

Successful Side Project Schedules? - Mz

I've seen some things asked here previously regarding how to find time to put into a side project, usually with the idea of how to put enough time into it to bootstrap it and launch as a full time thing.  I am curious about schedules people have found that work to be adequately productive for a side project that is intended to remain a side project.<p>I am interested in hearing about the schedule you kept (hours per week, frequency of updates, etc), what assets (skills, experience, etc) you brought to the table that you feel made it feasible to do as a part-time success, and what criteria you are using to measure "success".  I am interested in both monetary and non-monetary measures of success: If there was a specific non-financial goal, what was it and how well do you feel you met that goal?  And any other thoughts you care to volunteer on doing something meaningful as a side project, something more serious and professional than piddling around in a hobby-like fashion (which is what I feel I often do and am trying to stop doing).<p>Thanks in advance.
======
vga15
When I'd started my first job (after an ad-driven web app that went nowhere),
I quickly found I wouldn't have much time for side projects. So I'd outsourced
my little project to a talented dude from the east. This first project was to
be measured with a financial goal -- 30,000$ a month. (was pretty naive)

Hours per week: about 10. (learned a lot about documenting processes,
instructions & ui flow's for an other dev.)

Skills/Profile: worked on a ton of platforms. wrote emulators in high school.
game engine developer. designed graphics hardware devices. published research
papers. failed web startups.

Success measurement: 30,000$ per month. (hit about 2,000$. liquidated. back to
basics)

\-----

These days, my day job involves lots of consulting. Side project profile:

Hours per week: 40~ (I'm the core developer)

Success measured: 100-1000~ active users.

Financial goal: acquisition(s) in the 50-100,000$ range. (not tied to revenue
/ year)

\-----

Haven't hit any of my (almost) modest end-goals/exits yet. I've met a few of
my 'on the road' milestones. They didn't make me feel any different. I love
the process, and that keeps me going.

If you're serious about forcing yourself into making an impact, find a bunch
of target customers with a pain to be solved, talk to them, and promise them
something with a deadline attached. I've found a lot of folks need the brute-
force kickstart approach early on.

~~~
Mz
Thanks for the great feedback/long, detailed post!

 _If you're serious about forcing yourself into making an impact, find a bunch
of target customers with a pain to be solved, talk to them, and promise them
something with a deadline attached._

Oh, I wish my life were that simple. The people who most need/can benefit from
one of my side projects are mostly openly hostile. I've spent a lot of time
trying to make communication in-roads in the face of that situation. One of my
goals is to try to start making more regular updates to the website in
question in hopes that gets people thinking without getting their ire up so
much (ie not as much as trying to actually talk to them tends to do).
Eventually, I want to write an app for it (a simulation -- aka "game"). But a)
the audience isn't ready for that and b) I don't know a progamming language.
Recently, someone kind of suggested I start with a design doc to start
documenting my ideas without needing to learn to program first.

I was quite ill for a very long time. So I spent a lot of time piddling around
on the computer to occupy myself so I wouldn't go nuts but was unable to be
very focused/productive. Now that I am healthier, I am trying to break some of
those habits and figure out how to structure my time so I can gradually start
accomplishing more.

~~~
vga15
Apologies for the late reply. Lot of interesting stuff packed into your
comment. Thanks for taking the time. Also, great to know you're healthier now.

I'm intrigued about your 'openly hostile' target market. Firstly, it sounds
like you've thought about your target audience quite a bit. Great sign. Why
would they be hostile about you solving their pains? Is it the price point?
Privacy concerns? General mistrust?

Or is it likely you're packaging an anti-depressant as a pain-killer.
([http://pablobrenner.wordpress.com/2011/09/18/neither-
painkil...](http://pablobrenner.wordpress.com/2011/09/18/neither-painkillers-
nor-vitamins-antidepressants/))

You say 'the audience isn't ready for that'. That seems perfectly fine. You
can probably think ahead a lot more than they can. But it'd be great to have
some validation, even if that means dealing with their hostility, to get
through.

\-----

I'll echo the advice about starting with a design doc. Once you know what the
game should be like, you can start implementing tiny features and learn along
the way. When I'd starting building games (new to programming as well), I had
weekly goals that were like "fighter jet moves right/left using arrow keys,
over a static background". Next week would have 'implement top-down scrolling
background' etc. When you're starting out, its important to take care of your
mental state. Things that seem trivial might take much longer. You've gotta
keep reminding yourself that its a learning experience too. That with every
seemingly trivial item that you conquer, your value in the market increases.

With games, it often is easy to get overwhelmed. You'll need to split yourself
into 'designer/manager' and 'developer'. The developer works on the tiniest,
most detailed instructions. The designer/manager is allowed only a single day
a week perhaps, to write (in detail) about the next tiny feature to implement
& to dream of new features. In my case, I'd get my 'big plan' down on
paper(about 2 pages worth about what the entire game was like), from memory,
every single week. Just so I'd know subconsciously, where the project as a
whole was headed.

\-----

Here's hoping you'll be inspiring others with your story soon.

~~~
Mz
I was diagnosed a bit over 10 years ago with "atypical cystic fibrosis". This
is a relatively recently recognized, milder form of a very deadly condition.
It has all the same issues, but they tend to be somewhat less severe. It's
still a very serious condition and I spent 3.5 months bedridden and a year at
death's door, in part because I had to get pretty darn sick before doctors
took me seriously. I was just kind of low-grade sick all the time and doctors
and everyone else treated me like a hypochondriac for most of my life. Because
it's genetic, they tested both my sons. I told them which son had it before
they ran the tests: The one who was 'like me'.

While mostly bedridden and sleeping 18 to 20 hours a day, I was being
routinely denied treatment while they referred me on to yet another specialist
and more testing. They were often unwilling to prescribe me anything because
they didn't know what was going on. So I ended up doing what I could for
myself because I had no real choice: I was being denied treatment and in
serious danger of dying. Then, after getting a diagnosis, rather than trying
to get me well, doctors promptly informed me "People like you don't get well.
Symptom management is the name of the game." I was kind of like "Fuck that. I
survived using alternative treatments with NO diagnosis. Surely we can do
better than that now that we know what the problem is. Yeeesh!" So I
intentionally turned something of a deaf ear to my doctors and the world and
sought my own answers for a long time. (People act like I am some whack job
who is hostile towards doctors and refused to see them. Nope. They largely
refused to treat me. Excuse me for being so gauche as to live anyway.)

I eventually figured out how to get myself (and my son) basically well. Saying
this on CF lists elicits two types of reactions: 1) I'm the second coming of
jesus christ or 2) I'm a liar, a charlatan and a snake oil salesman. There are
more folks who are openly hostile than folks who are adoring fans. Long
experience has taught me that it's a very bad idea to engage the adoring fans.
It only inflames the haters more and convinces everyone this really is solely
about my ego. The fans also have a tendency to say things that are adoring but
vacuous. In other words, they basically fawn all over me but don't ask good
questions about "so, how exactly did you accomplish that?" This is extremely
dangerous, not just because it incites lynch mobs and provokes other people
into attacking me all the more but because I don't want anyone doing anything
on "faith" in me. I want them to come to a better understanding of their
condition and make more informed choices. I don't want someone latching onto
some detail of something I said and running with that, without context. Some
of the things people with CF have tried is pretty stupid and it shocks me what
I have to explain because they are missing the background info. So in order to
help them, I need more info about what they don't understand and that means I
need them to engage me in conversation, not just adore me and feel "inspired".
Making in roads into real conversation is a very hard row to hoe.

I think it would be a shame for what I have learned to not benefit others. But
I am also not interested in taking all kinds of abuse or trying to cram my
help down the throats of people who are openly hostile and not receptive.
Since what I did is largely rooted in diet and lifestyle, unwillingness or
disinterest is a show-stopper. This doesn't work if it is not by choice and
participatory. I think the top-down medical model is part of the problem
anyway. In my experience, the top down approach amounts to "you can't get
there from here" in terms of genuine wellness. It simply doesn't work.

At some point, I concluded that one of the issues is that most people in the
CF community simply can't wrap their brains around what I am talking about and
one thing that would help would be a more information-dense delivery method
than the written word currently on my website. I think a simulation (aka
"game") would be useful in that regard. But for the moment, I have left most
of the CF lists I was on due to the attacks (which often occurred with the
backing of the moderators, who then treated me like a loon for suggesting the
expectation of politeness and respect from other people which applied to
everyone else should also apply to me) and have largely stopped updating the
site (in part because I am just busy getting a life but also because the site
has been used as a source of ammo by people who are openly hostile).

If I am unable to find a way around this impasse, I am willing to focus on
other things and let this go. I got myself well to get my life back, not to
seek out new ways to be martyred. I think it would be a shame if I cannot
share what I have learned but I'm also not willing to put up with the level
abuse that I've been subjected to and I can well imagine it escalating further
into far more than mere name calling on some email list. People with CF suffer
quite a lot and people die from it, often at extremely young ages. So emotion
runs very high in the CF community. I think some people are hostile in part
because they have basically tortured their child to keep them alive and they
can only live with it because they were told it was the only option. Someone
telling them "there's another way and it's more humane" is tantamount to
calling them a child abuser. Not my intent at all and I don't agree with that
interpretation but I get the impression that's part of why I get so much
hostility. There are other reasons why I get such strong negative reactions
but this is fairly long as is.

Thanks for asking. It's a pleasure to discuss it with someone actually
interested/curious.

~~~
vga15
Whoa. Wasn't expecting that. Firstly, do not let go of your intense
need/desire to fix this. There's someone out there who could really use your
insights.

Reading through, couldn't help flash back to circumstances I've been through
personally. The flawed medical system isn't new to me. Been called a
hypochondriac. Prescribed tons of antibiotics. 'Irritable bowel' 'stress'
'migranes' 'whitecoat blah'; how quickly they'd come up their diagnosis. And,
I'd gotten out (almost there) of my messed up state through a similar path as
yours. Via massive dietary and lifestyle changes. Though, certainly nothing
compared to what you've been through, and I've been trying to raise hell
against the med community for quite a while. My folks are doctors; so I've had
an insider preview of how bad things really are.

\-----

Back to the CF community, Would it be possible to get them on board, if you
started over from a different perspective?

You've probably seen <http://crohnology.com/>. Certainly could derive a lot of
inspiration from there. (including the HN post)

Existing communities might be harder to penetrate. Especially ones that're
heavily moderated. BUT, I'd bet there's a ton of folks who share your opinions
about the med community, and the ways they diagnose & treat symptoms.

What might the other reasons for why you've received those strong negative
reactions be?

I'm all for the simulation/game idea. I'd even recommend starting a movement
over on Kickstarter, if you don't mind the publicity. Although, it might be
better if you'd build a new community from scratch first. Share your story,
tell them what the goals are, speak of your vision. Trust me, it'll resonate
with a whole bunch of folks. Much like 'crohnology' did.

AND, like you'd mentioned, the folks most active on these communities might
have been there for quite some time, and to suggest something disruptive would
do nothing but ignite a wildfire. Could possibly start with those who've been
diagnosed recently. The clueless ones. Perhaps the ones who haven't yet
reached out for support. At a point where they're confused, looking for
options, and they're just hoping some (usually clueless) doc has all the right
answers. Of course, you'll still have to answer the question about how you'll
actually get to them. Google adwords & seo, if not anything else.

\-----

Lastly, I'm not sure you should pursue this with monetary goals in mind.
Although, it'd be ridiculous to ignore the possibilities. Imagine all the
positive press/attention/network/connections you'd attain, by starting a
'movement'. In a day and age where every other person seems to be trying their
hand at the popular little social gizmo idea of the moment, making a real
impact ensures you'll stand out like boeing 747 on a highschool playground.
You've got a great story here. Leverage it. Save some lives.

Would you be willing to discuss your thoughts on how the simulation/game would
work? What would the flow be like? How might it convince them about the
changes they'd need to make?

~~~
Mz
I'm pretty tired today. Will touch on a few points. I reserve the right to
reply more later, should I come up with more to say.

Other reasons for hostility: As you noted, those who have been around a while
and were "big names" in the CF community were often my biggest opponents. I
can be pretty charismatic and I was stealing their thunder. I think I must
have been the cutest 3 year old in the history of the universe (or at least
treated that way by the people I knew -- I don't mean it too literally) and
got socialized in a problematic way. I have used all the really horribly
negative feedback to help me root out some of the stupid crap from my
childhood. I don't share the health info out of ego but it's easy for me to
soak up the limelight and then miss the fact that nothing constructive is
being done, that the issues are not being discussed because people who are
miserable have gotten distracted by a relatively rare feel-good moment in
their lives. It's taken a lot of effort for me to learn to work this from
another angle. In that regard, it's definitely been a growth experience.

Additionally, I am of the opinion that doctors and drugs are part of the
problem. This doesn't go over well with people living with a death sentence
whose doctors and drugs help keep them alive. They can't imagine a solution
that doesn't involve serious drugs. So they do fundraisers for the CF
Foundation to the tune of thousands or tens of thousands of dollars (and spit
in my face for having ads on my site). The CF Foundation is in bed with big
pharma and looking to develop better drugs (to line the pockets of the
industry that gives them millions every year). Many in the CF community bitch
about what doctors do and what the CF Foundation does and all that but the
mantra is also "drug side effects are a necessary evil".

Also, I threw out everything I ever owned, got divorced and moved cross
country to break the cycle of infection. This is very scary stuff for people
who are ill, financially dependent on their spouse because they are often too
sick to work, and dealing with large medical bills and so on. They are scared,
and with good reason. The things I did sound very risky. They really aren't.
It was a slippery slope and one thing led to another in a logical fashion. It
wasn't anything radical, but trying to compare the life I have now to the way
they live makes it sound extremely radical.

I have found that people with a newly diagnosed child or who have been doing
alternative stuff for a long time are more able to understand and use the
information I share. Other people just can't fit it into their "disease model"
mentality if they are too entrenched in conventional treatments.

I do have a tiny private email list. Some months ago an older man joined who
has been doing alternative stuff a long time. He was able to ask good
questions and start the conversation somewhat there. That list might
eventually grow.

Cynical observation: At least one woman who was incredibly ugly to me has
already died. Doctors don't know how to get people with CF well and the life
expectancy is pretty low (around 36 or 37 in the US). So all I have to do is
outlive my critics and eventually a new generation will be there who hasn't
been psychologically poisoned yet and those folks who hate me won't be around
to trash me. <shrug>

I don't think I ever mentioned monetary goals. There really aren't any. I hope
to make money another way. The current tentative plan is to make money via a
web comic, which hasn't been launched yet. I am okay with sorting out what
flies and what doesn't based on what fails (or even fails to launch at all).
Another interest of mine is clothing. When I was younger, I wanted to be a
fashion consultant. I've done a few posts here inquiring about the clothing
space. Now that I have a full-time job (I was a homemaker for 2 decades), it
is clear to me that a better paradigm for office wear for women is desperately
needed. We currently have basically two paradigms for how women can dress: A)
sluts R us and B) She's a man, baby. We desperately need "power dressing for
women, and no I'm not some imitation man, thank you". I think I am somewhat
uniquely qualified to try to promote such an idea, though I can't figure out
if actually producing a clothing line would be the way to go or if there is
some other path to promoting that...and a million other details.

FWIW: I was quoted in a health book at some point under my full name. It lists
my diagnosis and the diagnosis of my son. One of the co-authors has two
children with CF. So my name is getting out there, albeit slowly. I'm okay
with that. The CF community needs time to absorb it. I'm a pretty shocking
figure and have long been a lightening rod for controversy, regardless of the
topic. Before going down in flames in CF-land, I used to be routinely at the
center of a firestorm of controversy on gifted/parenting lists. I would kind
of like to get back to updating my parenting site as well, but it has the same
issue my health site has: No direction and no audience because no one will
talk to me. I burned a lot of bridges while going through drug withdrawal.
People were far more forgiving and tolerant while I was a basketcase. I think
probably people stopped being tolerant and forgiving because I got well. I
think it probably makes it harder for them to accept their own personal
failures and excuses in life and that is more unforgivable than the rampant
foot-in-mouth disease I suffered while in constant excruciating pain and doped
to the gills. When I was a basketcase, they could be nice about it and feel
good about themselves and be glad their life was better than mine.

As for the game, there are a million little things I do to avoid exposure to
germs, fumes and so on. It's hard to convey that in written word. I also want
to present the mental models I have for how you build health and gradually
alter your body chemistry so you don't need the drugs. Every single thing you
do every single minute of every day impacts your body chemistry, the germs you
carry (and we all carry millions of microbes -- you can't even digest your
food without them) and so on. The power to beat this deadly condition lies in
the many small things that get done. CF is so deadly that people want to nuke
the body with really strong drugs, which worsens the problem in the long run.
They need to build up the body, and do so gently. And until it is rebuilt, it
needs to be protected from all kinds of stuff that wouldn't be a big deal for
a "normal" person. Afterwards, many of those things need to be maintained.
Healing the body does not make the genetic defect go away. But it can be
compensated for so it isn't so disastrous, just like being Caucasian doesn't
doom you to being chronically sunburned to the point of peeling and then dying
of skin cancer at an early age. There are things you can do to protect
yourself. The complex, myriad set of choices I make through-out the day are
critical to my ability to stay off drugs. That needs to be conveyed somehow.
Right now, people hear "just stop taking drugs, they are bad for you" and
rightly react to that with "are you nuts??? that would kill me!" Of course it
would. You can't simply reject drugs and live with CF. You have to find non-
drug approaches that work to make the drugs unnecessary before you can leave
them behind. And that's an extremely hard point to convey.

I've been told a Rogue-like game would likely be the best place to start for
modeling some of the data I want to convey, like tracking germ exposures, body
chemistry, etc. I do not have first hand familiarity with such games. This was
feedback from my adult son with CF who plays a lot of games.

~~~
vga15
Been a long day. Sorry for the late reply again. BTW, haven't had a
stimulating conversation like this in a while.

I'm glad you've looked through the situation from different angles. Sounds
like you've learnt lots.

Wow. You've made some drastic changes to your life. Freaky indeed. On the
upside, you've beaten this huge monster of a disease.

It's great that you've got a list already. Also great that you've been
featured in a health book. Perfect bunch of reasons for why it'd be great if
you'd consider raising some funding over at kickStarter. Take things to a
whole other level. It'll help you collect your thoughts about how you'd build
an ideal community for CF-conquerers. Where members could share what worked
for them, have very customized 'plans of action' even. (hope you've explored
<http://crohnology.com>) You'll need some funding for the game, as well as the
ad campaigns, etc. Also, with this one move, you'd have built up a list of
1000's. I'd be glad to help out a little, if required.

What is your web comic about? Have you got a marketing/distribution plan
handy? Webcomics certainly are interesting, but I'd say the existing
publisher/writer distribution model sucks to say the least. I recently
convinced a friend of mine, who'd been turning his freshly baked novel into a
web comic, to turn it into a Facebook game instead. Drove the idea's
monetization potential up a hundred fold possibly.

"power dressing for women". Love the idea. Feel you certainly should pursue it
in some form or the other. How about starting with a dribbble/pinterest-like
community for fashion designers. Get them to submit ideas etc. I'd be more
psyched about curation/community, utilizing network-effects and so on. Than a
pure clothing line. But either way, you'll get a lot of great feedback from HN
about the most vital parts -- e-commerce, marketing, seo etc. An internet-
first clothing line around this concept seems doable, and the community aspect
'empowering women' etc. would drive it ahead. Every successful business needs
to start with inspirational stories. And you've got plenty of 'em.

Interesting that you'd say people weren't as forgiving 'cause you got better.
This seems quite plausible. Empathy is indeed a depletable resource. Reading
through, can't help but feel inspired by your attitude towards all of this.
Massively inspired.

You haven't elaborated on the mechanics of the game yet. But I love the idea
of the shift in mental models -- leveling up on the characters health through
subtle changes that can be visualized. What might the game look like? 2D side-
scroller? top-down/isometric? (farmville/diablo) 3d environments? text-based?
(like mafia wars) What sort of environmental / personal changes would the
character make? I've gotten myself all worked-up about the game concept. Would
love to send over a single page write-up of what I imagine this should
look/play like, if you don't mind ie.

I'm really curious about the 'complex set of choices' you make throughout the
day. Have you considered parallels that could be applied to curing other
diseases. More often than not, there tends to be subtle links between certain
diseases.

~~~
Mz
_Would love to send over a single page write-up of what I imagine this should
look/play like, if you don't mind ie._

Please do send it over. Email address is in profile. And we can continue this
conversation privately.

 _I'm really curious about the 'complex set of choices' you make throughout
the day. Have you considered parallels that could be applied to curing other
diseases. More often than not, there tends to be subtle links between certain
diseases._

I'm pretty sure a good bit of it would generalize. I mostly learned how to
heal my gut from an autism list (I have two ASD sons and gut issues are really
common in ASD kids). The CF community knows rather little about how to do
that. People with CF are still human and our bodies still mostly work like
that of other humans. One channel in the cell is defective and this makes a
few things go very, very wrong. Some of the issues found in the CF community
seem fairly common to citizens of 1st world countries generally, but are just
taken to real extremes. For example, acidosis is a major issue with CF, one
largely overlooked by doctors. Addressing that issue did quite a lot for me.
From what I gather, the modern American diet is generally too acid and many of
the health issues we have are likely made worse by widespread acidosis, though
probably generally milder than what people with CF go through. One issue that
seems likely impacted by acidosis is diabetes. People with CF are at high risk
for "CF related diabetes" and diabetes is rather common in the US.

I've had quite a long day. My apologies for not replying more thoroughly at
this time. I look forward to getting an email from you.

------
diolpah
Ok, I will make a long story short, here.

My current business began as a side project many years ago. At first, I was
building/managing the technical aspect of the business( website, integration,
inventory systems, fulfillment systems, etc )remotely on an average basis of
20 hours per week. I say average because some weeks I did nothing, and other
weeks I worked more than my "day job".

Growth was so strong that I ultimately made the decision to jump ship from my
prior company and make my current company a fulltime endeavor. It was one of
the most difficult decisions I've made in my life, as the cofounder of my
prior company was very close.

During this time, we've grown from < $100k/y revenues to > $5mm ( making an
effort to be vague here ), and still enjoying good growth. We are profitable
and never took a dime of VC.

Hopefully this anecdote answers your question sufficiently.

~~~
vga15
Inspirational anecdote ya got there. Thanks for sharing.

If you don't mind me asking. How long did it take to get to 5mm in revenues?
Also, do you / did you ever have partners on this biz?

~~~
diolpah
It's been many years; We've been building this company fulltime since 2005,
and on a part time basis since 2002. Bootstrapping is a slog, since you make
expansionary investments from cash flow only.

Yes, I have a co-founder. In fact, he's the majority owner.

