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?

  • nmsfr@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    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.