Quill / Moments / Side project motivation for when nobody has noticed yet
Side project motivation for when nobody has noticed yet
You launched on Tuesday. By Thursday the analytics graph is a flat line, and the only signup is your own test account. Somebody else's project, started after yours, is on the front page.
Most people building something on the side do it at 11pm after a full day of other work, so the doubts arrive tired. Those who stay with it talk about getting the thing in front of real people early, keeping a fixed block each week, and deciding ahead of time what would count as a reason to stop. Silence often means nobody has found it yet, and that's a different problem from a bad idea.
Expect stubbornness and some respect for the craft, and no claims about money. Stopping is allowed, and sometimes it's the right call.
The moments
- Launch day, and nobody has noticed
- Week six of a flat analytics graph
- Opening the laptop at 11pm after the day job
- Polishing again when it could have gone out on Monday
- Your first piece of criticism, in public
- The first message from a real user
What people say helps
- Getting it in front of real people early
- Deciding in advance what would count as a reason to stop
- A fixed weekly block and tasks small enough to finish in it
- Treating silence as a distribution problem before judging the idea
“Just ship it” and “it's a marathon” are usually said breezily by people who already have an audience.
Quill Originals are written by Quill. Popular sayings are widely repeated lines with no name attached. Lines with a name are checked word for word against public-domain books.
Quill Originals
You've outlasted your first three excuses this month.
Make it well even where no one will ever look.
Some days you'll think it's rubbish. Those are ordinary days.
Pivoting means you noticed. Plenty of people don't.
Delete it. Deleting your own work is a senior move.
There's a thing in the world because you wouldn't drop it.
Less polish. More people.
A real person used your thing and had a real opinion. Screenshot it.
Two users, and one of them is you. Good, you're a tough customer.
Some projects were there to teach you. That's allowed.
You're the whole company, including the bit that orders the biscuits.
Cut it in half. Then see which half anyone misses.
It worked yesterday and nothing changed. Sure.
Sit on your hands while they get lost in your menu.
You put something real out there today. Plenty of people only talked about it.
The work's good today. Whether anyone knows yet is separate.
Too tired to build? Tidy the list for tomorrow's you.
Rewriting it from scratch feels like progress. Check that it is.
Inspiration keeps terrible hours. Your calendar doesn't.
Your table, your company.
Tick one box. Close the laptop feeling fine about it.
Somebody wrote back. Read it twice, you've earned that.
Popular sayings
Nobody will work harder for you than you.
The best way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.
Make it work, make it right, make it fast.
Good things happen to those who hustle.
Rome wasn't built in a day.
Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.
From the books
We must keep on our course, if we would gain our journey’s end.
Read the passage around this line
… the heaviness of the heart; our vices go along with us, and we carry in ourselves the causes of our disquiets. There is a great weight lies upon us, and the bare shocking of it makes it the more uneasy; changing of countries, in this case, is not travelling, but wandering. We must keep on our course, if we would gain our journey’s end. “He that cannot live happily anywhere, will live happily nowhere.” What is a man the better for travelling? as if his cares could not find him out wherever he goes? Is there any retiring from the fear of death, or of torments? or from those difficulties which beset a man …
Nothing that is of real worth can be achieved without courageous working.
Read the passage around this line
Nothing that is of real worth can be achieved without courageous working. Man owes his growth chiefly to that active striving of the will, that encounter with difficulty, which we call effort; and it is astonishing to find how often results apparently impracticable are thus made possible. An intense anticipation itself transforms possibility into …
An old foundation is worthy of all respect, but it must not take from us the right to build afresh wherever we will.
Difficulties increase the nearer we come to our aim.
Spend the time you have spent in sighing for fruits in fulfilling the conditions of their growth.
Read the passage around this line
What more need I add but this—test the method by experiment. Do not imagine that you have got these things because you know how to get them. As well try to feed upon a cookery book. But I think I can promise that if you try in this simple and natural way, you will not fail. Spend the time you have spent in sighing for fruits in fulfilling the conditions of their growth. The fruits will come, must come. We have hitherto paid immense attention to effects, to the mere experiences themselves; we have described them, extolled them, advised them, prayed for them—done everything but find out what caused them. Henceforth
Want of forbearance in small matters confounds great plans.
Looking at small advantages prevents great affairs from being accomplished.
To spirited people, difficult tasks are usually the most delightful ones.
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