
Ask HN: Why is nearing completion so demotivating? - danschumann
So I&#x27;ve been working on animation software for over two years.  Part of me is very excited for launch so I can have money again ( I&#x27;ve been freelancing a minimum amount these last two years, and went car-less, moved, cut lifestyle into a third ).  I should be wholeheartedly excited, but I&#x27;m feeling tired and generally sluggish regarding the project.  I still make consistent progress, but it takes a lot of will power.<p>Part of me thinks it might be an aversion to sales.  Part of me thinks this could have been built up so much in my head that anything short of overnight millions would be a disappointment (though I would be happy with 1500 bucks a month ), part of me thinks I might be scared of success ( or scared of surpassing my parents )(media attention), part of me fears the attacks that might come with success ( having something to lose ), part of it is the un-fun-ness of mature projects where the focus is on polish and bugs rather than broad new features, and part of me is scared of commitment:  if I succeed I have to stick with this (freedom value), part of me wonders what will happen when more people become involved, if I will be able to maintain my creative direction, since I&#x27;m scratching my own itch.  Part of me wonders if diet and exercise isn&#x27;t a factor.<p>A combination, likely...
======
mikekchar
When your project is finished, the dream is dead and the reality is born. The
death of a dream is like the death of a friend. It's probably been with you
for a long time -- longer even than the length of the project. A dream is the
manifestation of what's possible. When it is over, the possible diminishes
very quickly and you are left with what actually is. Will people respond well
to your project -- in the dream stage it is possible; everything is possible.
In the reality stage, it will only be what it is.

So while it's common to think of a release as a birth of something new,
realise that you also have a significant loss. You will mourn that loss. Give
yourself some emotional space to deal with the mourning.

~~~
riantogo
This is exactly it. Tens of my personal projects have died in this stage. It
was always much easier to move on to the next dream. There is always the next
big problem that could use a solution. Why not build when it is what we do
best? Rinse, repeat.

I took a break from side projects for several years but recently got back to
it and couple weeks back finished building. It is the same story all over
again. Same feeling. I'm dreading what comes next.

~~~
msandford
I think this is why it's super useful to have a cofounder for a side project:
there's someone to let down (besides yourself) when you give up too soon.

This is also why funding (and employees) helps a lot of startups. Not so much
the money itself, but an ever growing consortium of people who literally have
a vested interest in the thing continuing. It's harder to give up when people
are counting on you.

If your side project isn't the kind where you want to make money in the end
then you're going to need to have higher intrinsic motivation I suspect as
none of these pressures will likely come to bear and help you stay motivated.

------
hoodoof
Are you me?

Programming feels like productive work, and indeed it is, up until just about
the point you are at. Now it is not productive work any more, in fact, once
the product is finished, programming is counter productive work. Other things
need to be done and you don't know how to do them and if you do, are not in
the habit of doing them. IOt is easy to get up in the morning and write code,
harder to do unfamiliar things.

\--> self sabotage (deeply seated need to actually not succeed)

\--> fear of the unknown

\--> avoidance of a change in work habit - from programming to...... ? what
does one do post launch

\--> fear of the likely outcome which is zero feedback, zero users

Curious - how close are you to launch, what remains to be done, and what does
the software actually do?

Can I suggest perhaps be really ruthless about the remaining tasks - likely
many of those launch tasks just are not important, even though the
completionist in you thinks they are. For example - terms and conditions
document? Ditch it until users are interested. Privacy document? Same.
Purchase? Drop it.

See what I mean? If people like what you have built and use it, then the world
will not come to an end because you did not have those things... and user
interest will motivate you to implement them.

It's incredibly hard to work on something with no user interest. Just dump
what you have built out there and see what happens.

~~~
bigiain
24th of May 2018 might not be the best time to choose to launch anything while
intentionally having ditched thinking about your T&Cs and Privacy Policy...

~~~
fiddlerwoaroof
I'd just block Europe instead...

~~~
bigiain
That _helps_, but I'm a British/EU citizen, living in Australia, who regularly
VPNs through servers in Singapore, Tokyo, and the US.

I'm still protected by GDPR.

(Personally, I reckon that's quite an overreach by EU lawmakers, but that's
what they've chosen to do, in response to equivalent or worse "overreach" by
internet companies trading in personal information...)

~~~
desdiv
According to this HN discussion you're probably not covered by GDPR:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16751791](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16751791)

~~~
bigiain
Thanks for that!

That actually makes sense (not something that's expected to be true of
laws...)

So by my reading of the advice linked there:

If an individual is in the EU, they're covered by GDPR - whether they're a
citizen or not.

If a company is based in or does business in the EU, all it's users are
covered by the GDPR - whether they're in the EU or not, and whether they're an
EU citizen or not.

That's much less over-reachy than I'd thought. The EU arguably does have the
right to make laws about how you treat people within it's borders - whether
they're citizens or not. (A death threat against a Chinese person in Paris
should be prosecutable under French law by French police/authorities). The EU
definitely does have the right to make laws about how businesses in the EU or
who have offices/presence in the EU treat people everywhere. (A London company
discriminating against a homosexual Saudi citizen should be prosecutable under
British law by British authorities, even if it's not illegal to so
discriminate in Saudi Arabia).

~~~
icebraining
I think it's even less reachy than that - if a foreign multinational has a
subsidiary in the EU, I don't think the parent company is covered by the GDPR
unless they directly deal with subjects in the EU. So they can
compartmentalize the parts of the company that must deal with the GDPR, by
redirecting every EU user to the EU subsidiary.

------
asperous
I have been there before and I think it's demotivating because reality is
setting in. Before you release you can stay under the delusion that anything
is possible. As soon as you release you are forced to deal with problems that
aren't fun anymore. Marketing, advertising, people telling you your product
isn't very good, people telling you they like your product but then not buying
it and using alternatives instead.

The truth is people aren't going to bust down your door and give you millions.
What comes after release is far harder and demotivating then before, and, if
you are lucky, you can find success after a few more years of a hard, slow
grind. If you aren't so lucky, you end up back at a normal job :)

Good luck!

------
motohagiography
Way to get motivated again:

I get asked a lot why I left architecture and tech to be in product, and now,
bootstrapping a relatively non-technical collaboration platform. My answer is
that it's solving similar problems just at a higher level of abstraction. It's
moving from a perfect information game of development to an imperfect
information game of alignment and persuasion. It's like a context switch from
chess to poker.* Going back into learning mode with books on sales and
business is really refreshing.

Shockingly, once I cobbled my demo together it didn't just start raining term
sheets. My impression is that people who know what it's like to be here don't
let it out as not to discourage others.

However, what I still believe is, we don't regret things we take all the way.
What we live to regret is the the pulled punch, the hedged bet, the b-plan,
the retreat, the fold, the concession, the job, the approval of people we
don't admire, the unsaid, the declined invitation, the judgment, the things we
held on to or didn't let go, and the lack of belief in ourselves - these are
the things that will shake you awake at night in middle age, and I assume,
forever thereafter.

When you finish something, you need to "pop," up a level of problem solving.
It's analogous skills, just with new tools and variables. Oddly, it's also a
way to rest. There is an old saying that translates to "a change is as good as
a break," and getting my code to the point where I could not touch it for a
week while I worked my pipeline and have a demo meeting where it just worked
was a huge confidence and energy boost.

Take time to invest in reading some books on business in your field. It has
massive returns and feels like a break.

~~~
danschumann
Oh yea, I forgot one of my main reasons for not "switching horses" can also be
applied to this spell. In the past, when a project reached the un-fun stage, I
would convince myself another idea was better, and switch horses, or in a
different case I got a job instead. In both cases I regretted not continuing
on, and occasionally remind myself not to do either of those mistakes this
time. Good call with that.

------
vshan
“It's not that students don't "get" Kafka's humor but that we've taught them
to see humor as something you get -- the same way we've taught them that a
self is something you just have. No wonder they cannot appreciate the really
central Kafka joke -- that the horrific struggle to establish a human self
results in a self whose humanity is inseparable from that horrific struggle.
That our endless and impossible journey toward home is in fact our home. It's
hard to put into words up at the blackboard, believe me. You can tell them
that maybe it's good they don't "get" Kafka. You can ask them to imagine his
art as a kind of door. To envision us readers coming up and pounding on this
door, pounding and pounding, not just wanting admission but needing it, we
don't know what it is but we can feel it, this total desperation to enter,
pounding and pushing and kicking, etc. That, finally, the door opens...and it
opens outward: we've been inside what we wanted all along. Das ist komisch.” ―
David Foster Wallace, Consider the Lobster and Other Essays

~~~
mar77i
In short, "One of the first signs of the beginning of understanding is the
wish to die." \- FK

------
DarrenZ
I’ve built a dozen apps over the past 10 years, most of them commercial, and I
always encounter this dip that you describe as I approach the finish line. A
number of commenters are suggesting it’s the fear of what comes next that is
causing it, but I don’t agree.

For me, it’s so regular that I can see it creep up on me — all the major
features completed, only the polishing and websites to complete, and it starts
to hit me, trying to drag me down.

Steven Pressfield wrote a short book called The War of Art that talks about
this. It’s common to any creative endeavour, whether you’re writing a novel or
building a product. I’ve written a novel as well, and it hit me at the same
time and in the same way — near the finish.

You need to power on through and come out the other end. All the problems and
issues others have talked about will be there waiting, bit that’s a different
can of worms.

~~~
kaskavalci
George R.R. Martin's behavior just made a lot more sense to me now.

------
btilly
You have been working for 2 years and have no customers?

I guarantee that you're thinking about your problem wrong. There are things
that people want to do that you don't know yet. There are things that are
obvious to you about how to do things with your software that nobody will be
able to figure out. You won't be able to learn anything about that until you
have real people using it.

Go out. Find a potential customer. Preferably paying. Non-paying is better
than nothing. Sit down with them, offer them a demo, train them, get feedback,
and try to make them happy. If you can't do that, and can't take the feedback,
then you not only won't succeed, you never had a chance in the first place.

~~~
ablanco
I don't think this kind of reasoning applies to all projects. If you're doing
something without the pressure to make money you can make something that
you're proud of. Of course, this can only be a side project unless you're
already rich. The one thing I know is that if you don't love what you do, it's
the same wether you own some super hot startup or you write forms for some
accountant firm.

~~~
btilly
If you want other people to use it, it does apply. You don't know what you
don't know until you have user feedback. No matter how much is right about
your vision, you need that.

This is WHY the idea of having an MVP and iterating has won so thoroughly.

~~~
ablanco
Don't get me wrong, if you are to measure success by the money you raise, then
I completely agree with you. I meant thinking of an app as a mean of
expression rather than a cow to squeeze money from. If you want to make
something more in the arts department, getting people to tell you what they
think early on might be a horrible and non constructive idea.

~~~
btilly
I don't care whether you are writing it for money, open source, or simply to
make the world a better place. If the purpose of your work involves other
people appreciating it, you won't know what they will and will not appreciate
it until you put it in front of other people and get feedback about it.

~~~
gitgud
I agree, software that is designed for users must be tested as soon as
possible.

Humans are notoriously bad predictors. For example; That fancy menu system you
spent a week making might be completely useless to most users, simple user
feedback could have prevented the colossal waste of time...

~~~
mlthoughts2018
One caveat though is that in many situations, there is a lot of bureaucracy
and overhead involved with collecting and interpreting user feedback. User
feedback is often inconsistent and contradictory, influenced by mistakes in
survey design, influenced by time-varying factors. And once it is collected, a
lot of different stakeholders inside the company will have conflicting
incentives about what the feedback is supposed to mean for priorities and
decisions.

In some cases, if someone has a very highly developed sense of aesthetics and
design, or can extrapolate from previous user feedback scenarios, then they
might be able to come up with designs that users will love even if users
wouldn't have thought of it that way ahead of time, or if more generic
feedback would never have collated down into actionable decisions that
empowered that particular designer.

As I've gone on in my career, I tend to see the value of this more and more,
and lose faith that feedback collection mechanisms won't be politically
subverted.

One example: I'd say a lot of the feedback about the principal lines of work
for TensorFlow from the recent dev summit is wrong-headed, and they should
just let Francois Chollet's design aesthetic motivate what gets worked on and
how it gets designed, for a while.

------
joeld42
I have struggled with this too. For me, the thing that helped was figuring out
how to turn the "ship it" moment into a mechanical process -- a list of bugs
and a ship date. You stop creating a beautiful thing, and just need to fix X
things before Y date.

Introspection and all the thinking you're doing is important and good and will
help you overall find happiness so keep that up -- but it's not going to help
you ship this. Just make a list of bugs and cross them off. Ship a V1.

If it's usable now just release it. Call it a beta, call it early access,
whatever. You'll have a few weeks to just react and absorb feedback and that
will help you decide what you want to do with it, learn what the market looks
like, learn what the users want.

Especially with something like a creative or animation tool, you're not going
to get people knocking down your door and throwing money at it overnight. But
if a few people find it expressive and useful, find those users, support them
and their work will bring others.

------
finyeates
I can definitely draw parallels with this feeling, in my mind its a
combination of finding it harder and harder to see actual meaningful returns
on your time invested on the project. When you're just starting out and
delivering big features and changes you can get that feedback quickly and
things seem to move quickly. But when you're now having to focus on cleanup
and polish it can feel like the project stops moving and you're stuck behind a
wall.

There are a few things that I've found that help me in these situations:

\- Get a good project management software, personally i use
[https://monday.com/](https://monday.com/) for small project task management,
you can list all the things you need to do - and seeing the tasks slowly
disappearing can help get that feeling of momentum back

\- Get a cofounder/help finding someone else to be passionate about your
project or help with the work often will help spark more of that early stage
excitement again. I'm currently working with some contractors on my own
project and their excitement helps motivate me to push though these 'work
stitches'.

\- Take a small break, not too long, any longer than a week or two and you can
distance yourself too much.

What you need to remember is that you're attempting to pull something off that
very few people actually do, building and launching a company from scratch. It
_is_ a-lot of effort, but as a founder and as it gets traction you can start
to hire into roles which you don't like/don't care for.

Good luck with your software!

------
ahussain
I feel like this quote[0] from David Foster Wallace is relevant here:

"perfectionism is very dangerous because, of course, if your fidelity to
perfection is too high you never do anything, because doing anything results
in... it's actually kind of tragic because it means you sacrifice how gorgeous
and perfect it is in your head for what it really is, and umm, there were a
couple years where I really struggled with that."

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5R8gduPZw4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5R8gduPZw4)

------
kodablah
Because the first 90% was enjoyable and the second 90% is no fun. The places a
mind can wander when provided a blank canvas are infinitely more vast than an
already painted one.

~~~
rkangel
There's a more practical side too: earlier in the project a day's work can
produce a large increment in functionality. Later in the project you get less
and less obvious result for your effort. Those smaller and smaller increments
are important for your product to be polished and reliable, but they don't
feel as satisfying to the implementer.

------
dansanuf
Procrastination is most often a self-defense mechanism for coping with your
fear of your work not being good enough. The procrastination creates an “out,”
allowing you to excuse yourself if your work isn’t excellent. This podcast
with two psychologists who have studied procrastination heavily is quite
illuminating [https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/beat-
procrastination...](https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/beat-
procrastination/)

------
ollerac
In general, I find that the mind doesn't lie when you're stressed out, it just
exaggerates a bit. If I had to guess, all of your fears are valid fears and
you should sit with each one and address it. However, now is not the time.

You just reached a major milestone, whether it feels like it or not. You are
getting near completion on a major project, you are starting to think longer
term, you are considering the impact of your work on the world.

Take a week off. Or even a few months. Take a step back and let what you've
done really sink in. Give yourself a treat, like playing a video game or binge
watching tv or walking in nature. Whatever floats your boat.

Come back to the project in a month or two and you'll have a clearer head
about where you're really at and what's left for you to do. Be kind to
yourself. This kind of project is a heavy emotional and mental burden. Do not
underestimate how much emotional weight it has. Give yourself permission to
get back to a balanced, healthy mindset before taking the next steps.

Be well friend. Good luck! And be kind to yourself.

~~~
danschumann
I do like video games, but when I play video games my house gets messier and
messier. Lately I've been making more deals with myself, rewarding myself in
various ways. Thinking about life through more of a lens of "is this behavior
a reward, or an activity which will warrant a reward?" If it is neither, why
would I do something so unfruitful? It's been a bit better on my psyche. Been
going to bed earlier, as well.

------
manibatra
I could be very wrong but the reasons you gave were all scenarios where you
end up successful. That probably makes me think that you are just scared of
the failure and judgement that comes from putting yourself out there.

For me the solution has been to know that whatever I create is out of the need
that it has to be created or it will bother me to no end. So even if it is
criticised the other option would have been to not create it which would be
much worse.

Also if you are not on point when it comes to your diet and exercise there is
a lot of room left for you to feel better than you are at the moment just by
doing that. The difference can be night and day.

------
newman8r
I think it's harder to pull the trigger and launch once you've taken so long
(years) to work on a project. You're a lot more invested in the success or
failure, so you take a perfectionist view of the project which is a view that
often leads to procrastination.

When you're only spending ~2 months developing a bare-bones MVP, it becomes
easier to just launch the thing and be less attached to the ultimate outcome.

This is just my personal experience, I've worked on both types of projects and
I vastly prefer the ones that take only 1-2 months to validate.

------
drenvuk
This is somewhat on topic but people may consider it unrelated.

There is a business book that explains the disconnect between many people who
say they want to start a business but only focus on the task that they're good
at. One of the premise inside the book was that a baker started a bakery and
ended up only baking and leaving all of the managing and appointment making to
her employees. All of the employees quit and she ended up taking on all of the
work herself, quickly burning out. Despite the fact that building a business
was the task that she should have been trying to figure instead of just the
act of baking which. She was good at baking, thought she should open a bakery,
didn't realize that a baking business is only 1 part baking and 8 parts baking
system building. I wish I could remember the name of the book.

The lesson that the book tries to teach is that the _business_ is actually the
product customers will give you money for, not single piece of software that
you're programming right now. If you organize your thoughts around it that way
then you might be able to become more motivated. You've only really built a
single part of your business system. The rest of it still needs to be built
and you still need inputs, cogs and outputs for it.

I'm not sure if this is helpful.

If you don't mind me asking, did you get validation for your idea and product
before spending two years building it out?

~~~
triviatise
the book might have been emyth

~~~
drenvuk
Yes! thank you.

------
Angostura
One aspect that I don't has been mentioned is the old joke I and my colleagues
have about 'its the last 10% that takes 90%' of the time.

You get to the end; you've done all the big-vision important stuff. The
application _works_ , you just need to tidy it up a little. You're at the
annoying snagging, which provides little personal satisfaction, but has to be
done.

------
chatmasta
It’s the 80/20 Pareto principle. The last 20% of the work feels like 80% of
it. And honestly, maybe it is. Have you considered that maybe you aren’t as
close to the end as you think? Often that last 20% doesn’t contain any major
challenges, but rather a mountain of small and tedious tasks that you’ve “left
til later” throughout the project. So although it feels like you’re almost
finished, because you’ve eliminated all major challenges, you actually have a
lot left to do because the sum of those smaller tasks is greater than you
estimated.

If that’s true, it’s better to be realistic about what work remains. That way
you won’t lose motivation when you’re spending so much time completing the
project, because you’ve consciously recognized there is still a lot of work to
do.

And TBH I’ve been in the same boat, and in fact am in that 80/20 area on my
current project. We’ve all been there I think. It’s part of software. Best
thing you can do is recognize it for what it is and deal with it like you
would any challenge.

------
peter_retief
I have exactly the same experience, not just with projects but with
technologies as well, I move from 80% completed projects because I get excited
about a new thing, either a new s/w framework/language/electronics and then
never come back to finish. I have a number of partially completed systems in
use (One is a controller for emergency vehicles, another a tracking dashboard
for shipping reefers, strangely they seem to more or less work) I keep
thinking that one day I will get a really good product and make enough money
to hire developers to complete and support what I have created. I have given
this some introspection and have a couple of possible reasons, one is "fear of
failure" I abandoned a facial recognition system I spent years developing
because of one rejection. Another is loss of interest, the creative stuff is
all done and now its down to plain work. Anyway, thanks for sharing

------
nartz
There is a required shift in mentality that you are due.

Its like when you're in love, at first you can survive on romance, but to
survive a marriage, there is a necessary shift into the long term mentality.

You've romanced your way to a product, but haven't considered the long term of
it yet. In the future, it would help to have _some_ long term thinking earlier
on, so you can plan for various things and not have a step-function-like
inflection point in your expectations.

~~~
danschumann
Like switching from growing something to not letting it die? Maybe that's not
quite articulated right.. but yea, some sort of shift in mentality..

------
tootie
It's natural. All the tension gets released. Your driving purpose for so long
is gone. "Just relax and enjoy yourself" doesn't really help because you
enjoyed working towards a goal. The let down is a natural part of it that just
reminds you what a ride you had. The only solution is to set a new goal. Next
release. New project. If you want to chase the dragon of your first release,
try blogging about how you got there.

------
INTPenis
I can only speak for myself but I consider myself to be some sort of pro
academic. I should maybe consider a career at a university. Because one of my
biggest flaws is that I love starting projects and following them through
until I've learned everything new I can squeeze out of them.

Then just before the finish line when I feel that I have a good understanding
of the project my energy and willpower falters and my focus is drawn to new
projects.

~~~
gitgud
You're not the only one, I too enjoy the learning process much more then
finishing the project.

It seems I'm always learning new skills in preparation for something greater.
Maybe its just a lie I tell myself in order to prevent disappointment...

~~~
INTPenis
There is nothing greater. I believe we're just chasing the thrill of learning
new things.

------
mrieck
Have money again? Getting people to use it for free will probably be a
challenge... getting people to pay may be nearly impossible.

Here's my animation platform that gets no traffic as an example:
[https://www.superanimo.com](https://www.superanimo.com)

Maybe yours will be different but at one time I also thought "if I release it,
the people will come." Luckily I wasn't invested too much in a certain outcome
after launching. Otherwise I would have never kept improving it. I still don't
know if more than a few people will ever try it, but I like working on it so
much it won't ever feel like a waste. If nothing else, at least I can make
silly animations with it.

~~~
harel
1\. What didn't work for you might work for someone else. 2\. We have no way
to make a comparison with what you did to what he's doing - see #1.

~~~
mrieck
That's why I said 'maybe his project will be different.'

Reading the post again I think he's saying he'll have money again because once
launched he'll stop working on it and go back to freelance. In that case it
makes sense. I thought he was assuming he'll bring in profits once launched -
even though he hasn't gotten user feedback yet. IMO that type of thinking is
premature, even if you have the best idea/execution in the world.

~~~
harel
Yes, luck plays a big part in this game... unfortunately. I actually read it
as in "he'll make sales which will generate more income" but what you're
saying is valid though I think once you launch, you end up getting more work
as feedback comes pouring in.

------
gnl
I'm currently in a somewhat similar situation, although with a smaller open
source project, and that's exactly what I've been struggling with the last few
weeks. There are some great points in the comments here, here are my 2 cents
and what I'm currently doing.

Like someone here said already - the second 90% are no fun. The first 90% are
fun, launching is fun, people using and loving your software is fun and
eventually getting filthy rich is probably fun (I really wouldn't know), but
the second 90% are usually just a giant pain in the arse. Accepting that does
make it easier.

Plus, when you're making something you care about and you really want it to be
good, it's particularly hard to say no to features, even more so when you
expect to get paid for the whole thing. And a case can certainly be made that
one should probably be careful not to launch an MVP with too strong an
emphasis on the M, no second chance for a first impression and all that.

That being said, as Joel Spolsky once wrote, shipping is a feature. It's your
most essential feature. If you cut a few things here and there and add them
post-launch, it probably won't kill you. It may even turn out that you don't
need them or that you could do them better.

If you keep pushing a deadline trying to get everything in there, getting it
just so for the launch, losing more and more motivation along the way, maybe
deciding that you really need to rewrite this or that but it'll take you
another month or something - that could kill you.

So I think this is the time to brutally cut everything you can cut and just
get the damn thing out the door. Half a product is better than both a half-
arsed product and no product.

Once you're done butchering your todo list, you apply the age old universal
recipe for all things that you don't feel like doing but need to do, trite
though it may seem - you take it one step at a time. You don't sit down at the
computer thinking "I've got to launch this". You sit down thinking "I've got
to implement this thing", "I've got to fix that bug", etc.

You've worked on something continuously for two years. This already puts you
ahead of the overwhelming majority of people who want to make things. In the
words of Captain Reynolds:

[https://youtu.be/xbbj2o0yUI0?t=17s](https://youtu.be/xbbj2o0yUI0?t=17s)

I should probably go and see about following my own advice now.

~~~
danschumann
> shipping is a feature. It's your most essential feature.

Very true. It's a feature, but I think I've been looking at it as a liability.

------
jacquesm
I have this too and it is in my case attributable to one thing only: fear that
it bombs.

That's why I try to release stuff as early as possible to feel which way to go
in with the development to minimize that chance. Two years is a long time but
I can see how for some software that is a reasonable amount of time to spend
in development mode before the first release.

------
vjeux
> part of me thinks I might be scared of success ( or scared of surpassing my
> parents )(media attention), part of me fears the attacks that might come
> with success ( having something to lose )

Beware of those expectations, after the initial press fades out (a week or two
in), you're going to have close to 0 users and 0 revenue. Launching is just
the first step, you'll be successful when you can grow your user base.

You're likely not going to feel successful at that point, probably the
opposite: "I spent 2 years working on this and no one is using it".

------
mncharity
One cautionary note: Beware pushing/powering through incipient burnout, rather
than addressing it. "Emotional debt" can be hard to pay off. I've had valuable
projects that I was very reluctant to touch again, even years later.

~~~
danschumann
This is a good call. And letting frustration roll off your back. If I let
frustration get to me, I would have quit. If I couldn't accept 'little
progress', (when the alternative was no progress), then I wouldn't have made
little progress daily, and gotten to the point of almost done. This is
something I've heard (perhaps mostly anecdotal), where people shift between
neglect and perfectionism. Allowing moderate progress (where you're not
meeting your standards for progress 100%, but you are moving forward), is
actually difficult to accept, but it's usually a pretty good coarse. It's hard
to be the turtle.

------
acutesoftware
Do you have a written plan on how you will make money with this - like a
business plan? If not, take a day off and work out a complete outline on what
you want to achieve and how you will get there.

I totally get what you are saying and have been there myself - the development
stage is fun, and you avoid / defer marketing tasks because, let's face it
most of us HATE that stuff. But if you want to make money, you need to do it,
and having a plan helps because you have the 'big tasks' broken up into little
chunks.

Once you have broken down the steps you can plan your time - start by spending
an hour a day on one of the marketing tasks, just to get into the mindset and
work from there. You might find some marketing tasks are fun, just as doing a
blog / video demo of the product, or putting together a collection of cool
screenshots showing what it can do.

Your very first marketing task is to post here with a screenshot or something
showing what your product looks like, or even the name - marketing is part
getting the name out and I haven't seen that in this post anywhere yet.

So, yes it is hard but take it in small steps - one at a time and be
persistent.

~~~
danschumann
There is a screenshot or two ( top one is older ) at
[http://schuwing.com](http://schuwing.com) (and an email signup for launch
updates).

I do have an example page in the works, with 4 examples so far, of each of the
different page-integrations (in page pop-out, scroll, auto-play, etc), and
each showcasing a few of the different svg filters.

It's marketed toward professionals, so I'm not in the game of taking non-
creative people and "giving them a creative outlet". It should help with real
world animated web tasks, and I had some experience with that in my
freelancing. I'll probably have some pricing tiers, but probably something
like $29/month, 59, 149, with higher tiers being more support.

For marketing, besides doing tutorials and buying ads on youtube, I can reach
out to people w/ existing "how-to design" blogs, and share revenue with them
(recurring), to keep their watchers using the software. Then reaching out to
companies, even cold-calling if it proves cost effective.

I just have a bunch of polish to iron out. If I release it with bugs, and
those bugs end up causing people to lose work (ie work for an hour without
saving, and then a breaking bug causes you to lose work), I might lose those
customers forever, so I'm stuck ironing those out for now.

It's getting really close though, and it seems like the closer it gets, even
though I have figured out some possible ways forward for marketing, the less
motivated I am.

I think I have to admit that in some ways I was, and really liked, chasing a
fantasy, and I don't know how to chase now that it's more real. The hunger is
what I'm lacking, in a way I feel full.

------
vivan
I am in the same boat right now - a project is 90% complete but I have no
motivation to do the last 10%. I blame laziness, but really it boils down to a
few things:

1\. The enjoyment of building - I quite enjoyed building this project, and
once it's "done" that joy ends.

2\. The fear of failure - what if it's a flop after I publish?

3\. The hatred of sales - I'm a programmer, I don't want to deal with selling
the product!

~~~
danschumann
Something that is kind of helping me is this: ( I apply it to cleaning my
house too )

I can't force myself to work on the project I say to myself, "You don't have
to work on the project, but you can't do anything else. You can either sit
here and do nothing, or work on the project"

For some reason this works for me. My inner self is so fed up with being told
what to do, it doesn't work, it rebels, but if I limit it, and let it drive
forward, it tends to work a bit better.

There also might be a factor with eliminating all distractions, setting the
rule of "you can't do anything else".

As for #3, I have the same, and I did a project I truly believed in; I truly
believe if more people did more animation, they'd be happier. So, it's not
really selling, it's just telling people how I actually feel about animation.

#2 I accept the possibility. If it flops, well, I will have to do some actions
to change that. Maybe I change the product, maybe I start calling people on
the phone. A flop is a place, not a destination, I can move away from a flop,
without failing, taking the product with me.

------
jonathanstrange
In addition to what others stated, if "nearing completion" means "the
programming is almost finished", then this can be demotivating because as an
experienced programmer you know that this means that there is still about 400%
to be done in terms of boring debugging, deployment, debugging, optimizing,
and boring debugging, packaging and deployment... and debugging!

------
slantaclaus
Overcoming this is fear of launch is the key differentiator between businesses
that have a chance and those that are doomed from the start.

------
abootstrapper
It’s a fear of failure. The sky is the limit with new fresh projects. Thinking
of the potential and possibilities is exhilarating. But reality hits hard once
you launch. That’s why I’m a proponent of launching early and often. Get it
out there fast and don’t spend a lot of time thinking about how successful or
unsuccessful it will be.

------
m1sta_
The impending prospect of being judged.

~~~
hoodoof
With the possibility of the worst form of judgement - disinterest/ambivalence.

------
mg794613
Find a partner. Often I found that where the fun stops for you, it begins for
someone else. I personally like creating PoC or solving complex problems. The
whole story that comes afterwards, it being sales, marketing, polishing or any
other stage is killing me inside, but it is often the start of someone else's
challenge.

------
codesternews
Ok, I am very depressed person and I do not have motivation. All the comments
are very insightful, great and true.

I checked your [http://schuwing.com](http://schuwing.com) website and want to
tell you it is really great what you have built.

Now Advice: Forgot about all the expectation you have about money, payment
model, people will like it or not.

Think about positive side of it. Check your website again and see what the
great thing you have built. How much you have learned during process. Can you
mention it on your resume? Can you talk with passion about this? After two
years when you see this Is it not making you great or felt yes I have achieved
something?

If yes than do not fear and push the release button. Forgot all about you
negative thoughts. Loose your expectation if someone will buy or not.
Continuously improve it.

~~~
danschumann
So, lately my definition of depression has come to this: Someone who screwed
up a high resolution thing, like forgetting to pass the salt, which they
cascade up the pyramid into 'well I guess that makes me a bad dinner guest,
which makes me a bad friend, which makes me a bad person'.

I find this fairly accurate for people with depression, and I try not to let
actions cascade into my identity, but I try to make my identity drive my
actions. If one of my actions doesn't symbolize my identity, I don't change my
identity, I just try harder to make my actions truer to my values. I think if
a person does this, they are still subjects to bouts of sadness and normal
grief of life, but not so much as to invalidate themselves as a person and
then fall into depression. `yourActions.onfail = function(e) {
e.stopPropagation(); }`

------
imron
> Why is nearing completion so demotivating?

Because the bulk of the interesting work has been done, and now all that's
remaining is the finicky, nitpicking tasks that you've been putting off doing
for the whole project.

> though I would be happy with 1500 bucks a month

I wish you the best of success, but please be prepared that you will not
likely reach this goal for some time, if ever (although I hope I'm wrong).

Everything else you are worried about (surpassing parents, more people
becoming involved, losing creative direction etc) is putting the cart before
the horse. It's far more likely that the project will fail to meet your
expectations. Especially if you've been working on it for 2 years and haven't
had any customers validating your work in that time.

I don't mean to be a downer, but that's the reality of most projects.

------
tripn
i think you defined the whole process as one challenge. divide it to many
small challenges according to the process, and reward yourself after each one
completed, then you don't need to reach 100%, you are already succeeded ( by
your own definition ).

------
p0nce
At first software launches felt like that.

Getting a software out in public is very stressful the first times you do it,
essentially this is fear of _social rejection_ I guess and it can be harder
for introverts. But customers and people are much, much nicer than one can
expect! Especially if you love your product chances are people will love it
too. You'll get used to be "vulnerable" in this way, meaning anyone with an
internet connection can criticize your "baby" unfairly (but most of the time
fairly!).

Sales, bugs and getting criticism are actually really fun once you get to
enjoy them!

My advice is to give you some time to be energetic before launch, so as not to
begin it tired.

~~~
danschumann
You're a diamond in the rough, my friend. So true that most the time people
are nicer than you'd expect. The unfair criticisms can be seen as a flaw with
that person, if they are indeed unfair. The fair criticisms were probably
known about anyway, and it says that someone actually cares about the product.
Yes. I think when I get more communication with customers it might even be
motivating.

~~~
p0nce
Thanks. Remember HN has a population of talkers: do not take advice here in
general...

------
annywhey
What you always need to consider when taking on a huge project is what
techniques you want to leverage and whether you've scoped things
appropriately.

That is, when you make a small personal work, you can leverage all your
technical skills towards the goal. And you can redesign the problem to fit
your skills. You get to try anything just for the sake of learning.

But if you intend to build a whole business, the leverage - and hence the
techniques - come from a different, more abstract place. The SV startup model
that is often on display in HN is based on leveraging lots of capital and the
existing Bay Area tech ecosystem to build very large, capable organizations in
a short span of time. That takes a very broad skillset and it isn't 100% based
on the founding team's own skills, but rather on the strength of the
connections and recruits they can get as they try to build "business
machinery". An organization is ultimately a designed thing, just like a
product.

When a codebase gets past the prototype/greenfield phase and becomes a grind
of churning out features, bugfixes and optimizations, sales, product marketing
and customer support, it is likely to escape the grasp of your existing
techniques, because - unless you're extremely selective about what you're
aiming for - that kind of breadth is going to be better suited towards an
organization with defined roles and specialists than a lone developer who is
wearing every hat every day. There's both a technical burden and an emotional
burden involved and most people, most of the time, do better by sharing it,
hence the common advice to have co-founders.

That said, plodding along for long periods with slow progress is hardly
unusual regardless of how you scoped the project or who you got involved.
Sometimes you have a technique handy that makes it go smoothly, but oftentimes
it is just a grind and you have to commit to the grind to get the learning
done and even know what you're doing wrong. It's no different from training
your body or mind in other contexts: some things come easily, others don't.
Try to go from strength to strength, but don't despair when you have to do
something you find painful and stressful.

------
matchagaucho
For me, it's confronting the inevitable sales rejection and critical feedback
upon release that causes the demotivation.

The solution was to partner with people that enjoy sales, so I can remain
focused on the product ("building the dream").

~~~
danschumann
"is there anybody out there?" \- pink floyd

I would love to find the same. Now that product is nearly done, it should be
possible.

------
imhoguy
I think there is potential that you may spend another year to polish your
launch without earning anything. Why big launch then?

Maybe you should just now release a quick alpha version and share it for free
on a niche forum with your target audience. I am sure you will get a valuable
feedback. There may be people who may want to donate to help you with beta and
then GA version. If you succeed then you will worry, you can always employ
somebody, sell everything, open-source or just fork with your new direction.

------
pravj
Happens to me every time.

My last side project was a data-driven sport (Cricket) analytics blog
([https://hackpravj.com/blog/inside-
cricket](https://hackpravj.com/blog/inside-cricket)). Worked on it for 8
months (every Sunday), now when it's done I don't like the way I wrapped it
up.

People appreciated it, I learned multiple new things but it didn't go as per
the dream (the initial motivation that helped me start it).

------
lopespm
My personal hack to get around pre/post completion downers is to have a clear
idea of what to do after the project completion.

This can be support for the completed one, another project, vacations, or
anything really, as long as it is clearly visualizable and tacit. If there are
multiple good options and I cannot pick one of them, I try to clamp them to a
maximum of 3. All of them have to be clear and concise.

It is a somewhat simple system, but I have found this to work time and time
again, mostly because I came to realize that the core of these downers could
be attributed to post completion void. Before this approach, I would find
myself delaying completion in order to not face the unknowns of what would
happen after getting though the goal line. This led to unneeded anticipation
worries and needless time wasting.

On the other hand, having these delimited post project goals took the
situation on its head. Instead of delaying completion, I worked even harder to
get there fast and jump to the next exciting stage as fast as possible.

Thank you for the post and for sharing your experience with us!

------
CryoLogic
What type of animation software?

It sounds to me like you need to find co-founders or partners. Part of
surviving in the long run is really just emotional support from people who
believe in your product and share similar interests. It is unnatural in my
opinion for a human to spend years working on something with no immediate
reward (doesn't mean you shouldn't do it).

~~~
danschumann
It exports to html, with a 3d scene and svg filters, which are stackable.
There is a path system (for 2d cartoons), but that'll likely be v2(so much to
polish). Then there are a few ways to integrate it in the page, options for
pop out and fixed position play(based on scrolling), in page play(based on
scroll[like parallax but better]), auto play(with some options based on
scrolling).

I'll make a video when I get some energy so you can get a better idea. I have
several examples. The 3d examples are pretty cool, and some of the stuff
possible with svg filters is really cool, and then the fact that it responds
to user's scrolling makes it kinda fun to play with, and see the effects go in
and out.

~~~
dpcan
Are you at all concerned about software patents in this space?

~~~
danschumann
Sure, but what should I do about it?

~~~
barbkarr
I didn't think google help could do even less but here it is. I ask for help
to recover a recipe board from pinterest and get nothing! NOTHING! Don't need
to powerwash everything. We need to have a place that shows history and can be
repaired if needed. I know this is too untechnical for you people. But KISS
should be your guideline.B. Karr. Thanks for nothing AGAIN!

1

~~~
skinnymuch
Is this a post in the wrong place. Or?

~~~
danschumann
I'm so confused.. is he saying I should google it? Or is that a bot? It has a
green name.

------
imujjwalanand
Thats totally relate-able. Completion of one project on which you've worked
for a long time implies you're about to finish something you finally feel
confident about, and now moving on to start another one (maybe completely new
project). So this feeling is somewhat like moving out of a city where you've
lived for quite some time.

------
lopmotr
I've experienced this often. Some comments:

\- Before a release, I have to hold off major features (like you path system)
and it goes slow and boring. But immediately after release, I can suddenly
begin the exciting new stuff again. It's a freedom to look forward to.

\- When swimming, I would get tired near the end of the lane, but by
visualizing the end being even further away, I got more energy.

\- My todo list grows faster than I clear it. So aggressively remove pre-
release items as much as possible. You're never going to do them all anyway.

\- You really need people to be using it or you'll be designing things wrong,
perhaps even the major organizing principles will be hard for users to
understand. You don't want to end up with a Gmsh or a Blender!

\- User requests are a powerful motivator. You're doing work for a confirmed
real purpose and know they're going to appreciate it.

------
thedarnoc
This has been mentioned in various permutations, and I'll add another one. The
happiness in figuring a puzzle out is not when action is taken, it's when you
figure it out in your mind. What about when you >think< you have figured it
all out? Could you trick yourself into considering that your proposed solution
might not actually be correct and you have to build it in order to check?
Perhaps that doubt could slow someone down as well, enough to not want to
continue either. What helps motivate me to finish is guilt, or more to the
point the guilt of someone expecting the outcome and not receiving it. Not the
best thing to chase/avoid, but everyone has their carrot/stick. Also consider
that the work and upgrades are never over so the current release is just the
latest iteration of your efforts.

------
tananaev
I've been thinking about it quite a while. I think a big part of it is that
when you finish one work item or project you need to move to something else.
And people generally don't like change. I noticed that it gets even worse when
I'm not completely sure what I'm going to work on next.

------
dmfdmf
How's that novel coming? Almost done, I'll bet.

[https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2009/12/how_to_create_motiva...](https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2009/12/how_to_create_motivation_for_2.html)

~~~
gnl
> All of those are the same thing: defenses. Abstractly, they are fears of
> finality. Not finishing means anything can still happen, your identity
> remains intact: "I'm a writer."

> More concretely, they are a form of self doubt not about the success of
> executing the act which is in your control-- the writing of the book, the
> asking the girl out-- but of being able to manage the consequences which are
> not-- the publishing of the novel, sustaining a relationship/finding a burn
> unit.

Brilliant article. Hits home. Thanks.

------
j45
Your current thing will get you to the next thing you love, only my you will
have a little more freedom in time to carry forward.

Stick with it, and ship. Shipping is a drug. You will level up to really be in
the driver's seat.

------
trevyn
A better question might be, "how can I get motivated again?" :-)

~~~
johnxie
The reply above from tripn is perfect.

 _divide it to many small challenges according to the process, and reward
yourself after each one completed, then you don 't need to reach 100%, you are
already succeeded ( by your own definition )._

------
ajeet_dhaliwal
You don’t like sales and selling. Same as most of us coders. The truth is
that’s when the real work really begins. This is the testing part, the first
part was the hypothesis.

------
louprado
Starting a new business project is like owning a puppy. Everything is fun and
the future looks bright because you think you will eventually have a useful
and loyal dog that will serve you. But the whole time you had a wolf pup
without realizing it. Perhaps the wolf will ultimately serve you. Or perhaps
it will keep you up at night, eat your food (money), and coerce you. Once you
make that realization the anxiety can cause a loss of motivation.

------
EGreg
I think personally it is this:

You are motivated to get a lot of bang for the buck. While the derivative of
your function is high, you’re feeling you are making “great progress”.

Then the thing decelerates and now you have a lot of niggling details to iron
out. Each one takes a while.

You look around and see that other problems have higher BANG to BUCK ratio.
You naturally want to do those.

Remember to land the plane man (or woman) !

------
montrose
To the extent that having interesting problems to solve is motivating, running
out of them should be correspondingly demotivating.

------
dgreensp
Your brain may be telling you that you need to shift your point of view and
focus your energy on different activities, but you may not be clear on what
those activities are, or feel like doing them.

Have you launched a product before? Do you have any pre-launch
users/customers? Have you done customer development on this product, or just
built a thing?

------
1auralynn
I'm in the same boat as you recently, and all I can think of is the story
(maybe a myth or fable?) about the painter who was cursed with his paintings
coming "alive" when they were finished - to everyone's detriment. So he was
always careful to leave one eye or other small element unpainted.

~~~
pdfernhout
This is probably the story you are thinking of: "Draw Dragon Dot Eyes"
[https://www.wattpad.com/178269525-fables-of-the-past-draw-
dr...](https://www.wattpad.com/178269525-fables-of-the-past-draw-dragon-dot-
eyes)

The story is acted out by elementary school students in this video -- showing
things don't always have to be perfect or polished to be of interest:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krptm4-mTDM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krptm4-mTDM)

I've found this entire discussion enlightening. I especially liked the comment
about the story of a baker who starts a bakery and soon finds out that being
the owner/manager of a successful bakery actually has little in common with
baking skills (even as baking is obviously important to a bakery).

For me, as with some other posters here, a big issue for programming projects
I start is that while you are working on a project -- as a programmer who
likes to program (working person-to-machine) -- the programming is usually
fun. And also you can also imagine anything about the potential value of the
results while things are under development. But when a project is "done", then
getting others to try a project and dealing with support questions or major
design feedback and such involves a whole different set of skills (working
person-to-person). And those tasks -- especially promotion and support -- are
probably are not fun things for a typical programmer. And also you might have
guessed wrong about the need if you did not have users lined up before you
started or got incremental feedback. If you couple all that with a perceived
need to make money from the project when it is released, putting software out
there can be a big source of looming stress -- especially if you begin to
realize you are someone who loves to bake software and not someone who loves
to run a software bakery.

My latest FOSS project took about a month of spare time -- porting to the web
a CYOA-style interactive fiction Delphi app I co-wrote twenty years ago. And
while I enjoyed working on it, I did drag the end out a bit and also consider
even just not releasing the result just because I did not want to have a
support burden from unpaid users. Luckily on that score it sank like a stone.
:-) Thankfully I didn't need to make money from it.
[http://storyharp.com/](http://storyharp.com/)

And at least that result is a big improvement from some previous independent
projects which took much longer (sometimes years) and where hopes for making
money from them were disappointed.

------
SubiculumCode
A lot of times by the time I am almost finished with a project I am bored with
the project...and only the most tedious stuff is left. For me, formatting my
bibliography. Just kill me now is how I feel. (bibliograpic software does not
help btw...too many errors.)

------
mgoetzke
I know that feeling very well. But there is only one answer, keep walking out
of this hell.

------
koolba
For many it's not the completion that causes the dejected feeling. It's the
thought of starting something new, knowing many of the daunting tasks that
will lie ahead. And further knowing that you cannot know all of them.

------
tomcam
If you want a support group of at least one, check my HN profile. I'm there
too.

------
partoa
I believe that the journey can be exhausting and fatigue as well. The closer
you get to completion, the longer you’ll have worked on the project, the more
like you are to be fatigued. Any long journey will take its toll on you.

------
swerveonem
For me I feel like as you near completion it becomes harder to make complex
changes quickly so each time you sit down to make an epic commit you are not
able to make as much impact when compared to the start of a project.

------
TruffleLabs
Sounds like you need a partner to take on the things you dread (marketing,
sales, & support). And you take on developing future iterations of your idea
based on the marketing, sales, and support feedback.

------
beefield
To me, at that point all of the interesting issues are tackled and the
remaining ones are boring or outright repulsive so my mind keeps on wandering
to new interesting things.

No, unfortunately I have no solution available...

------
wellboy
Yes a combination of what you mentioned, plus the possibility that it'll all
fail (which happens 90% of the time), which wasn't really something you
thought about when you were still building.

------
eksemplar
It’s not, at least not for everyone. Which is why you need your team members
to compliment each other, and perhaps even rotate poor finishers out of your
team when you’re nearing completion.

------
billconan
I'm almost done with my side project and I feel exactly the same!

------
iamgopal
I have seen that when production and after production are handled by different
person, company or partnership have tons of success. Because each can be in
his bubble forever.

------
mabynogy
> Part of me wonders if diet and exercise isn't a factor.

For sure and probably more than any of hose hidden psychological you've
invented.

My advice is to find someone to work with on your product.

------
pfraze
If you have the runway, take a 2 week staycation before launching. There's a
good chance you've been burning hard for a while. You may just need a break.

------
tomlue
The risk of failure is reduced when you near completion.

------
neom
Because you realize you haven't thought it through enough, and continuing is
daunting. There is no such thing as complete.

------
cooervo
because you are getting out of your comfort zone (developing the project). Now
you will enter a more marketing and sales side which we usually dread as
developers. Maybe start doing it yourself and as it gets some clients then
hire someone. Or find a cofounder that actually complements your skills (not
another dev).

------
m3kw9
Because the closing effort is a lot of detailed work that you didn’t
anticipate and could be quite demoralizing

------
segmondy
For anyone feeling line this email me at segmond@gmail I know the pain and it
helps to have a support group

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Double_a_92
Maybe because of the 80:20 rule? The steepness in progressing near the end is
suddenly much higher.

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dustingetz
read “do the work”, a 2 hour motivational read

