
Ask HN: Describe the perfect side project - sharemywin
I was hoping to open up a discussion about side projects.  Is learning a new technology more important. or earning a side income? How much do you typically invest in your side project? Time only? 1k, 5k more?
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MalcolmDiggs
I only really care about the tech-stack of a side project if it's an open-
source thing or purely an educational project for myself. If I'm doing it for
profit, I'll build it quick and dirty in whatever technology lets me move the
quickest.

For for-profit projects I usually give them a time-limit and a hard budget.
For example: I'll put a max of 40 hours and $2,000 into project XYZ. If I hit
either limit without turning a profit (or at least seeing some return on my
investment), I'll move on to the next thing.

I've found that the trick to side projects is to keep moving until you find
one with product-market-fit. Don't let yourself get bogged down trying to make
a mediocre idea into a real business. In my experience, when you hit something
good, the market will let you know immediately, so just keep testing ideas
into you strike oil.

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J-dawg
This seems like great advice. Out of curiosity, what's your 'quick and dirty'
tech stack? Has an educational project ever turned into a for-profit one, or
is it always clear from the start?

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MalcolmDiggs
My quick-and-dirty stack is usually LAMP. LAMP allows me to work quickly, but,
that doesn't make it dirty.

What makes it dirty is the fact that for a small MVP I won't write any tests
at all, I won't bother to build a real API or micro-services or a fancy
single-page-app client. I'll just build a simple monolithic MVC in an out-of-
the-box framework. I won't worry about scalability, in fact I'll make choices
that I know won't scale at all. It's all about cranking out code as quickly as
possible. Yeah it ends up being ugly spagetti, but 99% of the time, nobody
will ever see it, and I'll throw it away soon after. (If the project does get
traction though, I'll start over and build it from scratch the right way).

And no, for me, educational projects are usually open-source (i'll join a
project or start one of my own if I want to get more experience in a certain
area). So those projects are more likely to be libraries or utilities or
helper-classes, not fully fledged businesses. So it's unlikely they'd ever
even be monetizable.

~~~
frigg
What about the design? The user interface is important obviously, do you know
design 'well enough' to make a passable interface or do you work with a
designer?

~~~
MalcolmDiggs
I'll usually just copy an established/popular design for the MVP (this doesn't
take any appreciable skills on my part), and if the product gets traction I'll
bring in a real designer to rethink everything from scratch.

Also, there are quite a few themes/skins/ui-kits for bootstrap and other
front-end frameworks, that are worth taking a look at if you don't have a
designer to work with. They won't compare to having a real designer on your
team, but they're better than nothing... you can get something passable up and
running that isn't embarrassingly ugly.

But, this only applies if you're building products whose primary value
proposition (and product market fit) has little to do with the design (think
Craigslist).

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CuriouslyC
The best side project is one where the potential upsides are big, and there
are no potential downsides.

Realistically, this means you should choose to work on something that you
actually want to use yourself and you should build it using technology you
want to learn for career advancement. As for monetization, don't count on
this, but if you have several options in terms of side project that are
roughly comparable in terms of personal interest/professional development, it
would be prudent to choose the one that has the best chance to turn a profit.

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akg_67
In my side projects, I am influenced by a book I read few years ago: The $100
Startup by Chris Guillebeau. I only do projects that have potential to bring
revenue. I use the following milestones to decide whether to keep project
alive or not. Once a project is cash flow positive (ramen profit), I only
reinvest cash flow.

    
    
      $100 + time before project goes live
      $250 + time after launch and until revenue generation
      $1,000 + time after revenue starts coming and until cash flow positive

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vsakos
Can I ask you where do you look for potential project ideas?

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akg_67
Most of the projects are scratching my own itch. I don't intentionally look
for project ideas. Why didn't I think of that. I wish I could do this. This
could also be applied to this (something unrelated). These type of thoughts
and questions typically trigger the potential project ideas. If unconsciously
I keep focusing/thinking more about them for a while, I know I am on to
something worth further investigating.

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stray
I will often experiment with new technologies while working on a side project.
For example, right now I have an active side project that is a mobile app with
a (geo)Django backend.

A couple months ago I became aware of PostgREST. It's an interesting project
and aspects of it appeal to me. But it's still worng.

So I thought "why not do something like that, but in Common Lisp". I messed
around with it for a few weeks and proved to myself that I can in fact, build
a better mousetrap. Spent a couple more weeks toying around with writing a new
postgres client library to support it.

And finally, last weekend I returned to Django. When I've got the iPhone and
Andriod stuff working and have it all deployed -- I'll go back to the Lisp
stuff and reimplement the backend.

For me, a side project is an opportunity to build something while allowing
myself to run off on little tangents. I can't justify doing that when working
for somebody else.

But on a side project nobody even knows I'm working on... Might as well might
as well.

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zeemonkee3
I always have at least one side project going, but I have zero ability at
discovering profitable business ideas so they're always just for fun.
Therefore learning/technology is the most important thing - so for example
even if the project uses Django (my daily driver) I'll throw in a new JS
framework on the front end.

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mbrock
I use side projects for R&D and fun. All I invest is time and domain names and
effort.

I also like them as ways to collaborate with friends and strangers.

Right now I'm working on a CI tool, a browser testing tool, a web app for
collaborating on song chord sheets, and a new kind of real time database.

The chord app is for my band, and some friends are helping. It might become
useful for other people.

The CI and test tools are infrastructure that I'll use for other projects.

The database is a stepping stone for a long term project...

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wingerlang
The only side projects I've started, finished and continued to
develop|maintain are project I made for myself out of some form of need. On
the bonus side they all make some money as well - although I probably would
have made them regardless.

