Lessons learned from past projects 😲
With experience comes failure. While I can’t say that I always made the right decisions, I can say that I don’t regret any. This is because I was still able to learn valuable lessons from all the various projects that I’ve created in the past, whether they’ve failed or succeeded (mostly failed, though).
🚨 Reminder: I will be going live in less than 2 hours with Sergio Mattei on The Shipcast. You can tune in on Twitch at 1PM eastern time. I hope you are able to join and chat! Today’s newsletter issue covers some of the things that I may be talking about.
1. Screw the competition
In 2015, I launched CodeBee, a social network for developers. After stagnating on the project for a while, I decided it wasn’t worth continuing because there were other thriving communities that were popping up, notably DEV and Hashnode.
Of course, I simply used this as an excuse on top of another excuse that I’ll get to in the next section. There are zero reasons why I couldn’t continue to grow CodeBee and have it be another option alongside the competition. There are unique aspects to every project and as long as you believe in your own, that is the only thing that matters.
I am taking this lesson with IronMic right now, even though I am competing with the likes of major website and podcast hosting platforms. Competition should rarely be the reason to call it quits.
2. Don’t obsess over fake tech debt
Technical debt is a real problem to consider, but it’s usually a problem only if your project successfully takes off and becomes a long term investment. On top of that, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that just because your project is not running on the latest technologies means that it’s outdated.
CodeBee was written in PHP and built on top of the Laravel framework. The framework still has a thriving community of developers and startup founders even to this day, and yet I decided that CodeBee required a rewrite.
My passion for tech led me to ignore the other more significant aspects of building any sort of product, and that is the marketing of it.
3. Only work on what you’re passionate about
This is crucial for side projects because your time is limited, but my mindset definitely had to change in regards to running multiple projects. I definitely thought that it was a plus to seem so busy with various ventures listed on my bio, but I never felt fully devoted to a single one.
It’s also extremely difficult to devote your time on a project that you don’t care much about, in my case being Ninjality. I realized that I did not want to work on client projects and so the passion wasn’t there to grow the agency. We did try to pivot Ninjality in many different ways, but my interest just still wasn’t there.
My bio is now two things: IronMic and Sunny Commutes. Sure there’s a few other things under my personal brand, but it’s much easier to see where my time is now devoted to. People also know what I actually do now.
4. Try things that won’t work
Had I not tried running an agency, would I know that I hated it?
I also never thought that I’d have the time to start a podcast, but I took the least time intensive approach of recording during my commutes to work. 72 episodes in and a core reason to why I started IronMic, I’d say it’s working out fairly well.
And how about my recent [IDC (I Don’t Code)] series? I assumed that no one would care (pun intended) about a series aimed at non-coders since most of my audience are developers, but it did relatively well in terms of positive feedback.
You never know what will or won’t work, so taking the pessamistic approach of thinking that it won’t work, just try it and see what happens. You’ll be surprised to see where you’re at a year later.
5. Personal branding is your fallback
When it does come time to realize that you want to move on to a different idea, it really is a major shame to lose out on all that branding that you’ve built up. It took me some time, but I did eventually realize that you could associate a project alongside your personal brand which then truly never goes away.
Elon Musk can start venturing into hot dog condiments, and he will still remain the same Elon Musk that people love or hate.
So, this is why I have doubled down on my personal brand. My projects may fail, but I personally will not.
📅 Updates
- No tab dump this week, but I am adding to my JavaScript resources list and many more lists will be coming soon.
- New Sunny Commutes episode: 72: Continuous learning
- New IDC (I Don’t Code) episode: What is CRUD?
- I’m excited to go live and chat on The Shipcast! Hopefully you get to tune in, but watch the recording if you’re unable.
- I will most likely be sharing excerpts from The Shipcast on social media, and most likely the full episode on my own podcast, so stay tuned for some interesting content this week.
See you next Sunday, same inbox? 👋