Start as side projects
jasonleow • 28 Mar 2023 •
If you didn’t have side-side projects and side-side-side projects, are you even an indie hacker? 😆
Seriously though, side projects are—in my opinion—one of the best ways to start a main project that you didn’t know was a main project. The side project grew into one.
The upsides of starting as a side project:
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Lower expectations. Personally, I found the associated expectations and ambitions of starting a main project to hinder more than help. The expectations kinda blind you to what’s real, what’s signalled by the market and your customers. By starting as a side project, you don’t take it too seriously, and can see the forest for the trees. Small bets.
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Side projects often start off as something fun. Play is the ultimate creator, if you ask me. You have fun, people can feel it in your product, and in your marketing too. The fun end up being infectious and helps grow the side project.
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Engineering-as-marketing. Sometimes we build a side project for a main project as a way for viral marketing. You had fun, learned something new, and in the process, also help bring more attention to your main project.
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Building tools for your project means validating a customer of one (yourself). Those tools could benefit other makers too, since it benefited you. It can go from a tool to a project in itself. Spin offs from a main project can grow into its own business.
What other benefits are there with side projects?
Comments
Agree! Play is the best creator 💪 Been trying to incorporate more play in my work especially for indie products
I think at Google or Microsoft they had some time in the week where employees get to mess around, creating things, building new projects that are nothing to do with their main job. I suspect that from those sessions, a lot of useful tools and products have been generated.
I do something similar, allowing myself to write some code that will benefit my work. Either a script to automate something or some updated code to benefit my day-to-day work.
Play is important!