[shireboy]

Definitely I have similar fears and a harddrive full of half-finished code, so you're not alone. Some of it I feel is just natural creative process. Famous painters like Monet often painted over canvases and didn't finish work - we know the masterpieces, but the process is dirtier and less organized than we imagine sometimes.

One thing that comes to mind as an antidote is to market-test your ideas before writing much/any code. This has the benefit of helping you prove the idea without wasting time on it, AND get you a group of people waiting for your thing so that you can be motivated to finish it. If you read some of these entrepreneurial bloggers (Pat Flynn, Tim Ferris, etc), they talk about this in detail better than I could. Depending on what the idea is, go to forums related to the topic and get some credibility by helping people. Then ask around about your idea or pitch it as "coming soon". (Don't be dishonest and say it's built when it's not). Set up a quick MailChimp or SurveyMonkey form, blog, etc. to start a discussion around your product and get an core group of interested potential customers. Try not to be biased one way or another - if there's a market and you think it could earn an income with reasonable effort do it. If not, don't.

Now, why have I done that and _still_ not finished this idea....