Ask IH: How do I motivate myself to build things I don't actually use?
First time posting here.
I am a full time contractor for a startup where I do full-stack development. We use wrike.com for project management. But CEO isn't too happy with it. He wants to not just track the progress of a project, but manage budget and understand exactly how much each project is costing, and so on.
This is clearly a problem worth solving, and if I can develop exactly what he wants, I might be able to sell it and possibly replace Wrike. I've been searching for a good startup idea for so long and I've never come up with anything better. However, I hesitate to jump right in, mainly because it feels like a regular job.
Of course I could run a customer development on more companies and validate the idea to make sure it's a scalable one. But the core issue I'm dealing is the same: I can't find a profitable idea that scratches my own itch, and it's hard for me to motivate myself to build things I don't actually use.
Am I just a selfish jerk who is not cut out to be an entrepreneur? How can I resolve my mental block?
Many of the big movie stars and directors that work on these huge blockbusters earn tens or even hundreds of millions from them.
After finishing that project (or some of its sequels), they usually do a passion project, something of their own, something they really like, something that may not end up earning them millions but sometimes it does. They even finance it themselves sometimes.
For many of them, they did the blockbuster so that they could do the indie project.
You'll have to do both, work on ideas that excite you and work on ideas that earn you money. That's the path of many people here on IH.
I say start working on the blockbuster idea. You will end up loving it in the end, you sound like you enjoy building things and you might get enthusiastic about it.
I reread your comment several times to let it sink in.
I don't know why it's so hard to do it. Ever since I was kid, I handled delayed gratification better than my peers. Yet I'm still far from perfect.
I guess it comes down to caring other people. I found that it's hard to keep going if I can't relate to the people I'm helping. I need to practice having empathy with people.
I feel the exact same way, and have learned that it's just who I am the hard way: by trying and failing to stick with entrepreneurial ideas that don't scratch my own itch. The few small successes I've had were all born out of solving my own problems, and once I had users, solving their problems as well.
webapppro's comment below is gold. We need to express ourselves through entrepreneurship more than other kinds of entrepreneurs, for whatever reason, and that's ok. I also used to feel like I needed to be more empathetic with others so that I could work on a broader set of ideas that didn't have to scratch my own itch. But I think the way we are doesn't mean we aren't empathetic enough, it just means that we value entrepreneurial self expression a lot.
As Paul Graham says, the most successful product ideas seem to be closer to those that scratch the founder's own itch: http://www.paulgraham.com/organic.html
Thank you for understanding my situation. I was starting to doubt myself.
Before I got into programming, I was deeply into music. I started playing drums when I was 15. I was from a rural area and there was nothing interesting going on. I wanted to be more than just a kid who plays video games and sports. Music happened to catch my attention, but it could've been programming. I just did not know such a thing existed.
That's where I come from. Self-expression is the central part of who I am.
I've read the PG's article before, but now I re-read it, it gave me a new insight. The budget tracking app that I mentioned in another comment might be the toy idea he is referring to.
Would you care to share the story of your few successes?
Sure! Very briefly, my few, tiny product successes have been a speed reading Chrome extension (http://blog.troyshu.com/2014/04/12/spreed-the-exciting-journey-so-far-and-lessons-learned/) and an iOS photo journal app for fitness and/or weight loss (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/youday-progress-photo-tracker/id1280134958?mt=8). Both are generating small amounts of revenue, and both were created to scratch my own itches / solve my own problems, or make problems I had solved on my own more efficient.
I will say that for me, revenue and usage by others is still a very strong motivator: it wasn't until my Chrome extension took off because of some organic PR (I've never really done any marketing... something to work on?) that I really buckled down on improving my product, talking to my users, etc. I imagine that for any entrepreneur (vs. a hobbyist), this is true.
Self-expression and building something people use and pay for are not mutually exclusive. I still have a lot to learn but so far, scratching my own itch has been a rewarding experience in both areas.
EDIT: I'm also a practitioner of FIRE (or my version of it), would love to try out your budget tracking app and provide feedback when you're ready!
That's awesome! The photo journal app looks so simple, but I can see it's an effective tool.
Good to know! You know, many FIREs are engineers. Okay, I will let you know.
Yeah, you want to understand your users as much as possible, often even extracting things they only communicate on a subtler level, so you should definitely work on that if you feel you need to.
There are WAY too many project management apps out there right now. I don't see this being a viable business for someone who isn't already in the business/market.
Agree, Not a day goes by where there isn't another project management or CRM launched.
I thought so too.
I'm not sure why, but I've always felt excited about any project that was thrown my way. Most of the time because it was something new that I had never created before. So I was learning along the way. And sometimes, when it was similar to something I had created before, I challenged myself to finish it faster than the last time. Look at it as an opportunity to learn something and display your skills as a developer. One thing that might motivate you is the surprised looks on the bosses face when you show him that your solution works and does everything he dreamed of.
That is a really good attitude. You must be a great engineer.
I definitely want to surprise my boss. Actually I already told him that I'm working on Write clone app. But I also warned him to not expect anything for now because I might get bored or lose motivation.
A couple months ago I noticed my company had trouble hiring. We are a full-remote company and he couldn't find an engineer who is self disciplined. So I told him I'm going to work on a remote job site. But then somehow I lost motivation. I don't want to make the same mistake again by promising him something that I might fail to deliver.
I try to launch a basic prototype of Write clone in a month, and if I'm still motivated, I will start adding features that he wants. I hope this strategy works out.
Hey @kenzo take a look at a pm app called Office Tools as it has a feature that tracks the budget of a project as well as how much and what you're billing against. You may find some motivation from looking at there.
Thanks! I’ll take a look at it.
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Thank you for the thoughtful reply! Yeah I'm definitely not a first one.
I thought a lot about your questions. If I had two weeks off work, I would just work on some projects. Right now that would be the Write clone app. I actually got started last weekend and I had so much fun!
If I got some money coming in, I would invest all of them. I'm a practitioner of FIRE(Financial Independence Retire Early). I expect to be financially free by 35 (I'm 28 now). So, soon I will be free from work even if none of my businesses pan out.
But I don't want to sit at home all day doing nothing. I'm not interested in traveling or traditional vacation either. I want to keep creating stuff, and if I do, I want to make money from it. I think what I'm craving is not the money itself, but the fact that I created something valuable, that I'm relevant to the society.
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That's so true. They don't care how passionate I am.
Actually, last month I built a simple PWA that lets you track your spending. This IS something that scratches my itch. I use it every time I spend money. It intentionally doesn't connect to bank accounts or credit cards. Since it's so simple, I don't think anybody would pay for it. After all, you want to minimize your expenses, right?
I want to make sure it's actually useful, so I'm going to use it for a few months and tweak things along the way.
Eventually I want to be able to enter my income and investment information so that it shows how many days are left until financial investment. But I don't know if that's worth the money. FIRE community is super frugal. For now I'm happy that I built something useful for myself.