How do I follow through on my projects??

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6568028

by zxcvvcxz • 13 years ago

13 15 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I've fallen into a frustrating cycle.

1. Become very passionate about working on a new technology project. For like, 2 months.

2. Almost get to MVP stage.

3. Completely lose passion, decide project was stupid to begin with (this usually happens when I try to get people to use it, or realize what resources I'm missing).

4. Give up, chill for a month.

5. GOTO step 1. Acquire many half-finised projects...

Who has suffered from similar throughout their career, and how did you overcome it? How do you make enthusiasm sustainable?

Any feedback much appreciated.

271828182842• 13 years ago

I've been in your position a lot. I think the problem is with the M in your MVP. Narrow it down. It sounds like you're producing M+VP where M+ means more than minimum. Once I figured that out, I was able to do a lot more, faster.

I think this happens to a lot of people because it is really hard to take the M seriously until you start to see the Minimums of other now successful companies. The MVP for Reddit looked like hell (No offense kn0thing et al :-) and people forget that time when Facebook didn't even have a wall to write on.

zxcvvcxz• 13 years ago

Would anyone have records/images of such MVPs? More examples?

I always feel like there's too much to do to reach an MVP.

271828182842• 13 years ago

You know, this is a great question. There are probably disjoint sources like the WayBackMachine that let us piece these things together, but I think a curated gallery as a sort of museum for young startup founders to see could be very useful.

ScottWhigham• 13 years ago

Does this sound like you?

You pick a project that sounds fun to work on and solve. After two months of working on it, you got "close enough" that in your brain you'd already done the work and solved the problem. You don't finish it because "implementation" is just rote, boring stuff at this point. You enjoyed the problem solving aspect and, now that you need to create documentation or finalize/polish your work, it's boring and tedious.

If that sounds like you, I can empathize - that was me for a decade. It turned out, in the end, that I wasn't picking interesting enough projects - I was choosing projects that could have been resolved in two months + one month of boring work.

Solution: quit screwing around on pansy projects and do something big.

teni• 13 years ago

As hackers advance it is easy for them to lose sense of what is difficult, useful or plain stupid. I think this is because hackers usually set themselves on a quest to conquer ...xyz and once that is in sight all the hacking fun seems gone. Here is what I do:

1. I already know who would use my product before I build. They are not asking, "Do I need that?" but they are asking "When do I get that?".

2. As I develop, I am more likely to leave things out than to add anything to it.

Always remember:

  "Perfection is not the absence of what can be added but of what can be taken away"

canterburry2• 13 years ago

I wrote a blog post about all my past failed projects: http://founderbynight.tumblr.com/

I have had the same problems and I think the main challenge to getting them done was:

1. Completely agree with ScottWhigham...I had solved the problem in my head so it wasn't a challenge anymore

2. Didn't do enough research about existing solutions, companies so I got discouraged when I discovered better solutions

3 I didn't think it was a good enough project/solution to begin with so I wasn't motivated to finish

4. I had a very good job that I enjoyed so I really didn't need to get the project finished

My current project (http://www.pixtulate.com) I really believe in, I love what it does, how simple it is and how many designers it can help. That drives me every night....I feel like I am finally working on something truly useful.

sharmi• 13 years ago

Hi Canterburry, All the best with your new venture. I'm also in the quest for an interesting problem to hack. I saw your current project. Quite interesting. Actually the third example should read "Example fetch with explicit container height"

canterburry2• 13 years ago

sharmi,

Thanks a bunch for catching that...fix made.

captainbenises• 13 years ago

Everyone is gonna give you advise on finishing and tenacity.

Have you thought of the opposite viewpoint - that it seemed like a promising idea, but once you fleshed it out you found out there's reasons why no one else is doing it?

I'd say you're doing it exactly right, keep working on projects, find out if they're dead ends or not, then move onto the next one.

If you want to improve your process, make sure you focus on prototyping and UI, and not worry about stuff like scaling.

Also - opensource your half-done projects on github, so you can have them as resume pieces.

jlengrand• 13 years ago

I feel like I can reuse an old comment on mine for this :)

4 points by jlengrand 153 days ago | link | parent | on: Ask HN: Why can't I get started?

In the past year and a half, I started at least a different dozen projects. None of them is finished, or in a "correct" state. I would start something, to stop it half way through in order to start something else. I would sit on the computer to work, and start gaming a few minutes later. . . But lately, within 3 weeks, I popped up my first android application on the store; without any prior knowledge on database, webscrapping or anything else I needed to build the app. The difference? The users. A friend of mine called me saying : Hey, I do that every morning, and the current way of doing it is a pain. I am sure you can do something for me. And magically enough, I got motivated, working my arse off to get the first version finished. Since it is on the market, I got 60 recurring users and growing. And this keeps me motivated. I put hours on the project, just because I get feedback. So the conclusion: Do something that someone asked you to. Get your users first, start working afterwards. Don't be alone. If you don't have users, then join a project that has already started, in order to code with someone and get some interaction. I think that for a good 90% of us, what keeps up working is the passion for solving problems others have. Hope this helps :)

The updated version is that I am currently having 700 daily users, everyone is really happy on the store (4.47/5) and I keep working on it daily.

Hope this helps :)

chidevguy• 13 years ago

I've dealt with this same problem for many years as well. Recently I just completed a side project (http://www.randolunch.com) for the first time ever.

Three things really helped me get it to the finish line:

1) I listed out all the possible features of the project, then marked only the features I absolutely couldn't launch without as MVP. I used https://workflowy.com/ to do this because I liked the hierarchical structure and the ability to cross off features as I implemented them. Whenever I worked on my project I'd have workflowy open in one of the browser tabs.

2) If I didn't feel like working on the project I'd open up the feature list, pick one of the simplest items, and implement it. I found that if I started writing even just a few lines of code it was enough to motivate me to keep at it for hours. This was especially helpful as I got closer and closer to the finish line.

3) As others have mentioned here, launch your project as early as you can, even when you still feel "embarrassed" by it, and tell people about it! Looking on Google Analytics and seeing even just a handful of people using my site was incredibly motivating! It made me want to continue improving the site just so that those few people would have a better experience.

thearn4• 13 years ago

Easiest way is to get partners (or at least followers) on a project, if you can. It definitely helps motivate me to keep working on things after the initial drive wears down.

irina_z• 13 years ago

Join a mastermind group with few people that strive for the same thing you want to achieve. The single best decision I've done in terms of pushing my project forward. Every 2 weeks the three of us meet and share progress. It's a great form of both accountability and motivation. I feel super eager to work on my project for days after the hangout.

thesingularity• 13 years ago

Here is my advice, if you are a programmer/developer/hacker

Once you become passionate about a new project, force yourself "Not To Start Development" on it for one entire month. In this one month, you will dedicate yourself to doing marketing research for the project - checking competitors, contacting potential customers, figuring out how to acquire customers (and how costly customer acquisition will be). If at the end of one month, you still find yourself passionate about the idea and find it feasible with respect to the market research done, by all means, jump in with both feet.

Why do this? I am a hacker at heart and I love to get my hands dirty building things. This makes me invest time in projects that have no future and should not be worked on. Forcing myself not to work on any idea I get for a month, ensure that I give my time to only worthy projects.

dzink• 13 years ago

I created DoerHub.com as a side project and it now allows me to see how much interest there is in any of my side projects. That interest and the help that comes with it keeps me motivated longer (to the point where I quit my job to do DoerHub full-time). If anyone likes a project on DoerHub, they can contribute in multiple ways (spread word, join the team, pick up a task, or invite someone). So if I see an abandoned project of mine garners interest it gets easier to get back on it and a lot more fun, because I can do it with other people.

http://www.doerhub.com/for/whichvc http://www.doerhub.com/for/doerhub

http://www.doerhub.com/of/dzink

How do I follow through on my projects??

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