<story><title>How to never complete anything</title><url>http://ewanvalentine.io/how-to-never-complete-anything/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>vinceguidry</author><text>I can&amp;#x27;t imagine ever shipping a side project. That&amp;#x27;s not why I build them. If I ever got to the point in my life where I do want my own company, a side project is not the way I want to go about it. Companies take a lot of work, that work has to be understood, then delegated and shared.&lt;p&gt;The technology aspect is really only 10% of it. Sure, it&amp;#x27;s the essential 0-to-1 kicker that gets you going, but once that&amp;#x27;s done you still have to find product-market fit. That quickly assumes second-job status and can wreck your personal life. I&amp;#x27;ve seen it happen.&lt;p&gt;A side project means you&amp;#x27;re taking all that on yourself without any help or real guidance. Not having that help means that when you finally do ship your side project, it&amp;#x27;s probably not going to achieve the kind of rapid growth you need to make scaling up possible.&lt;p&gt;And you really need rapid growth in order for working on a startup of your own creation to beat out having a reasonably-decent job. And if you don&amp;#x27;t have a reasonably-decent job, it&amp;#x27;s way easier to switch jobs &amp;#x2F; industries than it is to build out your own company.&lt;p&gt;What I want out of a side project is the kind of deliberate practice that is often lacking in my real job. Also to chase down random mind hares that seize my interest.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cocktailpeanuts</author><text>This is a rationalization and you know it.&lt;p&gt;There are tons of other people who also think side project is a way to learn something new, yet they ship.&lt;p&gt;Also there are tons of startups that started out as side projects. Facebook did.&lt;p&gt;You have no excuse. Stop lying to yourself because it&amp;#x27;s not doing yourself any good. The only reason you&amp;#x27;re not releasing your side projects to the world is because you are afraid of criticism.</text></comment>
<story><title>How to never complete anything</title><url>http://ewanvalentine.io/how-to-never-complete-anything/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>vinceguidry</author><text>I can&amp;#x27;t imagine ever shipping a side project. That&amp;#x27;s not why I build them. If I ever got to the point in my life where I do want my own company, a side project is not the way I want to go about it. Companies take a lot of work, that work has to be understood, then delegated and shared.&lt;p&gt;The technology aspect is really only 10% of it. Sure, it&amp;#x27;s the essential 0-to-1 kicker that gets you going, but once that&amp;#x27;s done you still have to find product-market fit. That quickly assumes second-job status and can wreck your personal life. I&amp;#x27;ve seen it happen.&lt;p&gt;A side project means you&amp;#x27;re taking all that on yourself without any help or real guidance. Not having that help means that when you finally do ship your side project, it&amp;#x27;s probably not going to achieve the kind of rapid growth you need to make scaling up possible.&lt;p&gt;And you really need rapid growth in order for working on a startup of your own creation to beat out having a reasonably-decent job. And if you don&amp;#x27;t have a reasonably-decent job, it&amp;#x27;s way easier to switch jobs &amp;#x2F; industries than it is to build out your own company.&lt;p&gt;What I want out of a side project is the kind of deliberate practice that is often lacking in my real job. Also to chase down random mind hares that seize my interest.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>onli</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;And you really need rapid growth in order for working on a startup of your own creation to beat out having a reasonably-decent job&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I disagree. You only need to get the income you want with the work you are willing to invest. Depending on what you do and what you need, that can mean that scaling up is not required at all.&lt;p&gt;Bootstrapping a business out of a side project is a thing.</text></comment>