Perhaps somewhat more interesting - why my side projects have failed.
For the longest time, I didn't really mind - side projects were at least partially a way for me to learn new techniques/languages/frameworks, and the experience generally made the effort worthwhile, even if I didn't make any money directly in the process. For the most part, I think this was fine for a while - I'm in a decent spot career-wise, and I think part of it is due to all the knowledge and experience I've gained from working on side projects.
That said, earlier this year I realized I needed to get more serious about making money directly off of these things - one of my long-term goals is having enough passive income to live semi-comfortably off of, and building websites or software seems like the best way to do this for me. Part of rectifying this situation has been identifying why I've failed so many times. Here are some reasons I came up with:
1) Not thinking an idea all the way through
2) Getting hung up on petty things, like choosing a domain name
3) Getting hung up on the design (I'm unbelievably bad at design)
4) Getting hung up on the technology choice (I've built something in probably just about every semi-common language/framework over the past few years)
5) Not being very good at marketing and not taking the time to learn or employ the services of someone who is
6) Not committing to one idea/project at a time
So, my goal for the next little bit is to sift through my ideas and find one that can hold my interest and has long-term profit potential, use technology that I'm already comfortable with, set aside money to pay for things I'm not good at (design and marketing, for example) and devote some time to building it.
For the longest time, I didn't really mind - side projects were at least partially a way for me to learn new techniques/languages/frameworks, and the experience generally made the effort worthwhile, even if I didn't make any money directly in the process. For the most part, I think this was fine for a while - I'm in a decent spot career-wise, and I think part of it is due to all the knowledge and experience I've gained from working on side projects.
That said, earlier this year I realized I needed to get more serious about making money directly off of these things - one of my long-term goals is having enough passive income to live semi-comfortably off of, and building websites or software seems like the best way to do this for me. Part of rectifying this situation has been identifying why I've failed so many times. Here are some reasons I came up with:
1) Not thinking an idea all the way through
2) Getting hung up on petty things, like choosing a domain name
3) Getting hung up on the design (I'm unbelievably bad at design)
4) Getting hung up on the technology choice (I've built something in probably just about every semi-common language/framework over the past few years)
5) Not being very good at marketing and not taking the time to learn or employ the services of someone who is
6) Not committing to one idea/project at a time
So, my goal for the next little bit is to sift through my ideas and find one that can hold my interest and has long-term profit potential, use technology that I'm already comfortable with, set aside money to pay for things I'm not good at (design and marketing, for example) and devote some time to building it.