1 Month on a Side Project — What I’ve Learned
Hello,
These are just my personal thoughts and what I’ve experienced so far. I’m still a beginner, so feel free to share your own advice or experience.
- Understand what your product can actually do
You might think you need to oversell your product to attract people, but in the end, you may just disappoint them by giving them the wrong idea of what your product actually does.
Be honest. You might reach fewer people, but the people you do reach will be the ones you’re actually looking for.
- Don’t give up after a few days
It’s true that you need to know when to give up on a project when it clearly has no potential. But if you’re getting good feedback and the results are just coming slowly, that doesn’t necessarily mean the project has no future.
Some projects aren’t perfect at the beginning and can evolve over time. I don’t think every project needs to succeed within a week, like some of the SaaS success stories you see online.
- Keep going, even without immediate results
Building projects means moving forward without necessarily seeing results right away. It takes real discipline to keep working on something when you don’t know if it will work.
If you’re only motivated in the moment, you’ll probably give up very quickly without ever seeing the full potential of your project.
I still have a lot to learn, but I just wanted to share my thoughts after this first month.
My latest project for anyone curious: https://ideapz.vercel.app/
This is useful. How are you finding your first users so far?
Mainly indie hackers, and especially Reddit for now. And thanks, that’s really kind of you.
The distinction between “no results yet” and “no signal” is useful. A simple 30-day loop can make that less emotional: choose one user behavior to measure, ship one small change each week, and write down a review date with explicit keep/pivot/stop criteria before the next idea arrives.
Interesting perspective and approach, thanks for sharing! It’s true that knowing when to adjust or pivot before giving up on an idea is important.
This is great work — reminds me of some of the calls I've had to make building Xstream4K. What would you do differently if you started over?
Good write-up. What would you do differently if you started again?
Good write-up. What would you do differently if you started again?
Good write-up. What would you do differently if you started again?
Good write-up. What would you do differently if you started again?
Good write-up. What would you do differently if you started again?
Thanks for writing this up. Bookmarking it for later.
Nice progress. What is the next thing you are focusing on?
Nice progress. What is the next thing you are focusing on?
Nice progress. What is the next thing you are focusing on?
Nice progress. What is the next thing you are focusing on?
I’m going to focus a bit more on acquisition and getting more traffic, improve the design, and keep working on the project to make it as simple and enjoyable to use as possible.
I’ll see how it goes over the next 30 days, and I’ll share another update then with what I’ve learned.