I have been working on a product by myself for a little under a year now, and I am about a little under halfway ready for launch. I have a full time job, and spend between 10-20 hours a week of my spare time working on this other project. It’s exhausting and sometimes discouraging, but also the most challenging and rewarding thing I have ever done.
I’m in my early 30’s and my current job feels like a dead end to me for a variety of reasons. It pays well and I have great benefits, but it isn’t fulfilling nor challenging in any meaningful way. I kind of hate it really, but I am just not at liberty to leave with my current expenses. I am also conflicted that spending the energy looking for something different will get in the way of what I am working on, and likely end me up in another place where I feel the same way.
On the inverse, the product I am working on makes me feel like I am doing something worth my time. My goal is to get this product launched and get a steady stream of revenue while still working this job, then leave when that can sustain my living expenses. I know that is going to take a while.
So as a result, I feel insanely guilty for time not spent on this thing. The sooner I can have something that is making money, the sooner I can ditch what I am doing, and my first thought the moment I wake up every day is that I need to keep moving forward on it because I need to achieve that next step in my life.
I am planning for a May 2024 launch to keep myself focused, but then I have to nail the marketing to build a customer base. It all just adds up to a lot of time, and I can’t give up, but sometimes it’s real hard to feel motivated to continue on this project.
How does anyone else deal with this kind of mindset / discouragement to see the project through?
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I was reading this, it’s almost a direct reflection of me :)
Motivation: keep going with what made you start, one day it’ll be worth it!
Lifestyle inflation really makes this difficult at times.
If you had more time you could launch faster and validate the product, but it’s extremely hard to take a step away from stability and comfort when the results of the venture are unknown.
One tip I can give regarding discouragement is to make sure that activities you do for it are well time boxed and not “never-ending”. Break goals and milestones up in ways where you can actually see progress. Also, maybe get involved with the “build in public” community, that way you get some feedback/chat with other makers while you’re still building the product while simultaneously already gathering a small community interested in what you’re building.
You need discipline not motivation.
Switch out motivation for discipline and set small goals to help you work through the various efforts prior to launch. #CantHurtMe, LFG
Honestly, it’s all about routine and consistency for me. I have a project I started in June I had to put on hold that I’d hoped to launch this week, but the only way I’ve ever made headway on it is by tackling it bite by bite — a half hour dedicated to it daily. It’s also how I’ve established a pattern otherwise of creating and launching a lot of content as a whole.