17 ms·

Six Months of Tiny Projects

872 points by tinyprojects 6y ago

bluedevil2k 6y ago
> I believe there's a big advantage to this "micro-bet" approach of launching many tiny businesses These aren’t businesses. These are websites. Most people on HN can build a website. It takes some coding and some tech knowledge. Not everyone can build a business. That involves marketing, advertising, customer acquisition, cash flow management, legal, on and on. While what the author did was neat and fun for him, let’s not pretend this is the path to a successful web business. I’d bet there’s few “micro-bets” that are generating any meaningful amount of money.
- bemmu 6y ago
  I took this same approach and from about ~50 things, 5 made enough money to make it time well spent overall. They were tiny like the projects listed here, so it's possible it could work out for the author, and I'm still sticking to the same approach now. Launch something quick with little self-criticism, then double down on anything that seems to have traction.
  - fiftyacorn 6y ago
    So 10% worked - is that not about normal for business?
    - marcosdumay 6y ago
      It's normal for boom or burst startups. It's way bellow normal for small business. But well, it's a perfectly fine ratio here.
      - fiftyacorn 6y ago
        Even on a small business/startup average youd maybe see 50 businesses start, and 5 succeed
  - zanellato19 6y ago
    This is what MVP actually is.
    - tartoran 6y ago
      MVP as in minimally viable product?
      - mettamage 6y ago
        Yep, that's how I'm reading it at least.
      - zanellato19 6y ago
        Yep
- optional_value 6y ago
  Reminds me of the book "The E-Myth: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work". Just because you are a good engineer, does not mean you are a good entrepreneur. Most engineers think it's just about building a good product. This is not true.
  - shrimpx 6y ago
    It actually is entirely about building a good product if by good product you mean something people want.
    - mjklin 6y ago
      First “actually” reply I’ve read today, congratulations. 8:08 AM is a bit early though.
      - cambalache 6y ago
        Your is the first sarcastic, no-content answer I have read today. 7:30 AM local time.
    - jesuscyborg 6y ago
      Building a good product will get you a pat on the back. What you need is a good product + leverage. http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html
    - hyperpallium2 6y ago
      If no one links to your good product, it's not in the webgraph.
      - pfortuny 6y ago
        If your product makes money that is irrelevant.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
- superasn 6y ago
  But sometimes this is what it takes to find something that sticks or find some meaningful spin-off that generates hundreds and thousands in revenue. This is the best approach starting out to see what the audience responds to, but the next critical step is to stick with what works for at least 5 full years doing all the things you've mentioned plus SEO (which is a big big).
- peter_retief 6y ago
  I am not so sure it didn't work. What if you had a massive success every 100 tries? That would be worth it, almost the same as VC funding.
- state_less 6y ago
  Please keep in mind that we may not all share the same idea of what a business is, what a meaningful amount of money is and what success looks like. When you repeatedly make sales and profit, you’re past the hurdle of not losing money on the operation. It’s a nice milestone on the entrepreneurship journey and worthy of a bit of celebration.
  - scrozart 6y ago
    Exactly. By definition, in the US, this is a sole proprietorship and has no hard requirement s for legal filings/business plan/etc.
    - mhb 6y ago
      What definition? You can call anything a sole proprietorship. It doesn't ever have to make money.
  - OldHand2018 6y ago
    > we may not all share the same idea of what a business is The IRS has an opinion [1], and its a really good list! Make a copy of it and put a recurring appointment in your calendar to revisit it, think about it, and write down your comments. [1] https://www.irs.gov/faqs/small-business-self-employed-other-business/income-expenses/income-expenses https://www.irs.gov/faqs/small-business-self-employed-other-...
- spzb 6y ago
  While there is a danger of spreading yourself too thin (as the author notes, one project a week was far too intensive) there's mileage in the idea of "throw a load of ideas at the wall and see what sticks". It helps you validate an idea quickly and, if nothing else, builds a portfolio you can show to potential employers or clients. Rob Walling has some good stuff on building micro-SaaS businesses https://robwalling.com/ https://robwalling.com/
- petercooper 6y ago
  I’d bet there’s few “micro-bets” that are generating any meaningful amount of money. The narrative would change and it wouldn't be getting called a "micro-bet" anymore if it did though, no? ;-) We used to just call these "side projects" which I prefer as a term for any sort of cheap experiment you throw at the wall to see if it sticks. I've had several, had two acquired for non-negligible amounts, and another has been my full time business for 10 years now.
- jedimastert 6y ago
  > That involves marketing, advertising, customer acquisition, cash flow management The most projects mentions involved at least a few of hese things, and the last one, Earlyname[0], had them all and has been more profitable than many many "businesses" in SV right now... [0]: https://tinyprojects.dev/projects/earlyname https://tinyprojects.dev/projects/earlyname
- OJFord 6y ago
  This is addressed in the 'negatives of tiny projects' and 'conclusions' sections of TFA.
- justiceforsaas 6y ago
  > I’d bet there’s few “micro-bets” that are generating any meaningful amount of money. That's the whole point of micro-bets. You acknowledge the fact that a small % of them will generate any meaningful $, so you deliberately minimize your losses by making the bets small.
- graderjs 6y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
- elorant 6y ago
  My main business started as a side-project. Not as tiny as the ones in the article, but it wasn't meant to be my main source of income. And yes, it took years of marketing to reach a mature state, but the essence is that experimenting is what usually brings the real money.
  - bluedevil2k 6y ago
    You kind of make my point. You turned your website into a business by spending the time to convert it. Experimenting is fine and it’s fun to build websites and web apps, I do it too. But if I’m not willing to spend the time to listen to clients, figure out what they want and what they’ll pay for, then to me it’s just a hobby.
    - elorant 6y ago
      Fair enough
- wayneftw 6y ago
  > These aren’t businesses. These are websites. [...] Not everyone can build a business. That involves marketing, advertising, customer acquisition, cash flow management, legal, on and on. Incorrect. The word business is defined simply as "the practice of making one's living by engaging in commerce." or "a person's regular occupation, profession, or trade." A kid with a lemonade stand has a business. My dad ran a plumbing business that did zero marketing or advertising and had no regular lawyer. According to your definition neither of these are businesses. Gee, you know come to think of it - Knowing who your customers are is marketing, talking/blogging about your business (however small it is) is advertising, accepting cash and knowing what's in your bank account is cash flow management and avoiding breaking any laws is legal. So, whichever way you look at it - you're wrong.
  - pfortuny 6y ago
    It is easy to mistake “business” with “being incorporated”. This is terrible because it assumes economic action requires a kind of social legal structure, which is totally false. Viz. jails, war times, very small business...
- qw 6y ago
  The full quote is: > I believe there's a big advantage to this "micro-bet" approach of launching many tiny businesses, and then sticking with the ones that become successful. The full quote changes the context. From what I understand, he sees it as a way to validate business ideas with small amount of effort.
  - bluedevil2k 6y ago
    Small amount of effort? He put 6 months into this. That’s not small. We see sooooo many articles on HN saying “know your customer before you write a line of code” or “find people who are ready to write a check”. Like a dozen of these articles a month from coders who are writing a post-mortem or telling us lessons learned. It’s like we all forgot those important lessons when we read this article.
- agwa 6y ago
  This is one of the most disappointing comments I've read on HN. The patronizing negativity is bad enough, but it's not even accurate. Read the article about Earlyname. The author absolutely understands marketing, advertising, and customer acquisition. Oh, he also owns a real-life ice cream business with two locations and (as of 2018) three non-founder employees (https://rippleandroll.com/ https://rippleandroll.com/), so I assume he knows about cash flow and legal matters too.
  - bluedevil2k 6y ago
    I never said he didn’t know these skills, I said if he’s not willing to put the time to marketing and advertise each of these websites, then they’re not businesses. There’s nothing wrong with having a hobby of building web apps, I do it too. But a business is more than tech.
    - agwa 6y ago
      Read the Earlyname post. He is putting in the time to do those things.
- ChefboyOG 6y ago
  Out of curiosity, who do you worry is "pretending this is the path to a successful web business?" Because the author certainly isn't doing so. If you scroll down just a few paragraphs from the sentence fragment you quoted, the author says: > "My main goal for the next six months of Tiny Projects is to learn how to get better at making money on the internet from my projects. A Product Hunt launch can easily get you a spike in traffic, but afterwards I really don't know what I'm doing. There's this whole other level afterwards called "sales & marketing" that I want to master." The author is extremely explicit throughout the piece that these are not built to become large businesses—hence the constant use modifiers like "tiny" and "micro." He also makes it clear that he treats this as a training routine for getting better at idea generation, shipping products, etc.
  - bluedevil2k 6y ago
    In my opinion he’d be better off focusing on 1, maybe 2, projects and seeing those through to “completion” (whether that’s positive MRR or closing). Which 1 or 2 products? Well he should have done his market research ahead of time and known from his list which ones were most viable. Better yet, he should have found customers ready to hand over their CC information.
- simonebrunozzi 6y ago
  You are too negative. "tiny businesses" implies that the author himself does not believe these to be fully fledged businesses, for probably the same reasons you are listing. I applaud this initiative, instead. It's commendable that someone decided to build not just one, but several things; for fun, and perhaps some profit. Then, if one of those ideas turns out to be very promising, the rest of the "business" can be quite trivial to setup, at least initially.
- ryangittins 6y ago
  This is a prime example of the "No true Scotsman" fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
- Taylor_OD 6y ago
  > let’s not pretend this is the path to a successful web business. I disagree. There is no point in setting up legal and marketing and advertising if the business is not functional. This is a perfectly suitable path to a successful web business. Obviously he would need to expand on those areas you mentioned if he wanted to make one of these his career but this is the first step on that path.
jhunter1016 6y ago
Build to learn. I love it. One thing I think many engineers and founders discover is they like creating more than they like running a business. A lot of places will look down on that mentality, but you don’t have to be a CEO. You can just be a person who likes to tinker and makes some money on the side.
keyle 6y ago
I remember the origin of this idea. Glad to see him plodding along. I wish I had the stamina. Although I've done 3 things in 6 months that are finished and shipped, I really dislike the "putting myself out there" part. I just quietly move onto the next idea.
Fumtumi 6y ago
I would be just to afraid for certain ideas like the shop thing. One credit card fraud going through my system and i might in a big dept if i did this under a company format which doesn't protect me from personal liability. While i like the idea very much of getting exercise in this way, i'm wondering what the main motivation is? I would like to earn money through my own company but only with my product i like and find 'worthy'. Trying out small concepts over and over again, might not bring any fruit in finding the thing you are passionate about and then the question arrives if it wouldn't be much more beneficial to optimize your own career instead.
- delusional 6y ago
  I find that passion is much more about investment than inherent joy. When I invest in a project, I become passionate.
  - Fumtumi 6y ago
    I do think its possible to become passinate about things over time. If you ask me if i want to work on x or y, i will tell you quite easy what i would prefer which i would relate to passion? Wikipedia would agree on both ways of seeing passion: "Passion (Greek πάσχω "to suffer, to be acted on"[1] and Late Latin (chiefly Christian[2]) passio "passion; suffering" (from Latin pati "to suffer"; participle: passus)) is a feeling of intense enthusiasm towards or compelling desire for someone or something. " But i think what makes it more interesting or more motivationg for me is that one thing might have something special in comparison to other things i wanna do. Like if i work on a product which helps the world vs. a product which is 'just a normal product' i might see more reason to work on the first product. I probably need to ask you what makes you invest in a project.
- freehunter 6y ago
  If you're using a reputable payment processor (like Stripe), they should be handling fraud detection and remediation for you. The real thing to watch out for is using your marketplace to sell illegal things. It was even mentioned that there were people for sale... I'm guessing that was done as a joke but it also happens for real. I've considered many ideas like that One Item Shop and turned away from them because I wasn't sure how to keep people from listing and selling things that will get me sued out of business or thrown in jail. And at £1.63 in revenue, I'm not hiring a lawyer.
lganzzzo 6y ago
Nice! Just build it! It's a blessing to see that there are people who can just build things instead of whining around like: ohh it's not a business... ohh it won't make any money... ohh it's not so simple to build a product... mkay
yakshaving_jgt 6y ago
I love this, and I believe this is what so many more programmers ought to be doing. There's nothing like actually owning a product end-to-end to teach you about which engineering principles actually matter and when.
flixic 6y ago
That is going to be my 2021. Definitely not a launch per week, but aiming to launch a new project every 2 months. I suspect some will even generate something like $1.60!
jcun4128 6y ago
imo I don't agree with the "buy domain name right away" since it may cause you to lose motivation/drive. Having the thought "build it first then when it's done buy a domain" is my thought. As I often buy domains and end up not using them/not finishing the project... still I can see the issue of securing a nice domain name. I think that would be great to make some project that has returns even a seemingly low sum of $200/mo. That's like a fifth of what I need to live a month, not bad. Facebook ads for market interest check is an interesting thought albeit maybe expenisve. edit: the other thing stories like these(pertaining to EarlyName) seem to gloss over is the legal aspect. It is easy to throw up a payment form but who is it paid to and say you're sued for whatever reason... does the few hundred a month justify an LLC sort of thing. That's the part that sucks/part of a business I guess. Some options like fastpring I think. Maybe general ToS/Privacy is enough It is funny it's like a "solve that problem when you actually have it" sort of scenario. But I do wonder about creating some general LLC that can be an umbrella to random micro saas projects.
- corobo 6y ago
  I think that bit was a joke, haha. "Pro tip" for not so pro tips is an elder meme
  - jcun4128 6y ago
    Oh dang yeah I took it literal.
- pjettter 6y ago
  A domain name can help you keep focus. Then when you need to pivot, you can just buy another one, ad nauseum.
  - snazz 6y ago
    It has for me in the past. I have at least something at every domain name in my portfolio for that reason.
- pastorhudson 6y ago
NKosmatos 6y ago
I'm jealous of what Ben is doing. That's the correct mentality when you're a young, full stack developer, full of energy, with nice ideas and with plenty of time to "play" and showcase your skills. Wondering if he's open to new tiny project ideas ;-) P.S. He is available for hire over at https://benstokes.dev https://benstokes.dev
Garlef 6y ago
In chase the creator is reading: Regarding OneItemShop: I think you should provide an optional way to specify a proper imprint (legal requirement in germany) instead of only a contact email.
ninaevangeli 6y ago
Please mentor me you're a genius
uhtred 6y ago
Don't worry young padawan, your enthusiasm will dwindle in time.
- gallerdude 6y ago
  You don't need to be so negative.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mettamage 6y ago
Not sure if I read it (or if I was just thinking it), but if I were him I'd also use Earlyname as a sort of PH type of service. Social (media) websites want to be promoted and get users. Having an influx of early users via Earlyname would help with that. So on the longer term, I'd focus on framing the message to new companies as well. It also means he wouldn't need to search all the time for new social (media) sites.
gallerdude 6y ago
I don't understand why the other comments are being so negative, this is awesome. There's a Jony Ive quote along the lines of "when you build something, you get the actual thing, but even more valuable is how you've grown and changed from building that thing. Best of luck on your future projects, great on you to make awesome stuff and grow as a person!
- cpow85 6y ago
  I agree, This was a fun read. I also think this is a really excellent way to gain some experience, do something fun, and potentially hit on a big idea. I can definitely see the excitement of creating something small but semi-viral on the internet
  - antupis 6y ago
    Yeah I bet generally that doing 12 different thing and in year and then pivot best one fields better outcome than grinding one thing.
- dsabanin 6y ago
  I think those negative commenters tend to miss what in my opinion is the most critical ingredient of what being a true "hacker" is – doing some things just because you want to, because you're having fun and because you want to see where it may lead. It breeds creativity and original ideas. A silly idea in the beginning may turn out to not be so silly in the end.
  - mgreenleaf 6y ago
    I've been doing a similar thing where I build lots of different SAAS type projects, lots of them will go nowhere, but what I have learned about design, abstraction, and trade-offs is enormous. Definitely worth the time to do something like this. One of my first priorities in hiring someone is to see if they have side projects where they learn things unconstrained by the normal grind of daily professional life.
  - chongli 6y ago
justiceforsaas 6y ago
The gist of the article is: The OP created a tiny project, launched it on Product Hunt/Hacker News, and moved to creating another project. I'm glad he acknowledges the problem with this: "A Product Hunt launch can easily get you a spike in traffic, but afterwards I really don't know what I'm doing". Here are some tips to help with this: 1) Explore more "steady" acquisition channels. Yes, PH/HN are "spike-y" channels and they're often not enough to have a business generating sustainable income. Read "Traction" by Gabriel Weinberg (I'm also doing some research on this topic [1]). 2) Maybe flip the script and do the opposite? Choose 1 or 2 promising projects, and do "six months of exploring user acquisition". Test SEO, FB/Google Ads, partnerships, affiliates, appstores and so on. Good luck! [1] https://firstpayingusers.com https://firstpayingusers.com
- mritchie712 6y ago
  +1 for Traction. I reached out to Gabriel on Twitter about creating an app companion to the book to guide you thru the process. He was supportive and it's on my side project list for December or early next year.
- dang 6y ago
  Please stop spamming HN with your link. We just asked you about this yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25128211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25128211
  - asadlionpk 6y ago
    It's amazing you are able to discover this kind of not-so-submarine-spamming.
  - justiceforsaas 6y ago
    Oh, sorry, I haven't seen it. Saw it now. Is there a way to get in touch?
  - moneywoes 6y ago
    Thank you.
picodguyo 6y ago
Don't pay attention to the negative nellies. Even these tiny "worthless" projects end up having value because they build a tool chest of skills and code snippets that make each subsequent project quicker and more sophisticated. Eventually you'll Frankenstein pieces of a dozen of these together into something big.
- hnrodey 6y ago
  100% and aligns with my personal experiences as well. I've built countless things that never went anywhere or materialized. Yet even today I continue to refer back to these old projects because I need to use again something I've built before.
- penguin_booze 6y ago
  Much of the stuff on which I tinker are useless/masochistic. But: "what I cannot create, I do not understand"!
- kyawzazaw 6y ago
  As a reader of that site and a student in tech, my friends and I have already received value from it.
- corobo 6y ago
  Not to mention even these tiny "worthless" projects end up having value because they are FUN TO DO! :D Not everything needs to be a hustle. Worth doesn't need to be in money terms
- fakedang 6y ago
  Doing that right now for my app idea.
krm01 6y ago
Job well done. If anything, more people should build their tiny projects in public and document their journey like you did. Dribbble used to be this place for designers, where a community came together to show work in progress and get feedback from one an other. (then it turned into a marketing platform). There isn't really something like that for tiny software projects. If there was, I would be checking in on a daily basis.
- oli-g 6y ago
  > There isn't really something like that for tiny software projects IndieHackers seems close enough to me
  - gilli 6y ago
    Yeah I was going to suggest IndieHackers, plenty of tiny projects going on there.
    - freehunter 6y ago
      IndieHackers is great for business ideas, but I don't get a lot of value searching for projects there. Seems like a lot of their content is either plain old consulting (writing Wordpress plugins/themes, coaching, etc) or newsletters. Great profitable businesses, but not really intellectually enlightening projects like Tiny Projects.
- Jaruzel 6y ago
  Well your first tiny project could be a HN-alike for people to showcase their tiny projects. :)
  - blackrock 6y ago
    Does HN have a top level category like this? Something like: Show HN. Or must you do a search for it?
    - 6y ago
aazaa 6y ago
From the author's description of the One Item Store: > Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with the final product, I think its actually really cool. But building it.. it was just a bit boring. There were lots of bugs, and I started to get a bit burnt out thinking about the endless list of things required for a good online store builder. https://tinyprojects.dev/projects/one_item_store https://tinyprojects.dev/projects/one_item_store This is a fascinating observation. In a couple of weeks he's both built something from scratch and figured out that the work of doing it wasn't enjoyable. It takes some people years to get to that point. To figure out what you want to do, you often have to sift through a lot of fool's gold - junk that looks appealing as an idea but isn't appealing as a part of your life. The tiny projects idea offers a way to accelerate that process. But the key here is to finish. To have an end point in mind and then reach it. 20% completion may get you 80% of the functionality. But by god, getting that last 20% could be the hardest, grinding work you will ever do. It's going to be very difficult to finish unless it's aligned in some fundamental way with your life.
- x87678r 6y ago
  I get that with every project though, the first 90% takes 10% of the time and is the most enjoyable.
  - marvinkennis 6y ago
    This makes a lot of sense, and I've recently experienced the same thing. You start out with a blank canvas, everything's easy, you can code what you want and you move fast. As your product evolves, so does its complexity. Suddenly you're no longer just 'quickly going add this', because the constraints of what you already built hold you back. This is especially true for supposedly small projects without a lot of planning.
- bluedevil2k 6y ago
  There are a dozen articles a month on HN from founders or coders with websites that all say “know your customer before you write a line of code” or “find customers ready to write a check” before you start. “Sift through fool’s gold” - that’s what that advice is helping you avoid, time wasted coding a website that has no business validation. Adding features no one wants. If the author pushed One Item Store and said “I’m going to market it cause it’s cool now, I’ll add features when people ask for them” then he might enjoy it more and be surprised to find people who will use it and pay for it as is.
Taylor_OD 6y ago
Really cool. Most people wouldnt post if they were 6 for 26 but honestly this is so insightful. I was planning on doing something similar with having 4 weeks to finish 4 upcoming projects. I knew they would probably take longer than the time allotted. This is helpful feedback.
mring33621 6y ago
I wish I could give this more than 1 upvote. Pure initiative and positivity. I love it!
batt4good 6y ago
Wow, OneItemStore is awesome. Any chance there's a way to peak at the source? I'm just starting to dip my toes in front-end anything and simple projects like OneItemStore still seem quite daunting.
batt4good 6y ago
Does anyone have advice for taking a simple project like this and hiring a designer to make it look a bit more polished?
skinkestek 6y ago
Snormal is really cool even at this stage!
victor106 6y ago
> Today, people have created over 1400 stores, selling everything from t-shirts, to human beings. Selling human beings!!! really?
- A_No_Name_Mouse 6y ago
  If you're interested, my mother in law is for sale. Very cheap but she comes with a no return policy.
QuelqueChose 6y ago
With all my love to Mr. Levels[1], I'm personally glad the author decided to approach this as their little "Tiny projects" rather than "Follow me as I build six startups in six months". I feel it nicely sets expectations to what I can get out of checking out each project and thinking "well, it's just a tiny project after all, why can't I have made something like this ever month too?". The 12 startups idea was also inspiring to me but I disliked how the term so frequently leads people to (IMO) somewhat pointless analysis of "Is this even a real startup?" around each individual project. [1]https://levels.io/12-startups-12-months/ https://levels.io/12-startups-12-months/
kaetemi 6y ago
This is a good exercise in estimating workload. While the article says one week is insufficient to make something meaningful, I've found personally that you can write useful software even in a single day, as long as your feature scope is finely targeted. Actual real life needs of real people are also more interesting to write software for.
dspillett 6y ago
> I'm anxious for the month I can't find any new social platforms. I doubt that'll be an issue for some time, there are so many startups out there either trying to be the next big one or specifically to address the needs of a niche set of users. Once the project hits a certain level of public awareness new social projects will be contacting the author to ask to be included, there will be no "looking for them" involved (though perhaps some due diligence checking to make sure the platform isn't in some way a project they'd rather not be associated with).
aadilmaan 6y ago
This is such a great way to keep the sword sharpened. I am really excited to see and quite inspiring that the author even embarked on this mission.
ticmasta 6y ago
>> 1-2 months is a more reasonable tiny project timeframe. It gives you enough time to build something with substance, and test the idea thoroughly. This is a similar timeframe that Basecamp uses for internal initiatives. I've been pushing for us to switch from 2-week sprints to something closer to 6-week features. If you're building on existing product or a brand new one 1-2 weeks is just not enough time for meaningful progress.
chancecbrown 6y ago
I find this inspiring and think I might do this myself. I have a huge list that makes me anxious to work on, but doing so publicly might force me to do some of them.
bobbydreamer 6y ago
snormal is really good
reggieband 6y ago
There is an old story about pottery students. A school split a pottery class into two groups. They instructed the first group to focus on making a few exceptional pieces. They judged the second group based on the number of pieces they created measured by weight. The result was that the best pieces came from the second group; those that focused on quantity. There is value in the experience gained when focusing on quantity instead of quality. Early in ones career it seems wise to spend some time on increasing quantity.
- sombremesa 6y ago
  > those that focused on quantity This isn't quite accurate. In that anecdote, those focused on quality did nothing but sit around and theorize. Had they spent their time evaluating their skills and improving them with an actual focus on quality, they would've no doubt had the better result.
- GoldenMonkey 6y ago
  Agreed. James Clear demonstrates this with a similar story. About a real professor’s photography class. The quantity students got a lot better at photography, than the quality group. https://jamesclear.com/repetitions https://jamesclear.com/repetitions
cgreinhold 6y ago
That's really cool and inspiring. I began the year with a similar idea of creating small projects weekly, although my goals were less ambitious. In the beginning of it I already felt in the "insane schedule" hole and realized that it wouldn't work, so I changed plans to at least creating a blog post each week. With that, I could create a better habit and manage to (almost) handle it. This approach didn't block me from creating small programs/game clones in this period, which I'm keeping in my blog[0] as well, but seeing projects like yours motivates to push harder for bigger projects. I wish you luck on keeping your pace as well! [0] https://cgreinhold.dev/ https://cgreinhold.dev/
visionofmaster 6y ago
I really liked this post. 6 months of great experience series. Keep going man! I also added it to the https://mastermind.vision https://mastermind.vision I hope you don't mind.
lallysingh 6y ago
This is great! You should put out a book. Also a meta-site on 'minimal way to do X' on all the random tech you've had to setup and assemble would be useful. I guess that's 2 more tiny projects. Hmm, I guess they'd be tiny meta projects.
pettycashstash2 6y ago
I applaud this. Its progressive learning improving and continually stacking learned patterns. Congrats.
justinlloyd 6y ago
All of these projects (even the failures and the flameouts) are 100% fantastic. Some I look at and think "That looks like shit!" Some I look at and think "I don't see the point." Some I look at and think "Wish I'd thought of that." But every single one of them, the shit ones, the pointless ones, the really neat ones, they all have value. Massive learning opportunities, the fact you published something, the fact you experimented. I cannot commend you enough for what you have achieved. I get involved in "weekend projects" (sometimes they go a little longer than a weekend), and I find that without the pressure to deliver something useful it lets me explore whimsical ideas and learning opportunities I don't get in my day job.
sharker8 6y ago
Which facebook one did you buy? I saw an ingenious one a few years ago called checkfacebook.com
xwdv 6y ago
If anyone is thinking of replicating this challenge, I would recommend focusing on building tiny projects within a specific domain or set of customers, to boost creativity.
greatNespresso 6y ago
Really inspiring, I feel like your projects grew in complexity over time, which is all the more consistent with the tiny philosophy.
mixcocam 6y ago
Just opened up a one item store for my surfing shower product!! Super cool concept. https://oneitem.store/pomo https://oneitem.store/pomo Couldn't find the repo so added a feature request here: https://twitter.com/mixcocam/status/1329201542411538441?s=20 https://twitter.com/mixcocam/status/1329201542411538441?s=20
- mixcocam 6y ago
  Took 10min to setup including payments. Could be an alternative to ebay at this pace!
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    I took a look - turned out nice. Any sales from it? One suggestion is to put in the image width and height so your text doesn't bounce down on initial page load.
m3kw9 6y ago
Looks like is tough to make a living on the web
pkukkapalli 6y ago
Thanks for sharing this, you've inspired me to make some tiny projects as well :). Will Earlyname be your last project for a while, or do you plan on continuing at this pace?
qwerty456127 6y ago
> Earlyname helps you claim rare usernames (like @ben or @alice) on new, emerging social platforms. Currently it is generating $200/month. Very unethical. This should have never been automated.
- guessmyname 6y ago
  >> Earlyname helps you claim rare usernames (like @ben or @alice) on new, emerging social platforms. Currently it is generating $200/month. > Very unethical. This should have never been automated. Unethical or not, I am 100% sure that this operation has been automated hundreds of times by different programmers throughout the years.
- jauer 6y ago
  Why do you consider it unethical?
AussieWog93 6y ago
One Item Store actually solves a real problem that a lot of people have. I know nothing about web development, and spent days getting a "one item store" WooCommerce/Wordpress site set up a couple of years back. The performance is woeful and I've been hacked multiple times. Your sites are so snappy and I'm assuming secure-by-default as they're static. On the other hand, though, your sites look more like Craigslist ads than actual eCommerce sites. The font choice is ugly, and the lack of things like logos, contact/about pages don't exactly fill the user with trust. If you polished it up a bit, I think you could have a real winner on your hands.
- abdabab 6y ago
  He also needs to implement a search functionality across all products.
starik36 6y ago
I am in awe of your ability to come up with ideas like that. And very quickly too. I'd love to work on a side hustle like that but my ideas percolate over a long time.
ta18367290 6y ago
Impresive! I am also interested in the time management done to achieve this projects. As someone wanting to have time for side projects I am having a hard time dealing with time. I work 9 to 5, and want to have time for a lot of essential activities like: reading, jogging, be informed, visit family, hangout, play some games with friends online and sleep well (aka 8h). I am starting to assume that it's impossible to cramp all these activities in 24 h so I should organize the activities in a week. How do you guys do it?
redkoala 6y ago
Some of the legal considerations that would apply based on the author's comment about things required for a good online store builder: https://ecommerceguide.com/guides/ecommerce-legals/ https://ecommerceguide.com/guides/ecommerce-legals/

872 points by tinyprojects 6y ago

> I believe there's a big advantage to this "micro-bet" approach of launching many tiny businesses These aren’t businesses. These are websites. Most people on HN can build a website. It takes some coding and some tech knowledge. Not everyone can build a business. That involves marketing, advertising, customer acquisition, cash flow management, legal, on and on. While what the author did was neat and fun for him, let’s not pretend this is the path to a successful web business. I’d bet there’s few “micro-bets” that are generating any meaningful amount of money.

bemmu 6y ago
I took this same approach and from about ~50 things, 5 made enough money to make it time well spent overall. They were tiny like the projects listed here, so it's possible it could work out for the author, and I'm still sticking to the same approach now. Launch something quick with little self-criticism, then double down on anything that seems to have traction.
- fiftyacorn 6y ago
  So 10% worked - is that not about normal for business?
  - marcosdumay 6y ago
    It's normal for boom or burst startups. It's way bellow normal for small business. But well, it's a perfectly fine ratio here.
    - fiftyacorn 6y ago
      Even on a small business/startup average youd maybe see 50 businesses start, and 5 succeed
- zanellato19 6y ago
  This is what MVP actually is.
  - tartoran 6y ago
    MVP as in minimally viable product?
    - mettamage 6y ago
      Yep, that's how I'm reading it at least.
    - zanellato19 6y ago
      Yep
optional_value 6y ago
Reminds me of the book "The E-Myth: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work". Just because you are a good engineer, does not mean you are a good entrepreneur. Most engineers think it's just about building a good product. This is not true.
- shrimpx 6y ago
  It actually is entirely about building a good product if by good product you mean something people want.
  - mjklin 6y ago
    First “actually” reply I’ve read today, congratulations. 8:08 AM is a bit early though.
    - cambalache 6y ago
      Your is the first sarcastic, no-content answer I have read today. 7:30 AM local time.
  - jesuscyborg 6y ago
    Building a good product will get you a pat on the back. What you need is a good product + leverage. http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html
  - hyperpallium2 6y ago
    If no one links to your good product, it's not in the webgraph.
    - pfortuny 6y ago
      If your product makes money that is irrelevant.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
superasn 6y ago
But sometimes this is what it takes to find something that sticks or find some meaningful spin-off that generates hundreds and thousands in revenue. This is the best approach starting out to see what the audience responds to, but the next critical step is to stick with what works for at least 5 full years doing all the things you've mentioned plus SEO (which is a big big).
peter_retief 6y ago
I am not so sure it didn't work. What if you had a massive success every 100 tries? That would be worth it, almost the same as VC funding.
state_less 6y ago
Please keep in mind that we may not all share the same idea of what a business is, what a meaningful amount of money is and what success looks like. When you repeatedly make sales and profit, you’re past the hurdle of not losing money on the operation. It’s a nice milestone on the entrepreneurship journey and worthy of a bit of celebration.
- scrozart 6y ago
  Exactly. By definition, in the US, this is a sole proprietorship and has no hard requirement s for legal filings/business plan/etc.
  - mhb 6y ago
    What definition? You can call anything a sole proprietorship. It doesn't ever have to make money.
- OldHand2018 6y ago
  > we may not all share the same idea of what a business is The IRS has an opinion [1], and its a really good list! Make a copy of it and put a recurring appointment in your calendar to revisit it, think about it, and write down your comments. [1] https://www.irs.gov/faqs/small-business-self-employed-other-business/income-expenses/income-expenses https://www.irs.gov/faqs/small-business-self-employed-other-...
spzb 6y ago
While there is a danger of spreading yourself too thin (as the author notes, one project a week was far too intensive) there's mileage in the idea of "throw a load of ideas at the wall and see what sticks". It helps you validate an idea quickly and, if nothing else, builds a portfolio you can show to potential employers or clients. Rob Walling has some good stuff on building micro-SaaS businesses https://robwalling.com/ https://robwalling.com/
petercooper 6y ago
I’d bet there’s few “micro-bets” that are generating any meaningful amount of money. The narrative would change and it wouldn't be getting called a "micro-bet" anymore if it did though, no? ;-) We used to just call these "side projects" which I prefer as a term for any sort of cheap experiment you throw at the wall to see if it sticks. I've had several, had two acquired for non-negligible amounts, and another has been my full time business for 10 years now.
jedimastert 6y ago
> That involves marketing, advertising, customer acquisition, cash flow management The most projects mentions involved at least a few of hese things, and the last one, Earlyname[0], had them all and has been more profitable than many many "businesses" in SV right now... [0]: https://tinyprojects.dev/projects/earlyname https://tinyprojects.dev/projects/earlyname
OJFord 6y ago
This is addressed in the 'negatives of tiny projects' and 'conclusions' sections of TFA.
justiceforsaas 6y ago
> I’d bet there’s few “micro-bets” that are generating any meaningful amount of money. That's the whole point of micro-bets. You acknowledge the fact that a small % of them will generate any meaningful $, so you deliberately minimize your losses by making the bets small.
graderjs 6y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
elorant 6y ago
My main business started as a side-project. Not as tiny as the ones in the article, but it wasn't meant to be my main source of income. And yes, it took years of marketing to reach a mature state, but the essence is that experimenting is what usually brings the real money.
- bluedevil2k 6y ago
  You kind of make my point. You turned your website into a business by spending the time to convert it. Experimenting is fine and it’s fun to build websites and web apps, I do it too. But if I’m not willing to spend the time to listen to clients, figure out what they want and what they’ll pay for, then to me it’s just a hobby.
  - elorant 6y ago
    Fair enough
wayneftw 6y ago
> These aren’t businesses. These are websites. [...] Not everyone can build a business. That involves marketing, advertising, customer acquisition, cash flow management, legal, on and on. Incorrect. The word business is defined simply as "the practice of making one's living by engaging in commerce." or "a person's regular occupation, profession, or trade." A kid with a lemonade stand has a business. My dad ran a plumbing business that did zero marketing or advertising and had no regular lawyer. According to your definition neither of these are businesses. Gee, you know come to think of it - Knowing who your customers are is marketing, talking/blogging about your business (however small it is) is advertising, accepting cash and knowing what's in your bank account is cash flow management and avoiding breaking any laws is legal. So, whichever way you look at it - you're wrong.
- pfortuny 6y ago
  It is easy to mistake “business” with “being incorporated”. This is terrible because it assumes economic action requires a kind of social legal structure, which is totally false. Viz. jails, war times, very small business...
qw 6y ago
The full quote is: > I believe there's a big advantage to this "micro-bet" approach of launching many tiny businesses, and then sticking with the ones that become successful. The full quote changes the context. From what I understand, he sees it as a way to validate business ideas with small amount of effort.
- bluedevil2k 6y ago
  Small amount of effort? He put 6 months into this. That’s not small. We see sooooo many articles on HN saying “know your customer before you write a line of code” or “find people who are ready to write a check”. Like a dozen of these articles a month from coders who are writing a post-mortem or telling us lessons learned. It’s like we all forgot those important lessons when we read this article.
agwa 6y ago
This is one of the most disappointing comments I've read on HN. The patronizing negativity is bad enough, but it's not even accurate. Read the article about Earlyname. The author absolutely understands marketing, advertising, and customer acquisition. Oh, he also owns a real-life ice cream business with two locations and (as of 2018) three non-founder employees (https://rippleandroll.com/ https://rippleandroll.com/), so I assume he knows about cash flow and legal matters too.
- bluedevil2k 6y ago
  I never said he didn’t know these skills, I said if he’s not willing to put the time to marketing and advertise each of these websites, then they’re not businesses. There’s nothing wrong with having a hobby of building web apps, I do it too. But a business is more than tech.
  - agwa 6y ago
    Read the Earlyname post. He is putting in the time to do those things.
ChefboyOG 6y ago
Out of curiosity, who do you worry is "pretending this is the path to a successful web business?" Because the author certainly isn't doing so. If you scroll down just a few paragraphs from the sentence fragment you quoted, the author says: > "My main goal for the next six months of Tiny Projects is to learn how to get better at making money on the internet from my projects. A Product Hunt launch can easily get you a spike in traffic, but afterwards I really don't know what I'm doing. There's this whole other level afterwards called "sales & marketing" that I want to master." The author is extremely explicit throughout the piece that these are not built to become large businesses—hence the constant use modifiers like "tiny" and "micro." He also makes it clear that he treats this as a training routine for getting better at idea generation, shipping products, etc.
- bluedevil2k 6y ago
  In my opinion he’d be better off focusing on 1, maybe 2, projects and seeing those through to “completion” (whether that’s positive MRR or closing). Which 1 or 2 products? Well he should have done his market research ahead of time and known from his list which ones were most viable. Better yet, he should have found customers ready to hand over their CC information.
simonebrunozzi 6y ago
You are too negative. "tiny businesses" implies that the author himself does not believe these to be fully fledged businesses, for probably the same reasons you are listing. I applaud this initiative, instead. It's commendable that someone decided to build not just one, but several things; for fun, and perhaps some profit. Then, if one of those ideas turns out to be very promising, the rest of the "business" can be quite trivial to setup, at least initially.
ryangittins 6y ago
This is a prime example of the "No true Scotsman" fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
Taylor_OD 6y ago
> let’s not pretend this is the path to a successful web business. I disagree. There is no point in setting up legal and marketing and advertising if the business is not functional. This is a perfectly suitable path to a successful web business. Obviously he would need to expand on those areas you mentioned if he wanted to make one of these his career but this is the first step on that path.

jhunter1016 6y ago

Build to learn. I love it. One thing I think many engineers and founders discover is they like creating more than they like running a business. A lot of places will look down on that mentality, but you don’t have to be a CEO. You can just be a person who likes to tinker and makes some money on the side.

keyle 6y ago

I remember the origin of this idea. Glad to see him plodding along. I wish I had the stamina. Although I've done 3 things in 6 months that are finished and shipped, I really dislike the "putting myself out there" part. I just quietly move onto the next idea.

Fumtumi 6y ago

I would be just to afraid for certain ideas like the shop thing. One credit card fraud going through my system and i might in a big dept if i did this under a company format which doesn't protect me from personal liability. While i like the idea very much of getting exercise in this way, i'm wondering what the main motivation is? I would like to earn money through my own company but only with my product i like and find 'worthy'. Trying out small concepts over and over again, might not bring any fruit in finding the thing you are passionate about and then the question arrives if it wouldn't be much more beneficial to optimize your own career instead.

delusional 6y ago
I find that passion is much more about investment than inherent joy. When I invest in a project, I become passionate.
- Fumtumi 6y ago
  I do think its possible to become passinate about things over time. If you ask me if i want to work on x or y, i will tell you quite easy what i would prefer which i would relate to passion? Wikipedia would agree on both ways of seeing passion: "Passion (Greek πάσχω "to suffer, to be acted on"[1] and Late Latin (chiefly Christian[2]) passio "passion; suffering" (from Latin pati "to suffer"; participle: passus)) is a feeling of intense enthusiasm towards or compelling desire for someone or something. " But i think what makes it more interesting or more motivationg for me is that one thing might have something special in comparison to other things i wanna do. Like if i work on a product which helps the world vs. a product which is 'just a normal product' i might see more reason to work on the first product. I probably need to ask you what makes you invest in a project.
freehunter 6y ago
If you're using a reputable payment processor (like Stripe), they should be handling fraud detection and remediation for you. The real thing to watch out for is using your marketplace to sell illegal things. It was even mentioned that there were people for sale... I'm guessing that was done as a joke but it also happens for real. I've considered many ideas like that One Item Shop and turned away from them because I wasn't sure how to keep people from listing and selling things that will get me sued out of business or thrown in jail. And at £1.63 in revenue, I'm not hiring a lawyer.

lganzzzo 6y ago

Nice! Just build it! It's a blessing to see that there are people who can just build things instead of whining around like: ohh it's not a business... ohh it won't make any money... ohh it's not so simple to build a product... mkay

yakshaving_jgt 6y ago

I love this, and I believe this is what so many more programmers ought to be doing. There's nothing like actually owning a product end-to-end to teach you about which engineering principles actually matter and when.

flixic 6y ago

That is going to be my 2021. Definitely not a launch per week, but aiming to launch a new project every 2 months. I suspect some will even generate something like $1.60!

jcun4128 6y ago

imo I don't agree with the "buy domain name right away" since it may cause you to lose motivation/drive. Having the thought "build it first then when it's done buy a domain" is my thought. As I often buy domains and end up not using them/not finishing the project... still I can see the issue of securing a nice domain name. I think that would be great to make some project that has returns even a seemingly low sum of $200/mo. That's like a fifth of what I need to live a month, not bad. Facebook ads for market interest check is an interesting thought albeit maybe expenisve. edit: the other thing stories like these(pertaining to EarlyName) seem to gloss over is the legal aspect. It is easy to throw up a payment form but who is it paid to and say you're sued for whatever reason... does the few hundred a month justify an LLC sort of thing. That's the part that sucks/part of a business I guess. Some options like fastpring I think. Maybe general ToS/Privacy is enough It is funny it's like a "solve that problem when you actually have it" sort of scenario. But I do wonder about creating some general LLC that can be an umbrella to random micro saas projects.

corobo 6y ago
I think that bit was a joke, haha. "Pro tip" for not so pro tips is an elder meme
- jcun4128 6y ago
  Oh dang yeah I took it literal.
pjettter 6y ago
A domain name can help you keep focus. Then when you need to pivot, you can just buy another one, ad nauseum.
- snazz 6y ago
  It has for me in the past. I have at least something at every domain name in my portfolio for that reason.
pastorhudson 6y ago

NKosmatos 6y ago

I'm jealous of what Ben is doing. That's the correct mentality when you're a young, full stack developer, full of energy, with nice ideas and with plenty of time to "play" and showcase your skills. Wondering if he's open to new tiny project ideas ;-) P.S. He is available for hire over at https://benstokes.dev https://benstokes.dev

Garlef 6y ago

In chase the creator is reading: Regarding OneItemShop: I think you should provide an optional way to specify a proper imprint (legal requirement in germany) instead of only a contact email.

ninaevangeli 6y ago

Please mentor me you're a genius

uhtred 6y ago

Don't worry young padawan, your enthusiasm will dwindle in time.

gallerdude 6y ago
You don't need to be so negative.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mettamage 6y ago

Not sure if I read it (or if I was just thinking it), but if I were him I'd also use Earlyname as a sort of PH type of service. Social (media) websites want to be promoted and get users. Having an influx of early users via Earlyname would help with that. So on the longer term, I'd focus on framing the message to new companies as well. It also means he wouldn't need to search all the time for new social (media) sites.

gallerdude 6y ago

I don't understand why the other comments are being so negative, this is awesome. There's a Jony Ive quote along the lines of "when you build something, you get the actual thing, but even more valuable is how you've grown and changed from building that thing. Best of luck on your future projects, great on you to make awesome stuff and grow as a person!

cpow85 6y ago
I agree, This was a fun read. I also think this is a really excellent way to gain some experience, do something fun, and potentially hit on a big idea. I can definitely see the excitement of creating something small but semi-viral on the internet
- antupis 6y ago
  Yeah I bet generally that doing 12 different thing and in year and then pivot best one fields better outcome than grinding one thing.
dsabanin 6y ago
I think those negative commenters tend to miss what in my opinion is the most critical ingredient of what being a true "hacker" is – doing some things just because you want to, because you're having fun and because you want to see where it may lead. It breeds creativity and original ideas. A silly idea in the beginning may turn out to not be so silly in the end.
- mgreenleaf 6y ago
  I've been doing a similar thing where I build lots of different SAAS type projects, lots of them will go nowhere, but what I have learned about design, abstraction, and trade-offs is enormous. Definitely worth the time to do something like this. One of my first priorities in hiring someone is to see if they have side projects where they learn things unconstrained by the normal grind of daily professional life.
- chongli 6y ago

justiceforsaas 6y ago

The gist of the article is: The OP created a tiny project, launched it on Product Hunt/Hacker News, and moved to creating another project. I'm glad he acknowledges the problem with this: "A Product Hunt launch can easily get you a spike in traffic, but afterwards I really don't know what I'm doing". Here are some tips to help with this: 1) Explore more "steady" acquisition channels. Yes, PH/HN are "spike-y" channels and they're often not enough to have a business generating sustainable income. Read "Traction" by Gabriel Weinberg (I'm also doing some research on this topic [1]). 2) Maybe flip the script and do the opposite? Choose 1 or 2 promising projects, and do "six months of exploring user acquisition". Test SEO, FB/Google Ads, partnerships, affiliates, appstores and so on. Good luck! [1] https://firstpayingusers.com https://firstpayingusers.com

mritchie712 6y ago
+1 for Traction. I reached out to Gabriel on Twitter about creating an app companion to the book to guide you thru the process. He was supportive and it's on my side project list for December or early next year.
dang 6y ago
Please stop spamming HN with your link. We just asked you about this yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25128211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25128211
- asadlionpk 6y ago
  It's amazing you are able to discover this kind of not-so-submarine-spamming.
- justiceforsaas 6y ago
  Oh, sorry, I haven't seen it. Saw it now. Is there a way to get in touch?
- moneywoes 6y ago
  Thank you.

picodguyo 6y ago

Don't pay attention to the negative nellies. Even these tiny "worthless" projects end up having value because they build a tool chest of skills and code snippets that make each subsequent project quicker and more sophisticated. Eventually you'll Frankenstein pieces of a dozen of these together into something big.

hnrodey 6y ago
100% and aligns with my personal experiences as well. I've built countless things that never went anywhere or materialized. Yet even today I continue to refer back to these old projects because I need to use again something I've built before.
penguin_booze 6y ago
Much of the stuff on which I tinker are useless/masochistic. But: "what I cannot create, I do not understand"!
kyawzazaw 6y ago
As a reader of that site and a student in tech, my friends and I have already received value from it.
corobo 6y ago
Not to mention even these tiny "worthless" projects end up having value because they are FUN TO DO! :D Not everything needs to be a hustle. Worth doesn't need to be in money terms
fakedang 6y ago
Doing that right now for my app idea.

krm01 6y ago

Job well done. If anything, more people should build their tiny projects in public and document their journey like you did. Dribbble used to be this place for designers, where a community came together to show work in progress and get feedback from one an other. (then it turned into a marketing platform). There isn't really something like that for tiny software projects. If there was, I would be checking in on a daily basis.

oli-g 6y ago
> There isn't really something like that for tiny software projects IndieHackers seems close enough to me
- gilli 6y ago
  Yeah I was going to suggest IndieHackers, plenty of tiny projects going on there.
  - freehunter 6y ago
    IndieHackers is great for business ideas, but I don't get a lot of value searching for projects there. Seems like a lot of their content is either plain old consulting (writing Wordpress plugins/themes, coaching, etc) or newsletters. Great profitable businesses, but not really intellectually enlightening projects like Tiny Projects.
Jaruzel 6y ago
Well your first tiny project could be a HN-alike for people to showcase their tiny projects. :)
- blackrock 6y ago
  Does HN have a top level category like this? Something like: Show HN. Or must you do a search for it?
  - 6y ago

aazaa 6y ago

From the author's description of the One Item Store: > Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with the final product, I think its actually really cool. But building it.. it was just a bit boring. There were lots of bugs, and I started to get a bit burnt out thinking about the endless list of things required for a good online store builder. https://tinyprojects.dev/projects/one_item_store https://tinyprojects.dev/projects/one_item_store This is a fascinating observation. In a couple of weeks he's both built something from scratch and figured out that the work of doing it wasn't enjoyable. It takes some people years to get to that point. To figure out what you want to do, you often have to sift through a lot of fool's gold - junk that looks appealing as an idea but isn't appealing as a part of your life. The tiny projects idea offers a way to accelerate that process. But the key here is to finish. To have an end point in mind and then reach it. 20% completion may get you 80% of the functionality. But by god, getting that last 20% could be the hardest, grinding work you will ever do. It's going to be very difficult to finish unless it's aligned in some fundamental way with your life.

x87678r 6y ago
I get that with every project though, the first 90% takes 10% of the time and is the most enjoyable.
- marvinkennis 6y ago
  This makes a lot of sense, and I've recently experienced the same thing. You start out with a blank canvas, everything's easy, you can code what you want and you move fast. As your product evolves, so does its complexity. Suddenly you're no longer just 'quickly going add this', because the constraints of what you already built hold you back. This is especially true for supposedly small projects without a lot of planning.
bluedevil2k 6y ago
There are a dozen articles a month on HN from founders or coders with websites that all say “know your customer before you write a line of code” or “find customers ready to write a check” before you start. “Sift through fool’s gold” - that’s what that advice is helping you avoid, time wasted coding a website that has no business validation. Adding features no one wants. If the author pushed One Item Store and said “I’m going to market it cause it’s cool now, I’ll add features when people ask for them” then he might enjoy it more and be surprised to find people who will use it and pay for it as is.

Taylor_OD 6y ago

Really cool. Most people wouldnt post if they were 6 for 26 but honestly this is so insightful. I was planning on doing something similar with having 4 weeks to finish 4 upcoming projects. I knew they would probably take longer than the time allotted. This is helpful feedback.

mring33621 6y ago

I wish I could give this more than 1 upvote. Pure initiative and positivity. I love it!

batt4good 6y ago

Wow, OneItemStore is awesome. Any chance there's a way to peak at the source? I'm just starting to dip my toes in front-end anything and simple projects like OneItemStore still seem quite daunting.

batt4good 6y ago

Does anyone have advice for taking a simple project like this and hiring a designer to make it look a bit more polished?

skinkestek 6y ago

Snormal is really cool even at this stage!

victor106 6y ago

> Today, people have created over 1400 stores, selling everything from t-shirts, to human beings. Selling human beings!!! really?

A_No_Name_Mouse 6y ago
If you're interested, my mother in law is for sale. Very cheap but she comes with a no return policy.

QuelqueChose 6y ago

With all my love to Mr. Levels[1], I'm personally glad the author decided to approach this as their little "Tiny projects" rather than "Follow me as I build six startups in six months". I feel it nicely sets expectations to what I can get out of checking out each project and thinking "well, it's just a tiny project after all, why can't I have made something like this ever month too?". The 12 startups idea was also inspiring to me but I disliked how the term so frequently leads people to (IMO) somewhat pointless analysis of "Is this even a real startup?" around each individual project. [1]https://levels.io/12-startups-12-months/ https://levels.io/12-startups-12-months/

kaetemi 6y ago

This is a good exercise in estimating workload. While the article says one week is insufficient to make something meaningful, I've found personally that you can write useful software even in a single day, as long as your feature scope is finely targeted. Actual real life needs of real people are also more interesting to write software for.

dspillett 6y ago

> I'm anxious for the month I can't find any new social platforms. I doubt that'll be an issue for some time, there are so many startups out there either trying to be the next big one or specifically to address the needs of a niche set of users. Once the project hits a certain level of public awareness new social projects will be contacting the author to ask to be included, there will be no "looking for them" involved (though perhaps some due diligence checking to make sure the platform isn't in some way a project they'd rather not be associated with).

aadilmaan 6y ago

This is such a great way to keep the sword sharpened. I am really excited to see and quite inspiring that the author even embarked on this mission.

ticmasta 6y ago

>> 1-2 months is a more reasonable tiny project timeframe. It gives you enough time to build something with substance, and test the idea thoroughly. This is a similar timeframe that Basecamp uses for internal initiatives. I've been pushing for us to switch from 2-week sprints to something closer to 6-week features. If you're building on existing product or a brand new one 1-2 weeks is just not enough time for meaningful progress.

chancecbrown 6y ago

I find this inspiring and think I might do this myself. I have a huge list that makes me anxious to work on, but doing so publicly might force me to do some of them.

bobbydreamer 6y ago

snormal is really good

reggieband 6y ago

There is an old story about pottery students. A school split a pottery class into two groups. They instructed the first group to focus on making a few exceptional pieces. They judged the second group based on the number of pieces they created measured by weight. The result was that the best pieces came from the second group; those that focused on quantity. There is value in the experience gained when focusing on quantity instead of quality. Early in ones career it seems wise to spend some time on increasing quantity.

sombremesa 6y ago
> those that focused on quantity This isn't quite accurate. In that anecdote, those focused on quality did nothing but sit around and theorize. Had they spent their time evaluating their skills and improving them with an actual focus on quality, they would've no doubt had the better result.
GoldenMonkey 6y ago
Agreed. James Clear demonstrates this with a similar story. About a real professor’s photography class. The quantity students got a lot better at photography, than the quality group. https://jamesclear.com/repetitions https://jamesclear.com/repetitions

cgreinhold 6y ago

That's really cool and inspiring. I began the year with a similar idea of creating small projects weekly, although my goals were less ambitious. In the beginning of it I already felt in the "insane schedule" hole and realized that it wouldn't work, so I changed plans to at least creating a blog post each week. With that, I could create a better habit and manage to (almost) handle it. This approach didn't block me from creating small programs/game clones in this period, which I'm keeping in my blog[0] as well, but seeing projects like yours motivates to push harder for bigger projects. I wish you luck on keeping your pace as well! [0] https://cgreinhold.dev/ https://cgreinhold.dev/

visionofmaster 6y ago

I really liked this post. 6 months of great experience series. Keep going man! I also added it to the https://mastermind.vision https://mastermind.vision I hope you don't mind.

lallysingh 6y ago

This is great! You should put out a book. Also a meta-site on 'minimal way to do X' on all the random tech you've had to setup and assemble would be useful. I guess that's 2 more tiny projects. Hmm, I guess they'd be tiny meta projects.

pettycashstash2 6y ago

I applaud this. Its progressive learning improving and continually stacking learned patterns. Congrats.

justinlloyd 6y ago

All of these projects (even the failures and the flameouts) are 100% fantastic. Some I look at and think "That looks like shit!" Some I look at and think "I don't see the point." Some I look at and think "Wish I'd thought of that." But every single one of them, the shit ones, the pointless ones, the really neat ones, they all have value. Massive learning opportunities, the fact you published something, the fact you experimented. I cannot commend you enough for what you have achieved. I get involved in "weekend projects" (sometimes they go a little longer than a weekend), and I find that without the pressure to deliver something useful it lets me explore whimsical ideas and learning opportunities I don't get in my day job.

sharker8 6y ago

Which facebook one did you buy? I saw an ingenious one a few years ago called checkfacebook.com

xwdv 6y ago

If anyone is thinking of replicating this challenge, I would recommend focusing on building tiny projects within a specific domain or set of customers, to boost creativity.

greatNespresso 6y ago

Really inspiring, I feel like your projects grew in complexity over time, which is all the more consistent with the tiny philosophy.

mixcocam 6y ago

Just opened up a one item store for my surfing shower product!! Super cool concept. https://oneitem.store/pomo https://oneitem.store/pomo Couldn't find the repo so added a feature request here: https://twitter.com/mixcocam/status/1329201542411538441?s=20 https://twitter.com/mixcocam/status/1329201542411538441?s=20

mixcocam 6y ago
Took 10min to setup including payments. Could be an alternative to ebay at this pace!
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  I took a look - turned out nice. Any sales from it? One suggestion is to put in the image width and height so your text doesn't bounce down on initial page load.

m3kw9 6y ago

Looks like is tough to make a living on the web

pkukkapalli 6y ago

Thanks for sharing this, you've inspired me to make some tiny projects as well :). Will Earlyname be your last project for a while, or do you plan on continuing at this pace?

qwerty456127 6y ago

> Earlyname helps you claim rare usernames (like @ben or @alice) on new, emerging social platforms. Currently it is generating $200/month. Very unethical. This should have never been automated.

guessmyname 6y ago
>> Earlyname helps you claim rare usernames (like @ben or @alice) on new, emerging social platforms. Currently it is generating $200/month. > Very unethical. This should have never been automated. Unethical or not, I am 100% sure that this operation has been automated hundreds of times by different programmers throughout the years.
jauer 6y ago
Why do you consider it unethical?

AussieWog93 6y ago

One Item Store actually solves a real problem that a lot of people have. I know nothing about web development, and spent days getting a "one item store" WooCommerce/Wordpress site set up a couple of years back. The performance is woeful and I've been hacked multiple times. Your sites are so snappy and I'm assuming secure-by-default as they're static. On the other hand, though, your sites look more like Craigslist ads than actual eCommerce sites. The font choice is ugly, and the lack of things like logos, contact/about pages don't exactly fill the user with trust. If you polished it up a bit, I think you could have a real winner on your hands.

abdabab 6y ago
He also needs to implement a search functionality across all products.

starik36 6y ago

I am in awe of your ability to come up with ideas like that. And very quickly too. I'd love to work on a side hustle like that but my ideas percolate over a long time.

ta18367290 6y ago

Impresive! I am also interested in the time management done to achieve this projects. As someone wanting to have time for side projects I am having a hard time dealing with time. I work 9 to 5, and want to have time for a lot of essential activities like: reading, jogging, be informed, visit family, hangout, play some games with friends online and sleep well (aka 8h). I am starting to assume that it's impossible to cramp all these activities in 24 h so I should organize the activities in a week. How do you guys do it?

redkoala 6y ago

Some of the legal considerations that would apply based on the author's comment about things required for a good online store builder: https://ecommerceguide.com/guides/ecommerce-legals/ https://ecommerceguide.com/guides/ecommerce-legals/