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20 Comments

I noticed I have a fear of building the product I want to

I am someone who has learned coding pretty much self taught over a number of years. For a few reasons I don't believe I'm a great programmer. I have made practical things and even have done some freelance work that turned out great. But I was trying to get a job for a while coding and couldn't. I also finish maybe 1/10th of my projects. I'm desperate to make a change in my life, but I feel afraid of building a product I've never done before. Any advice or feedback is appreciated. Thanks

  1. 5

    Keep at it. You're not alone!

    1. 1

      Thank you! It really helps to see that.

  2. 4

    I feel like that sometimes after 35 years of programming, especially now I'm responsible for everything in the design (as a solo founder).

    Stuff I remind myself of regularly:

    1. Shipping something that works trumps EVERYTHING about the technology you use, how you feel about it, your relative coolness compared to every single other dev on the net...

    2. Study really good stuff by great designers and look at how SIMPLE their work is. It's often got nothing to do with technology but very simple principles, meeting the user's needs at that point.

    3. It's hard to be lost when you're only navigating the path you can see immediately in front of you - if you don't understand how to tackle something, break it down into smaller tasks. Don't keep those in your head, write down all of them. If you have to keep a separate, private issue tracker or todo management system for them that's OK. Don't forget the "research tasks" to explain to yourself how to do something. eg: https://github.com/AndyDentFree/im-plausibilities

    4. Most importantly, it's OK to be STUPID. Keep a diary and pour out when you get stuck, how you procrastinate, what puzzles you. In particular, every single time you have wrestled trying to understand an error message, file away a searchable copy of the messages and keep the links you looked at to work out what's going on. Future you will think you're wonderful for doing this. (This is one reason I now have nearly 40K notes in Evernote.)

    I have a business diary that summarises what I've been doing (as well as all the standard per-project docs and issue trackers etc).

    I also have a personal diary where I write about all the crappy things that happen and how I feel about my productivity, my relationship and how I'm coping.

    1. 2

      Thank you so much for this! I really do need to have a just keep swimming mentality (Finding Nemo). Some times I just get taken back and try to think too far down the line about the bigger problems I will face. I should probably try to just get there first. I will start keeping a dairy. I need to be able to express my emotions in some non-toxic and non-interalizing way.

  3. 3

    we're all rooting for you to keep striving and overcome your fear — good luck! : )

    1. 2

      That made it feel a little easier, honestly. Thanks for the support!

      1. 1

        Thanks for your post! It was a nice reminder that lots of people are going through it just like me ; )

        1. 1

          Haha... Me too.
          Sometimes when I look at things I built, I wonder if I really built that. :)

  4. 2

    It may sound pithy, but the best advise I’ve received as a designer/creator is: just because people don’t like it, doesn’t mean it’s not good. This seems counter intuitive in the tech world where traction and PMF trumps all, but sometimes things take time to manifest and it’s important that you have a strong perspective.

  5. 2

    Fear setting.

    Imagine the worst thing that can happen? It is not that bad.

    When the pain of your current situation overcomes your pain of an uncertain future you will act.

    Can you ship something this week?

    1. 1

      I am honestly feeling that closing in on me. I want to release Gnotes by this week. However, I have been having the idea to work on something else. I am unsure how to monetize it and get it to grow long term.

  6. 2

    Jobs in some markets, especially the US, put up a lot of barriers and filters. Purely from the perspective of improving your skill, I'd suggest trying to be fearless and just "go for it".

    Lower your internal quality filter and build stuff the "wrong way". Try again when it's clear your design was a mistake. Read someone else's code or get a code review on SO and try again.

    When something is broken, try to ask yourself how you expected it to work, what happened that violated your expectation and how you think it most likely works now. Then test that hypothesis. If it was wrong, then go back, think about what violated your expectations and what might explain it. Update your mental model of the program and go through the cycle again. Making that habit helped me enormously.

    1. 2

      This is solid advice! I will implement it moving forward. I need to change my mindset towards not getting something right within a certain amount of time as negative. Thanks!

  7. 2

    Keep your head up! I’d encourage you to keep chipping away at your long term goals and do whatever it takes take care of yourself and your state of mind. I suspect your fear will subside once you start making progress and start building up that confidence.

    Also, don’t worry about being a great programmer. No need to add that unnecessary pressure. Besides, some of the best software businesses were started by average and even below average programmers.

    Good luck!

    1. 1

      Thanks for the words of encouragement! I definitely feel like I put too much pressure on myself which can cause me to freeze up. But I take comfort in knowing that amazing things can be built by average or below programmers.

  8. 1

    I've found projects can get overwhelming if you jump into the details without having a good understanding of the higher level plan.

    Take the product you want to build and break it down as much as possible before you start to build.

    • Write a task for each part you need to build (ex: store x data in a database; build api endpoint to serve x data from the database)
    • Write a task for each known unknown (ex: research how to configure a domain name)
    • Draw out with pencil and paper how the parts fit together and how they communicate with each other

    See it as a whole and as a finite set of tasks. Then start on each one by one.

    If you feel like there are too many unknowns, put as much of the plan together as you can and have someone give guidance on the unknowns. Feel free to post that here.

    1. 1

      YES! A little while ago I started lucid chart mapping the stuff I build and it has gone WAY smoother for me in the long run. Sometimes It's hard for me to map out the subtle intricacies that come with certain parts, but I can always re-modify the chart. Thanks for the feedback!

  9. 1

    Oh it is like me, I am afraid to do something bad, I am not great developer . Someone told me about do a step every day, in the end you will build something great. We have to try!

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