I Spent 3 Months Building a Side Project Nobody Wanted. Here's What I'd Do Differently.

bill — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 05:18:55 +0000

Last year I had what I thought was a killer idea for a developer tool. I spent 3 months building it — nights, weekends, the whole deal. Shipped it, crickets. Maybe 12 signups in the first month, and zero of them came back.

Sound familiar? If you're a developer who's ever built something nobody wanted, this post is for you.

The Mistake I Made

I fell into the classic "build first, validate later" trap. The idea felt so obvious to me that I assumed the market would agree. I didn't talk to a single potential user before writing the first line of code. I just... built.

Here's the thing — most developers I talk to make the same mistake. We're builders. We love solving problems with code. But we rarely stop to ask: is this problem worth solving?

What the Data Says

The numbers are brutal:

93% of startups fail, and 42% of those failed
The average developer spends 6+ months building a side project that never gets traction
Only about 7% of indie hacker projects gene

These aren't just statistics — they're a pattx.

What I'd Do Differently

1. Talk to 10 people before writing any c

                                                                                                                Not your mom. Not your developer friends. Act: "How do you currently solve [this problem]?" and "How much does this problem cost you?"

If they can't articulate the pain, you don't have a business.

2. Run a structured validation before committing

This is where I wish I had a tool like ValidMyIdea. It runs your idea through AI-powered analysis — market size, competitor landscape, GO/NO-GO signal before you invest months ofwork.

Would it have saved me 3 months? Almost certainly. The tool flagged several of the exact issues I discovered the hard way.

3. Build an MVP in a weekend, not 3 month

If your idea can't be tested with a landing purs, it's too complex for a first validation.Ship ugly. Ship fast. See if anyone cares.

4. Measure the "very disappointed" metric

Sean Ellis's famous question: "How would you feel if you could no longer use this product?" If less than 40% say "very
disappointed," you don't have product-market vot.

The Real Lesson

Building is the easy part. The hard part is b developers, we need to get comfortable withthe uncomfortable work of validation — talking to users, analyzing markets, and sometimes killing our darlings before they cost us months of our lives.

I've since validated two more ideas before bufitable side project. The other I killed after a weekend of research — saving myself what would have been 4 months of wasted effort.

Both outcomes were wins.

Have you built something nobody wanted? What did you learn? Drop it in the comments — I think we all need to hear these stories more often.

DEV Community: bill