of the later projects
| make 10x as much as the best one now.
| jjice wrote:
| I feel like having a bunch of tiny projects is probably a great
| way to learn a ton. I've slowed down on personal projects since
| graduation, but focusing on something tiny might be what I need
| to hear/do to get back into learning some new stuff. Good on the
| author/OP!
| droobles wrote:
| I've seen your projects before, and I am like you where I don't
| like projects that depend on me creating content but I rather
| like technical challenges. Great write up!
| drewzero1 wrote:
| I remember seeing snormal on here a while ago. I played around
| with it briefly because the idea was refreshing, but ended up not
| coming back for a while because the scrolling was really painful
| in Firefox on Android.
|
| The premise really resonates with me. I've often struggled with
| maintaining a presence on any social media, and barely ever post
| because everything'_s normal_.
| liorben-david wrote:
| Loved this! Being able to limit scope and just build is a skill
| that too often gets lost
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