Side Projects
I’ve learned a lot over the years from Jason Fried. He’s sort of my mentor, although I’ve never met him. He’s one of the first successful people that I immediately associated with. He’s a Designer who loves simplicity (me too). He cares more about making his products work than pleasing everyone and anyone. He also doesn’t act like a “businessman.” He acts like a successful person. He has office hours where you can call him and chat about business or whatever. He treats his employees like great employees deserve to be treated and he just gets it when it comes to running things they way they should be run. His employees are some of the best compensated in the world. When you start at 37Signals (which takes more than a good interview), you get a company credit card. Without a limit. Seriously… Use it for whatever you want. He doesn’t act like a parent. He treats his employees like important people. He values them for the work they do. Other than that, he stays out of the way.
The reason for all this Fried-fervor is a side project that I’ve been working on with a friend called InvoiceStorm (site prototype). It’s an application for freelancers like me, as well as small and medium businesses.
We didn’t quit our day-jobs to do this project. We could have and maybe would have been done already, but we kept it a “side-project” as Jason (and others) have recommended. That way there was never any pressure on us to pay the bills or succeed at the cost of a quality product. At every turn I think, “wow, this is sort of how 37Signals was started.” It’s been driving me to find more and more time to devote to my new baby and it’s slowly becoming my main project. When it launches, I’ll likely have to slow down or stop my freelancing and devote more serious time to it – The goal being a full-time job working on the sites & software that I’ve created with amazingly talented people.
Does your project have that kind of importance to you? Do you feel excited for the chance to work on something that matters? If not, maybe it’s time.