

Ask HN: Should I build my product or my portfolio? - ctd

I asked this in a thread about something else yesterday and could use some advice. It's about where I should focus my time to start bringing in some cash.<p>Should I focus on the product I want to build and possibly fail months later with nothing to show for the effort and no budget left to live on (I'm still recovering from the last one)?<p>Or should I build several smaller demo projects as portfolio pieces I can shop to get client work to fund the part-time development of my eventual product? Especially considering that my walled-off enterprise projects are inaccessible and built with tools other than the open source ones I'd prefer to be working with.<p>It's almost like starting from scratch.<p>For example, Rails ads usually specify "2 years experience with high-traffic production apps" or something like that. Should I build a bunch of small demos, free and consumer apps?<p>I'd be interested in reading any success stories here.
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ctd
Help a brutha out? :)

Depressing that I couldn't even get an upvote. I thought for sure that I could
get an answer on HN. I suck.

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mattm
The answer you're looking for will not come from others.

