Feeling anxiety and stress over building my side project (officejs Excel app)
For the past couple of years I have had this idea and I'm finally building it. For the past 4-5 months I have been writing code after work and I'm terrified I'm wasting my time.
People say you need to get validation for an idea first, you need to perform market research and you need to fail fast by building the mvp to validate your idea. So I know all that and I agree with most of it.
I'm building an officejs plugin for Excel, the type of app is very similar to other none officejs apps out there so I believe there will be demand. I believe that it will solve a problem.
The thing is, my wife and mother are the only people I feel I can talk to about it and they didn't really "get" the idea until they could see it on the screen.
I don't feel like I have anyone to talk to about it, I have a hard time trusting people, it's not that I think everyone is going to steal my idea but I'm just really really uncertain on how I can validate the app I'm building.
I always have this nigling doubt at the back of my mind "am I wasting my time", "will people actually get what I'm building", "have I bitten off more than I can chew".
As far as I can see no one has really developed a fully fledged big app in the Excel officejs space, and that in of itself worries me. (I can see quite big apps for sharepoint but I have no idea why they are so small for Excel other than some limitations of the officejs maybe)
I feel like I should be doing more like getting involved in user groups on facebook and Excel forums and telling people what it is I'm building, or setting up a domain today and a quick site and try to drive traffic to it... but honestly I also feel that would take away energy from what I'm building, I genuinely feel like I need screen shots and video so people get it... so I feel like I'm in a catch 22.
Any advice or guidance more than welcome.
Hey Neal :)
That niggling doubt is common (at least, speaking personally).
One of the things I've done to combat it—beyond asking others what they think—is to just ask myself "am I going to get better at X by doing this?" If the answer is yes, then you're not wasting your time. It really helps to disconnect making money and getting traction from the notion that you're wasting your time. If you enjoy working on the idea and really believe your solution is valuable, it's not a waste of your time.
Another version of this is asking "will I regret having invested time into this when I look back at 80 years old?" If your answer is "yes," it's probably best to move on. If "no," then enjoy the process and have fun :)
Even if it doesn't work out how you want, you've gotten better at what you're doing. You're also demonstrating your ability to follow through on an idea to potential employers or clients—that in and of itself is valuable.
Hope that helps, good luck.
You know this is a really good point. What I'm doing is something I would be proud of regardless of it making money. On top of that I am really enjoying it, it's a welcome break from work. Thank you
that is a good point you made. I built stuff and didn't worry about marketing it and shut it down but I didn't regret it because I learnt a lot doing it.
Also check 'The Mom Test' by Rob Fitzpatrick
This comment was deleted 6 years ago