Learning from my side project Mistakes

I have made plenty of mistakes in my growing mountain of side project fails. Learn from my failures, so hopefully you don't fall into the same traps and find some success in your own projects.

Transcript

1. LEARNING FROM MY SIDE PROJECT MISTAKES Jonathan Fielding ◦ HalfStack London 2024 ◦ All my links at jonathan fi eld.in
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7. HAVE A CLEAR GOAL FROM THE START “Why am I building this again?”
8. CASE STUDY
 Shopping Mindful 🛍
9. Establish a clear purpose
10. Set Concrete, Measurable Goals
11. PERFECTIONISM IS THE ENEMY Spending hours on a login page… for a project that does nothing else yet.
12. CASE STUDY
 ActionMetrics 📊
13. Avoid Getting Lost in the Details
14. Embrace an MVP Mentality
15. Iterate and Improve
16. SCOPE CREEP IS SNEAKY When “simple” projects become
 bloated.
17. CASE STUDY
 EventFocus 🎤
18. Keep the Initial Scope Small
19. Resist the Temptation to keep Adding Features
20. Expand Gradually After Validation
21. FEEDBACK MATTERS… BUT NOT TOO MUCH Listen, but don’t let the crowd steer your ship.
22. CASE STUDY
 PerformanceBudget.io 🏎
23. Seek Early Feedback
24. But Beware of Feedback Overload
25. AVOID TECH STACK PARALYSIS Wasting 3 hours on whether to use React or Vue. Vercel or Kubernetes
26. CASE STUDY
 PerfBadger 🦡
27. Decision Overload is Real
28. Stick to Familiar and Sustainable Tools
29. Make a Decision and Move Forward
30. PROPRIETARY TECH IS A SLIPPERY SLOPE Firebase seemed like a great idea… until it wasn’t.
31. CASE STUDY
 ActionMetrics 📊
32. Avoid tech that locks you in.
33. Requires you to learn non- transferable skills
34. Security risks
35. DON’T POUR MONEY INTO IDEAS YOU HAVEN’T VALIDATED Keep your spending under control
36. CASE STUDY
 Domains and Infrastructure 🪜
37. Avoid Unnecessary Upfront Costs
38. Be Mindful of ‘Sunk Cost ’ Mentality
39. WRAPPING-UP Final advice from someone who’s still fi guring it out. Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash
40. Progress > Perfection
41. Stay True to Your Vision
42. Use technologies you already know
43. Don ’ t throw all your money at it
44. In the end, I learnt a lot from these mistakes