I launched my weekend project with one thing in mind:
SHIP IT!
Most projects are just that, projects. They very rarely turn in to a business or even make a penny of profit. I tend to build something that either a) I will use or b) Something that will teach me. But, you need to make sure you don't go down the rabbit hole of development. Have a goal in mind to ship by the end of the weekend, even if it doesn't look great, work exactly right or behave just the way you want it to. It never will, there will always be something that you want to change. That's a good thing. Iterative design and development works.
I'm not advocating the release of useless MVPs with poor design or webapps that frankly don't work. What I am saying is that when you give yourself a deadline and stick by it, you can learn a huge amount about yourself. Try it.
I built http://www.livelystocks.com last weekend because I already used a very basic version of it on my local machine. I thought I would give a little back to the HN community. So, I published it. It hasn't gained much traction, I didn't expect it to, but it still got a few hundred people interested and many people use it every day. I managed to learn a new programming language, get to grips with Twitter Bootstrap and I'm pleased about that. More importantly, it taught me how to properly ship, in a very short timescale. And I enjoyed it.
SHIP IT!
Most projects are just that, projects. They very rarely turn in to a business or even make a penny of profit. I tend to build something that either a) I will use or b) Something that will teach me. But, you need to make sure you don't go down the rabbit hole of development. Have a goal in mind to ship by the end of the weekend, even if it doesn't look great, work exactly right or behave just the way you want it to. It never will, there will always be something that you want to change. That's a good thing. Iterative design and development works.
I'm not advocating the release of useless MVPs with poor design or webapps that frankly don't work. What I am saying is that when you give yourself a deadline and stick by it, you can learn a huge amount about yourself. Try it.
I built http://www.livelystocks.com last weekend because I already used a very basic version of it on my local machine. I thought I would give a little back to the HN community. So, I published it. It hasn't gained much traction, I didn't expect it to, but it still got a few hundred people interested and many people use it every day. I managed to learn a new programming language, get to grips with Twitter Bootstrap and I'm pleased about that. More importantly, it taught me how to properly ship, in a very short timescale. And I enjoyed it.