"I Have an Idea for an App!"
For a long time, I treated my side projects like a series of single bets. I’d sit at my computer, work for hours, and build something that solved a real problem—quietly hoping that one day it might turn into a "success."
But lately, I’ve been feeling the weight of an uncomfortable truth: my effort was staying locked on my laptop. If the app didn't take off, the work effectively disappeared. I was trading my time for output, but I wasn't doing anything to make that effort last beyond the code itself.
I’m starting to realize that I’ve been stuck in a "linear" mindset. I would work for an hour and produce one unit of value. If I stopped working, the value stopped growing. It felt fragile—like I was putting hundreds of hours into something that depended entirely on a "hit" that might never come.
What If...
The shift for me happened when I started asking: what if the product isn't the only output?
I've begun reframing my projects so that the thinking itself becomes an asset. Now, instead of just aiming for a finished app, I’m trying to extract more from every hour I spend. Whether it's a specific architectural decision, a reusable logic pattern, or a "lesson learned" post, I'm trying to create things that can be read, reused, or referenced long after I’ve closed my IDE.
It’s definitely slower. Writing down my thoughts or cleaning up a component to be a template takes energy that could have gone into the next feature. But I’m realizing that this "extra" work is what actually builds credibility and creates opportunities in the long run.
The Core Shift
Employee thinking:
“I worked for one hour. I produced one unit of value.”
Entrepreneurial thinking:
“How can one hour of effort be reused, replayed, and amplified hundreds or thousands of times?”
An hour that lives only on your computer:
- may or may not generate income,
- could be obsolete later and requires rework
An hour that creates a reusable asset:
- keeps working while you rest
- reaches people you’ll never meet
- compounds long after the work is done
That’s leverage!
It’s a small change in perspective, but it makes the time spent coding feel a lot less like a gamble and a lot more like I'm building a foundation that actually compounds.
Top comments (0)