I actually agree with this. There are a bunch of low-cost ways to prototype and collect user feedback. The paper notebook idea could have started with surveying people and finding if anyone actually existed who say it would be useful and they would pay for it. Or even just launch a one-page product site with an email sign-up list to get notified when the alpha version releases and wait until it reached some critical mass. All of this would have taken less investment than actually building it first lol.
> It's a paradox, but I've found that my best ideas now come from building other ideas.
Building and failing and building and failing might be a faster way of getting to something great than vetting, vetting, vetting, building, vetting, vetting building...
It’s only faster if you have the skills personally to build (which is many, but not all, HN users). If you don’t then vetting is a better place to start.
Depends on how much time you plan on putting into it and if it sounds like fun. Most people have a bit of free time to spend on side projects, even if they're silly.
Or if you're going to learn something new. I do side projects when I want to learn websockets or something like that. Even when the project doesn't go anywhere, I got something out of it.
