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Ask HN: What happened to your first few projects?

6 points by Fletch137 ↗ HN
I've worked on several side projects over the last year or so, and I keep seeing ideas that're practically the same as those I'm working on having been fully implemented a few weeks after I've started. I'm not losing heart, and I'm taking this as a positive sign that I'm going in the right direction (albeit a little too slowly) - but it's made me interested in how common this is, especially among people who have many successful side projects a few years on.

How did your first few projects fail (if they did), and do projects still fail for the reasons I described above?

5 comments

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jeffling
All of them died, sometimes half-completed, after I learned what I wanted. I never had the expectation that I could finish a full product by myself, I've always tried to do projects in order to learn a specific thing.
6thSigma
This question inspired me to write a blog post: http://aaron.posthaven.com/how-i-destroyed-my-first-startup

TL;DR version: I started a forum that organized Halo tournaments. I added an extra piece of software that wasn't compatible with the forum software. So I dropped the database and asked my users to register again. It didn't work out so well.

ibudiallo
My current project, which may not be the most unique idea is only a couple of month old. The only thing that threatens it right now is my excitement to start new projects and I only have so much time for a side project while working full time. I get very low traffic but I understand why I have a chicken and the egg problem, at least in theory. But i am starting to get some chicken out of the blue and a few eggs are hatching, which is why I try to hang in there. A year from now I know things will look better.

Why don't you show us your side projects

Fletch137
My few side projects are, at present, just fragments here and there - nothing really cohesive. I do intend to post them here when I actually get something worth showing finished.

I'm pretty new to completing my own side-projects, so that's the main thing I'm learning at the moment: how to find time to get personal projects done, and actually doing it. I'm getting there, but there's a lot more to learn just yet.