I am always fascinated by how open source grows into a full community from small PR requests, issue raises, eventually becoming something big.The number of people/developers who benefit from open source initiatives is significant.
What makes open source truly beautiful is the community it has, with a vast variety of minds and different approaches to solving issues. We can gain valuable insights and programming practices from these contributors.
So, being the curious cat I am, I wanted that feeling—the feeling of building a community and learning as I go. I started brainstorming on what to solve, whether I should start big or small, and what tech stack to use. Basically, I was daydreaming about the moments where I'd be maintaining tons of PRs and issues.
Then came a perfect idea—whenever I’m designing screens and mockups in Figma, I end up with a dozen tabs of design tools open and no clue which one’s which. Total chaos. So I figured, why not build a curated tools platform where designers and frontend developers can browse resources and tools by category—UI/UX, React, and so on. It felt like the perfect idea: it solved a real-world problem (for me, at least) and was the ideal gateway to learn about open source. Also, my resume was looking a little dry, so this felt like the perfect time to add value to it.
What Came After the Build
Finished the project and I was genuinely proud of myself.Went to GitHub, set up branch rules, wrote docs for everything, even raised a few issues myself so contributors would have something to work on.
Then came the waiting game. “Now we wait,” I told myself. And the result? Not a single soul clicked my links. Got a few pity views when I posted it on LinkedIn and shared it with friends, but after four to six months… I couldn’t honestly say my website helped anyone. No tool submissions, no PRs, no issues — just the three I raised myself. (And yeah, I solved one of them).
But here's the thing — it was still rewarding.
Sure, the website isn't perfect since I vibe coded half the backend stuff (the code structure and API routes are… let's say, questionable), but I learned things I once swore I'd never touch.
I got my hands dirty with backend stuff — APIs, HTTP, all that black magic.
I dove into SQL, learned how to create tables and manage them through an ORM.
And on top of that, I finally got a grip on responsive design. I got myself a decent project to put on my resume and portfolio.
Start Early
You don't need to know everything to start something new.
This has always been true, even before AI, Developers would build with what they knew and then search Stack Overflow and documentation to learn what they didn't know and explore further. Now, it's even faster with AI—if you have a new question, just ask it. And if you prefer the old way, you can ask AI to scrap the specific documentation and sections you need.
The key is to just start. You never really understand what you’re dealing with until you dive headfirst into the rabbit hole — failing, getting frustrated at your own code, and trial-and-erroring the most ridiculous things.
But that’s the point doing it anyway.
We novice developers often fall into the perfectionist trap!
Trying to get everything right on the first attempt.Ironically, that tendency fades only with experience… and to gain experience, you’ve got to actually do the thing.
A 2014 study by Denny, Luxton-Reilly, and Simon backs this up. They explored the “build–measure–learn” loop and found that when learners get immediate feedback and are encouraged to “try–fail–fix,” their performance improves significantly — proving that doing first and perfecting later beats the “perfect-first” mindset every time.
The perfectionist mindset also comes with baggage.It leads to more stress, lower learning outcomes, and a tendency to procrastinate — because when you’re obsessed with getting it just right, you end up doing nothing at all.
Final thoughts
If you’re planning to build something — big or small, simple or complex — just start.
Do it, and learn as you go. Especially now, when AI has come such a long way, don’t hate it — use it smartly. Let it accelerate your learning, not replace it.
Make it exist first. Don’t know backend? Vibe-code it. Ask what each function does along the way. Once it’s done, go back, read the docs, and learn the deeper stuff.
Did the project bring in skyrocketing traffic? Probably not.
Did you step out of my comfort zone and learn some cool shit? Definitely!
Because at the end of the day, progress beats perfection every single time.
If you’re curious (or just want to see the ancient ruins of my open-source experiment): https://dev-juice.vercel.app/
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