How I Finish My Coding Projects

I struggled for years to actually finish the many coding projects I started.

The cycle looked something like this:

1. Get excited about a cool new app idea
2. Come up with a name, buy a domain
3. Start a fresh project and work on it for a few days/weeks
4. Realize it was harder than I thought
5. Quit, go back to step 1

Up until about 6 months ago this cycle kept repeating.

The reason for quitting my projects were usually one of two things: It was much harder technically than I realized, or I didn’t think it would be ‘successful’.

If you’re a beginner you probably get tripped up in the technical complexity.

The solution to that is still attempt to build what you can of your harder ideas, you’ll learn a ton that way.

Most useful ideas (e.g. not a todo app) require some amount of complexity you need to deal with.

If you’ve been coding for longer, that fear that the project will fail is paralyzing.

Technical complexities are still difficult to deal with, but I’ve found that my confidence I can build something has become higher than whether I can convince others to care about it.

The solution that got me to finally ship my first app was to give myself a deadline for the MVP.

I didn’t allow myself to quit until I launched something.

When you have a massive scope and no light at the end of the tunnel, quitting feels like the only option.

But when you have 3 weeks and a couple small features to build, sticking it out doesn’t feel quite as difficult.

If you’ve never launched anything the best thing you can do for your confidence is give yourself a month and just ship.

Once you realize you have it in you the process becomes much easier.

It was a serious mindset shift for me.

Now that I have v0 of my app out, I’m more excited than ever to build towards v1.

I’m not following my own advice of having a deadline, and that has harmed my productivity.

But I’m increasingly excited about the vision now that a semi-working version is out in the wild.

When you can dogfood your own app and be your target user, it makes improving it easier.

I notice when I try to answer a specific question and it’s a bit confusing.

Sometimes all it takes is a 30 minute feature.

When you have a live app, giving yourself quick wins becomes simple.

Even if you haven’t launched publicly I’d urge you to get your app working on a live domain (if it’s a web app) or get a running version on your device.

You get the added benefit that you’ll realize how much shit breaks in production much sooner.

Cole