Build Something Someone Would Miss

Your side project doesn't need a landing page. It doesn't need a logo, user authentication, or dark mode. It needs exactly one thing: someone who would be genuinely pissed if it disappeared tomorrow.

That's it. That's the entire framework. Everything else — the domain name debates, the color palette tweaks, the "should I use React or Vue?" paralysis — is procrastination in a nicer font.

The Dinner Table Test

Here's a quick gut check: would anyone, anywhere, mention your project at dinner without being prompted? Not "my friend is building an app" — but "I use this thing every week and it saves me hours." If the answer is no, you're building in a vacuum.

Most side projects fail not because the idea was bad, but because nobody needed them badly enough to care. The builder spent six months on auth flows and database schemas before ever asking: "who is this actually for?"

Find Your One Person

Not your target market. Not your ideal customer profile. One person. Someone with a real, annoying, recurring problem they complain about to friends. Build something that solves that specific problem for that specific person. Make it ugly. Make it a Google Sheet with some formulas if that's what it takes. Just make it work enough that they'd notice if it vanished.

DHH built Basecamp for himself and his small agency. Notion started as an internal tool. WhatsApp began because Jan Koum kept missing calls at the gym. None of them started with a pitch deck. They started with a problem they — or someone they knew — actually had.

The "Delete It" Thought Experiment

Before you write another line of code this weekend, ask yourself: if I deleted this project right now, would anyone's life get harder? Would anyone email me asking where it went? Would anyone even notice?

If the honest answer is no — good. Now you know what actually matters: not the feature list, not the tech stack, but the one user who can't live without it. Go find them first. Build second.

Everything else is just practice.