This is exactly how I feel about my side projects. Sometimes our day jobs are not exactly what we’d like to be working on so it’s nice to “putter” on a side project to scratch that itch. If someone else finds it useful one day that is a nice bonus but is ultimately not what drives me to work on it.
On a recent thread about a shortage of electricians, several commenters talked about taking on electrical work themselves, in a way that passed every inspection, by working on the scale of months instead of, as the pros do, days. This tracks exactly the distinction between my garden vs. the garden, and the analogy is great for software.
I'm currently working on something, "using AI" (read: the ChatGPT API), and it's coming out perfect in a way I couldn't have done without this API, but I also couldn't have done at work; there are too many efficiencies involved when you're making software for yourself.
For one thing, the feedback loop between implementation, UI and UX is a dot instead of a loop. For another, I'm infinitely willing to sympathize with my user, and will take all of their suggestions as if they were gospel. And my budget, while not infinite or even large, is extremely generous.
I guess it's also worth mentioning people whose recent pet projects became their main project, the most salient of whom, for me, is AngeTheGreat on YouTube (https://m.youtube.com/@angethegreat).
There's something to be said for dogfooding first, then releasing something.
I love this perspective. And I love these moments when I demo my project (people can request a demo on the home page) and people realize that it actually solves the problem they are struggling with for a long time.
I also deliberately choose not to do things that I don't like (like content marketing) even though they'd for sure bring me more revenue. It has to be enjoyable because otherwise it'd be just another job.
That’s what kept me going for years in my own. Now that I finally quit my tech career to focus on my own apps, I wish I had been more ambitious earlier on. I learned a lot in industry but controlling my own time and reaping the full reward of my own labor is glorious. Not to mention the ability to seek "promotion" is far more understandably under my control and ability to achieve.
