Photo by Eden Constantino on Unsplash
We all been there—you have this revolutionary idea for a side project or startup. You start writing code, create your repo, and set up your architecture. You spend hours searching for the most cutting-edge technologies. Two or three days pass and your initial rush of energy starts to fade. Then you start to procrastinate. You get distracted. The three hours you dedicated per day become one, until suddenly they drop to zero. And you abandon the project.
Then the next idea comes along and you feel that adrenaline rush again—"this time I'm going to finish this project. This one will work." But you're lying to yourself, because you said the same thing for the last three projects and none of them are completed yet.
Divide and Conquer
In Mexico, there's something called "misiles"—translated as missiles. They're huge glasses that hold around two or three liters of alcohol. Sometimes just beer, sometimes prepared beer, and sometimes a mix of different drinks.
Here's the thing: people try to drink it all in one go. The obvious result? They get an absurd level of alcohol in their body, getting fully drunk and even blacking out. The body can't process that much alcohol at once.
Wouldn't it be better to drink it in sips and enjoy the whole night? The same thing happens with side projects. People try to finish everything in a weekend, then get burned out and quit.
Clear your path setting goals
Why try to finish it all in one rush? Instead, plan and deliver part by part.
Set a plan before you even start coding. Define where you want to go and how you'll get there. Once you have the whole picture, you might realize your idea isn't as original as you thought, or not as easy as you thought, or even not what you thought.
You want to create the next Facebook? Start with the post creation flow. Once it's working and deployed, move on to user profiles. Then add photos, stories, reels, etc. You get the idea.
Avoid Overengineering
Please, please. For God's sake. YOU DON'T NEED NETFLIX ARCHITECTURE for your startup.
Forget about microservices, Kubernetes, and Kafka. You don't need them now.
Avoid complex code that builds itself from just an entity name—it only adds complexity and coupling. As I've been saying throughout this post: it's better to deliver something simple than nothing.
I'm not saying you should never think about scaling or that you won't need it. But not at the start, not right now.
Have you considered validating your idea before thinking about microservices?
Let me tell you a story:
Some friends and I got together with an idea for an app to break the system and be our own bosses. We started planning the architecture. I defined the backend with microservices in Node.js to ensure speed. The frontend guy proposed Flutter to compile for both iOS and Android. The infrastructure guy proposed using Gorilla and Kubernetes to keep microservices always available.
But do you know what the idea was? A Tinder for dogs… Yeah, I know. We were young, and at the time the idea sounded cool. But when we presented it to someone else, they looked at us like "what?"
Why did we need Kubernetes for something people wouldn't even use? You see my point?
Is not about motivation, it’s about discipline
Maybe you're thinking: "What a fraud—this guy won't tell me how to get things done." But I challenge you to name more than ten people who've created something through brute force alone.
We all have ideas. So why can't we turn them into something tangible? Because we lose motivation along the way.
So how can we keep motivation? Well, the secret isn't keeping motivation—it's building discipline.
As Uncle Bob said: "Dedication and professionalism are more about discipline than hours." Make sure you respect your time and energy. Paraphrasing Uncle Bob again: "The worst code I wrote was the code I wrote at 3 AM."
This brings us back to the beginning. You tried so hard to complete that side project or SaaS idea in a brute force rush, but when motivation fades, you abandon it.
Conclusion: Becoming Super Saiyan
Remember the Namek saga? Goku recovered from his battle with Vegeta and started training to join his friends on Namek.
His spaceship had gravity settings up to 300G. But he didn't start there—he began with 20G. Once he adapted, he moved up to 50G, and kept progressing gradually. If he had jumped straight to 300G, he would have gotten injured and failed. We'd never have seen the Super Saiyan transformation—one of the most iconic moments in anime culture.
So why do you keep trying to rush through a project or only work when you feel motivated? Take your time to think about it, and I'll see you in the next one.
Top comments (0)