Hey, I'm Vince...
I’m a self-taught developer that changed careers during the Covid Pandemic. I changed because I wanted a better career, enjoyed programming, and at the same time, had a keen interest in building profitable SaaS side projects.
I was able to switch careers by learning in my free time, building small side projects, entering hackathons, and creating educational content for devs.
Also, my first simple SaaS app, CoverLetterGPT.xyz, which I launched in March 2023, currently has 83 customers and makes $434 per month! Nothing crazy, but something I’m still proud of. (Btw, if you want to check out how I built it, it’s open-source!)
I’m also currently working on, OpenSaaS.sh, a free, open-source SaaS starter template for React, and NodeJS, along with Stripe, OpenAI, and AWS S3 integration
Based on these experiences, and learning from other successful devs, I’ve learned a bit about finding inspiration and the motivation to build stuff as a means to advance your career or make some extra money on the side.
Falling for the FOMO
First of all, if you spend time in software developer circles on social media, you’ll no doubt be bombarded by posts of side project successes and indiehacker’s screenshots of Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR).
And this can cause the FOMO (”Fear Of Missing Out”) to hit hard.
For many devs, this is the dream: build a profitable side project that brings in a steady stream of passive income, quit your day job, and travel the world.
But this leaves a lot of people wondering things like:
"How do devs find the motivation to build in their free time?"
“I’m a full-stack web dev too, why don’t I have any good SaaS ideas?!”
or
“Why do I always find myself starting a new side project before finishing the last one?”
Well, I’ve got some advice that basically boils down to these two points:
- Do Less
- Have More Fun
Let me explain…
Find What NOT to Work On
This might seem counterintuitive, but actually figuring out what NOT to work on will help you focus on the things you really, truly, actually do want to work on.
And this is something I learned from Warren Buffett, one of the world’s most successful investors.
Buffett was asked by a fan for advice on choosing what to work on in life and he responding by suggesting:
- make a list of 25 life goals
- rank them from most important to least
- focus only on the top 5 goals
- avoid activities related to goals 6 through 25.
The interesting thing about this approach is that encourages individuals to strategically underachieve in the lower-priority activities, goals 6 through 25.
Why? Because we have an infinite amount of things we could choose to focus our attention on, but if we don’t focus on what's important we’ll never accomplish much.
Doing the same process, but with side projects, will yield similar results:
- Make a list of all those great app ideas you have
- choose the top 2 that you are most interested in (remember, this should also be fun!)
- throw out the rest (for now, at least).
You can also do the same thing with app features, and list all the features your project should have, but only keep the top 5.
It’s time to focus.
Start Small
By now, “starting small” should be obvious, but it seems that people have a hard time remembering this one. If this weren’t the case, than books like Atomic Habits wouldn’t have sold over 10 million copies 🤯
Also, think about how many times we underestimate how long it will take us to complete a task at work. It’s a classic case to tell your team that a bug fix “should only take a day” but ultimately ends up taking a week.
Don’t worry though, it happens to even the most experienced Senior Engineers.
So when you’re trying to stay motivated, the worst thing you can do is give yourself an over-ambitious goal with a seemingly endless To-Do list.
Keeping it simple will allow you to more easily meet your goals, which will keep you inspired, and allow you to iterate.
Don’t Worry About Competition
“I had this awesome idea but someone else beat me to it”
This is an excuse you’ll hear often amongst devs and it keeps many of them from even starting. My advice is to simply not worry about competition.
Why?
Because competition is normal and good. You will inevitably end up creating a comparable but different product that will speak to customers that think more like you (and less like your competition).
Competitors will also inevitably show you what you SHOULDN’T copy or replicate in your app, as well. If you see a feature of their’s that you don’t like, or find yourself saying “why did they do it that way”, then you’ve just been reassured that your app could find its own niche.
Also, to use my app CoverLetterGPT as an example, when I do a google search, there are numerous sponsored results that show up before my app.
But guess what, my user numbers rise every month and I do little to no maintenance on this app. Yep, it basically just runs itself, even with all that competition!
By the way, if you’re looking for a quick and low maintenance way to start your next side project, check out Open SaaS!
It’s an entirely free, open-source, feature-rich, React + NodeJS SaaS template, with Stripe, OpenAI app examples, Analytics, Admin Dashboard, and full Documentation!
Be Playful
There’s nothing worse than taking it all too seriously and grinding just because you think you should. You’re doing this for yourself, so you should enjoy the process.
So, yeah. Find ways to enjoy the process!
One of the best ways to enjoy yourself while working is to be working on things that interest you. And I mean, truly interest you. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you’ll enjoy working on an idea solely because it might be successful or because you might impress others with it. You’ll probably end up loosing the inspiration to work on this project fast!
But what if your problem is that you don’t have any ideas at all?
Well, again, my advice would be to be playful and experiment. A lot of great ideas are second-order ideas. By that, I mean that they are ideas that come to you somewhat randomly after working on other things.
For example, my idea for CoverLetterGPT came from simply experimenting with the OpenAI API. I wanted to know how it worked and through playing around with it, the idea to use it to generate cover letters and manage job applications seemed like a good one, so I went for it!
In my opinion, the more that you take a playful attitude to your side projects, the more you’ll enjoy working on them, which will lead to more focused work, and even more ideas. It’s a pattern I’ve seen amongst some of the best indiehackers, such as Peter Levels. I mean, look at that list of impressive SaaS apps!
Don’t Code… Always
And for my last piece of advice:
Take Breaks!
Yes, the urge to show everyone on dev.to and twitter how hard you grind is strong, but your mental and physical health will suffer.
Give yourself a break, do other stuff, like hobbies. Remember those?
You’ll probably also be surprised by creative, inspiring ideas your subconscious mind comes up with when you give it a break 🙂
How Do You Find Inspiration to Build?
So, the tips I just gave above are by no means a complete list. Think of them more like a conversation starter.
My goal here today was to present some things I’ve learned that may help some others out, so if you’ve got other tips, better advice, or even disagree with mine, please let us all know in the comments!
Top comments (40)
I'd say the "Don’t Worry About Competition" part is really important. We found ourselves spiraling into researching tools similar to what we are building, but it played just as you described it. These tools have their niche, while we are targeting something else. Nice article!
Nice. That’s very cool to hear :)
I would also say that stuff you build does not have to be useful, or solve a problem, or even be an 'app' (whatever that means). Most of the stuff I build in my spare time is totally for fun, just for the love of writing code. In my experience, this is ALWAYS the most fun stuff to build.
When you played with Lego as a kid, how often did your creations actually have a 'useful purpose'? I'm guessing 'rarely' - but you built them anyway, and it was fun. That's pretty much how 7 year old me taught himself to code, and how 47 year old me keeps coding enjoyable!
Yeah man. Totally agree. That’s the best way to learn and I’ve built toy apps that end up with features I use in other stuff
Following up on the "Be Playful" section: I love advice from Paul Graham in this direction, where he suggests to call it an "experiment" and not "business" or "startup": this way people won't immediately judge it, and you give yourself freedom to play with it, to not be afraid of failure. Experiment succeeds even if conclusion is that it doesn't work.
Oh cool. I’d love to read that essay if it is one
This is some good content I was looking for in DEV.
🙏 I appreciate the kind words. Glad you like it.
Great topic! I wonder if the community knows of Ali Abdaal - this ex-doctor turned productivity expert on YouTube. He mentions a lot about the aspect of play and having fun to overcome not wanting to start. This relates quite nicely to your mention of being playful.
I really enjoyed your piece! 😄
thanks, Bap! Never heard of him, but sounds really cool. Any videos you can recommend in particular?
A good starting point could be with his presentation of his new book: youtube.com/watch?v=a46eYoUpVBM
His content is not directly related to the dev world, but what he mentions overlaps with how we work as DevRels and developers. You can check out some of his popular videos. Most of his stuff is pretty high quality and has solid insights. I hope that helps you!
Great article, something that I haven't seen for a long time. It's really inspirational. Also, congratulations on your project gaining some traction and revenue! May I ask what marketing strategy you used for it?
Thanks! Mostly open sourcing it helped me to talk about it openly on places like reddit without it seeming like spam
This post is so helpful for many people like me, cause honestly speaking, I just make so many random things which sometimes turn out good, sometimes not and when it does turn out good I feel that I should have made it into an app or something profitable but by that time I had already made the code and the motivation goes out and I am like, leave it, I will do this next time I get a good idea and the cycle continues. I feel this post will help me break the cycle this time.
So cool to hear. Share it with us here on dev.to when you do finish it!
be working on things that interest you. That is really important. It is only then that you can grind, put in the hours and not feel tired. Nice article!
Totally agree. Thanks
Nice, good points! You bring up some common misconceptions and Martin also points out a good point to add to this article :)
🙏
It's a very nice article. Your words were not only valuable, but also incredibly motivating for me. Thank you for sharing!
Happy to help :)
Loved this "strategically underachieve in the lower-priority activities" 🫡
yep. definitely underrated advice!
This was a good read. Exactly what I wanted to see.
I was ready to read more, then you called it a "conversation starter".😢
haha! oh man! not sure what else I can say on the topic besides what's already there :) What would you like to know more about?
More about your experience, I guess. But I believe you've still done justice to this topic. Thank you for sharing!
awesome. will take note of this. Thanks!
Love it, very actionable advice :)
Thanks, Sausage Bro 😎
Very interesting article) I'm from Ukraine and many developers from my country wants to develop own startup. I guess such article helps them to find a right motivation.
Yes. I know of someone from Ukraine who used OpenSaaS to build his own app and he sold it for decent money. His name is Max and he’s on the testimonials section of OpenSaaS.sh
I like your emphasis on the word "playful". Today just coming back to work after a 2 day de-stressing mini-vacation, this resonates well with me 😊
Yep! it's surprising how much we can gain from relaxing and trying to enjoy things a bit more :)
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