The latest articles on DEV Community by Jordan Blake (@jordan_builds). https://dev.to/jordan_builds https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F4210771%2F7821f493-df67-44fb-a94b-4ca0a7192013.jpg https://dev.to/jordan_builds en Jordan Blake Tue, 27 Oct 2026 15:47:48 +0000 https://dev.to/jordan_builds/shipping-a-side-project-in-a-weekend-what-actually-matters-3754 https://dev.to/jordan_builds/shipping-a-side-project-in-a-weekend-what-actually-matters-3754 <p>I've shipped a lot of side projects, and most of them died. The ones that survived had a few things in common.</p> <p>What mattered:</p> <ul> <li>A single painful problem I personally had</li> <li>The ugliest possible UI that still worked</li> <li>One deploy command</li> </ul> <p>What didn't matter:</p> <ul> <li>The perfect stack</li> <li>A landing page before the product</li> <li>Tests for the first version (controversial, I know)</li> </ul> <p>The last one I'd qualify: no tests on day one, but write one as soon as real users show up.</p> <p>My current side project is a small tool that turns markdown notes into a static site. TypeScript and Go, one Postgres database, one deploy. It's not clever, but it's mine.</p> sideprojects typescript go