hacky_engineer

I am working on a baby book called Computer Engineering for Babies (https://computerengineeringforbabies.com). The biggest question I have is an SEO/branding one. I have about 3 brand names, and I don't know how to structure them or which ones to get rid of, and how to have a cohesive brand. Anyway, I'm looking for someone that can coach me on some SEO/branding stuff..

At some point you'll realize that you just don't have the energy to continue with your employment and do a side project. And hopefully your side project will be making enough money that the decision on which to marry isn't too difficult.

I'm in the middle of making this transition right now. Juggling full time employment and a booming side project is exhausting.

A lot of people just like to build stuff and put it out there in case it's useful for other people. Some people are inherently kind like that.

My biggest pain is not knowing whether I'll still be in business 3 months from now.

I'm not the one to ask, but if I had to guess, it seems like investors would want to see that you're already full time.

I've had all these same feelings. At some point you are going to have to do some level of marketing. Maybe that that is sharing your project on Hacker News, Product Hunt, or Reddit. Or maybe that means dumping $10k into facebook ads. You could have the best product in the world but if nobody knows about it, you won't make a dime.

If you have money, then you might be able to outsource this if it's too overwhelming. I found a great Facebook ads guy by just going to reddit/r/facebookAds and messaging someone who seemed like they knew what they were talking about.

Another trick is to just make something with a virality score greater than 1. Meaning on average, each user brings in at least one more user. Then you really only have to market to one person (on average ;)

I launched a baby book computer engineering for babies. I have posted about it a few times on Hacker News & Reddit, and that was enough several thousand dollars through kickstarter.

The kickstarter campaign probably brought in about 150k with minimal marketing effort, and at around that point, I brought on an ad agency that juiced it up to $250k after that.

I'm continuing to do preorders through my website, but all of the pre orders I get now are mostly driven by facebook ads.

Thanks for letting me share!

Reads like an ad for MicroAcquire...

Yeah, I would guess less than 20% of us have side projects, and less than 10% of those that do have side projects are making any money from them. I say this despite being in the lucky group that has a successful side project.

With my side project, initially I was working on it because it was fun and fulfilling. When I started to get bored with it, my wife really encouraged me to keep working on it which motivated me to see it through. I'm still trying to figure out how to balance a healthy lifestyle. Juggling a job, a family, a side project, and 8 hours of sleep at night isn't working very well.

Nice work! You built something! I am sick of building apps, so I don't think I'm the target market anymore, but I probably would have used this 8 years ago. Some feedback: I have to do a lot of scrolling to get to the text; there's too much empty space when scrolling. When I click on the other themes to the right side, I expected that they would update the current theme.

I've felt all these same feelings before. The one project that I have finished was because my wife kept encouraging me to finish it and reiterating that she thought it could be very successful. Luckily for me, she was right. Find someone that can push you to finish things. Whether it be a spouse, a cofounder, or just a friend that will follow up with you and encourage you to finish what you've started when you both know it's worth pursuing.

Also, all the stuff everyone else said. Get customers first. Build the MVP not the final draft of the product, etc.

A couple other things that I do is to sit on an idea for at least a month before I start building. A lot of times I run out of energy for an idea before I even start (this helps filter out the ideas that I don't really want to work on). And I also really like to pick projects that I think I can create an MVP in less than 2 weeks. If it takes 6 months to build an MVP, then I am far more likely to run out of energy and question if this is really want I want to be working on.

Whoa, I hadn't seen this before. Thanks for posting it. That's a lot of views.

What a lovely personal anecdote. Thank you for sharing.

You mean like getting into a university? It might be a lottery at some level, but you definitely increase your odds by cheating the system (good grades, good SAT/ACT scores, etc...)

Yeah, I do this all the time. I don't want to be bothered on the weekend, so I push releases at the beginning of the week when possible.

Hilarious. My kids (3 & 5) would love this book. What is it with kids being so obsessed with Fart and Poop jokes (the word joke being very loose)? Also, what a great a way to crowdsource the research for a small book. Nice work.

I got an error as well (but I do have a facebook account, so I lied on the form. Shh, don't tell Facebook.)

I remember being 14 years old and listening to books on CD, while playing flash games for hours. Good times. I remember thinking that I wasn't wasting my time because I was listening to a book. I'm not sure that's true. Sad that flash is dead now, but considering how much malware was probably delivered to me via flash, it's probably better that we're moving on.