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Uh, so today I'm actually here to talk about side projects, and in particular, in relation to startups. When Sebastian and the team asked me if I would speak here at RubyConf, my first thought was, 'You do know I don't know any Ruby, right?' Apparently, that is okay for me to come and address you because I know PHP. (I'm kidding; I don't even know PHP.) But since I don't know Ruby, I thought, 'Okay, I guess I need to have a slide to establish some credibility.' So, I'm the co-founder and CEO of Envato, and we have about 33 million visitors every month to our sites. We have 250 people working at Envato, including a lot of Ruby devs, many of whom are here in this audience, and I will try not to embarrass them.
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We have about 200 people who work at Envato, and we've paid out a quarter of a billion dollars to our community. We're bootstrapped, which is kind of cool, but it has nothing to do with what I'm here to talk about today. What I actually want to talk about is not the part of startups that is when they get successful, but more about how you get to a startup and the stuff you can do on your travels towards a startup. In my experience, startups are hard. They're not easy. They're quite glamorous these days; you've all seen the social network and that poor HBO show. But startups are difficult; they come with high risk. I've been running a startup now for almost 10 years, and it's been easily the hardest thing I've ever worked on—a massive learning curve upwards.
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On the other hand, side projects are a little easier. The incline's a little less steep. Whereas starting a business is high risk, typically involving a lot of savings and high pressure, a side project is usually low risk; no one really cares, and you haven’t put a lot of your energy or time into it. Ideally, it's low pressure and generally speaking, a labor of love. But where these two things meet is that for me, side projects are a great way to train for a startup—they're like the startup gym, if you like. Not that all side projects lead to this, but if you're interested in getting into startups, for me, side projects are a great place to start. They share a lot of the same sorts of experiences.
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The reason I think it's important to train for these things is that after this talk, if I were to walk up to you during the coffee break, saying, 'Hey, I'm Collis; I'm a guy who doesn't know any Ruby, and I want to become a developer,' you'd probably be like, 'Cool, that's awesome! What are you going to do, like a code academy or something?' And I'd say, 'No, I've decided I'm just going to jump right into a project! The project I've picked is going to be an air traffic control system, with real planes flying and real people involved!' I'd say it would be cool and I'd learn everything from the ground up. You'd probably think I'm an idiot for starting there. You'd say, 'Dude, you should start with small stuff; do some hello worlds or something before you get there.' It's the same in startups; I've met too many people who jumped straight into a huge startup, putting everything in at once. Then, if it doesn’t work out, they assume they're not cut out for startups. But that’s not true; you just need to build up to it.
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Now, here's a list of some stuff you're going to do in a startup. When you want to start a startup, you have to figure out the idea behind it. You're probably going to have to make something, collaborate with people, launch it, market it, monetize it, and get some capital. There are probably a thousand things in between these big pieces. Most of you here are Ruby developers; in a typical developer job, you're busy making stuff and collaborating, but probably not focused on coming up with business ideas or raising capital. It makes sense that these are things you need to practice.
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You don't just know these things; nobody is born with a monetization skillset. The stuff you do in a side project is like practicing those things. When you start doing side projects, you will have attempts to come up with ideas, try out different things, and you will have to launch them and see them through. Importantly, you don’t need to do lots of marketing or raise capital with side projects. There are aspects of startups that you don't need to think about yet, so it’s somewhere in between.
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The more side projects you do, the more you can practice those extra skills. On your first side project, you might not do much of that, but later, you can start including more and more. Here are a couple of examples of people who do side projects. One guy you might not have heard of, Keith, had one of his early side projects—a Rails Rumble project—that turned into something that got sold. Keith, along with Mario, worked on projects like Desktopper and GiftUpper. I emailed Keith to ask about some of these side projects, and he mentioned that he had thirty thousand users with zero dollars spent on marketing. It was a great example of a side project that allowed him to experiment with spreading an idea with minimal risk.
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A little later, Keith started a side project while working at Envato, which many of you know as Buildkite. Buildkite is a really cool set of tools that many of us already use. This is a great example of a side project that became a startup. Keith had a co-founder, and he likely thought it might turn into something. Many startups began as side projects—think of Uber, StumbleUpon, GitHub, and Gravatar; they were all once side projects. But you shouldn't approach side projects with the mindset of, 'I'm going to make something that's going to become a startup.' This way puts unnecessary pressure and stress on you.
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Instead, you should do side projects knowing they might turn into something, but don’t let that stress you out. I asked Keith for advice for the RubyConf crowd regarding side projects, and he mentioned that you should avoid trying to ship a new technology while simultaneously trying to learn it on a side project. This is good advice. As a designer, I’ve been guilty too of overextending myself, wanting to implement every shiny new thing instead of focusing on simpler ideas.
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You want to know your true north—what it is you're trying to accomplish with your side project. If it's to learn a new technology, that’s perfectly fine. Alternatively, if you want to get better at finishing things or at doing startups, that’s also good. The clear thing here is that if you're working on a new idea, perhaps sticking with a standard framework rather than a cutting-edge one can be just as effective.
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Another person who does side projects is Ian Webster, a Google engineer. Every year, he writes about his side projects on his blog. Some of them include an SMS API, which is open source, and a community-driven asteroid database. This last project allows users to pick out asteroids from pictures of the sky, and interestingly, it was bought by an asteroid mining company. His most boring side project is an inflation calculator, which he uses to test out ideas about SEO and AdSense to learn some skills he might need in a startup.
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One of Ian's pieces of advice is that you need to swallow your pride and just get stuff out there. As a designer, I share this same sentiment. Many developers want their side projects to look polished and finished before launching them. But you have to realize that it's okay to iterate and improve over time.
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If you're interested in startups or have a passing interest, the first thing you’re going to want is an idea. If I were to give a startup talk, I’d usually say to figure out market size, the total addressable market, and other important business concepts. But when it comes to side projects, you can pretty much ignore that stuff. You just need an idea, and it doesn’t even have to be a tech-related idea. I've heard of a guy, Bemu, in Japan, a Finnish software developer, who mails out Japanese candy as his side project, - a fun and unique idea! It doesn’t always have to contain a heavy tech component. Stick with what you love, and that’s good life advice also!
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If you love cycling and think there should be an app to share cycling tracks, then go build it! It doesn’t have to be serious; it can just be for laughs. For example, Mario, some of you know, has been working on a kebab app, which points to the nearest kebab shop! It’s currently a work in progress, but starting with what you love is key, especially while looking for gaps in markets.
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A good rule of thumb for your first cut of your side project is to limit it to less than 10 hours. This advice comes from Sasha Greif, who believes that a large timeframe leads to procrastination. If it’s more than 10 hours, it might create pressure and be harder to finish. By keeping a tight time constraint, you're forced to think critically about your project. The key is to focus on one core value and to get that out the door.
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The idea is to create something that serves its function without getting lost in unnecessary details, such as signup forms or large additional features. Side projects are meant to be low pressure; they can really help you hone in on what's most important. You have nothing to lose, so channel your risks accordingly. You'll find that as you get more comfortable, taking calculated risks in your side project becomes easier.
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You might be worried about launching something that tanks or gets laughed off, but at the end of the day, most people will not remember your past failures. I’ve worked on many side projects that flopped; it’s just part of the experience. You’ll likely share these stories only when discussing your journey. So don’t let fear hold you back—get out there and finish something! There are lessons that you'll learn along the way, and while those early mistakes might hurt, they will build your understanding.
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Building a community or any structure from scratch requires observation and learning from your missteps. The key is to iterate and improve rather than sit back and worry. Seeing things through is a skill you can practice—just like anything else in life. If you keep trying by starting small, you will gain confidence over time.
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Remember, great things don’t just happen; they develop over time and through patience. Big successes often build incrementally. You can utilize your early side project failures to lead into something that will work. Secrets aren't given. The main takeaway is doing it—putting in the hours to practice. While at RubyConf, I challenge you to look for an idea, commit to it, and simply get started on it.
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Don’t worry about the specifics too much in the start. Set a small goal; if 10 hours feels like too much, start with something that will only take two. Get it done and move on. My challenge to all of you is to choose a side project idea, commit to it, and take time to work on it. You might discover you can integrate parts of your existing skills or even write a blog post about your experiences. The key is to start somewhere! Great things happen when you're in the arena; I look forward to seeing all the side projects that come out of this conference, and I hope you enjoy the rest of it. Thank you very much!
