| I've been there m8. I too am a designer and is depending on developers to do the hardcore OSX stuff (I can do web-coding myself well enough) and I too are depending on their time. After a number of attempts at starting various products/services ex. [1][2][3] with various levels of success but ultimately fizzling out. Ex. Weekendhacker have around 8K designers and developers subscribed but it kind of died out, because the time i spent vs. any income I made was not making sense. I haven't killed it but it's basically in hibernation until I figure out what to do with it. It was a really frustrating to see something like that die out with such high hopes of starting an actually community. However I finally managed to launch something that is generating growing side income for me year over year, which I can control the progress of and which allow me to expand slowly but surely. https://www.ghostnoteapp.com Now GhostNote is only the start of something much bigger I am building but it allow me to control the scope and slowly expand what I am doing while still enjoying it as an added bonus I am making good money. In my experience the key thing when you do side projects is to do something you enjoy doing and something which even if you make no money you are glad you did it. Another thing is to make sure you create a bunch of little successes for yourself. Better to start with and launch ex invoicing than trying to do a whole suite of things. That way you spend way less time and get way less attached to what you are doing and you can own it. What you have done look amazing but are you really solving something fundamentally (this is not a rhetoric question) or just redesigning what already exist out there? You should ask yourself the questions like. Why am I building what I am building? Is there a simpler way to do what I want to do. (Ex. could it just be email to start with? Weekendhacker was.) Is this really what I want to spend my time on? Does the world really need this? But most importantly you should never give up, sooner or later you you wil find something as long as you make sure you don't spend too much time on each. I have literally hundreds of ideas, tens of a whole graveyard of almost implemented projects [4][5][6][7][8][9][10] Just keep trying new stuff, make new aliances with developers. Do several things at once if you have to. But if you want to make money with your side project don't be too attached. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2563718
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2991206
[3] http://mashable.com/2012/04/19/pinview-facebook-pinterest-ap...
[4] http://000fff.org/uploads/LiveChat.png
[5] http://000fff.org/uploads/TL02.png
[6] http://000fff.org/uploads/NewFlow1.png
[7] http://000fff.org/uploads/NewFlow_02.png
[8] http://000fff.org/uploads/Map_Template_Layout.png
[9] http://000fff.org/uploads/StarStruck.png
[10] http://000fff.org/uploads/badgenation_Sketch.png |
