The Side Project Graveyard: Why 90% of Developer Projects Die (And How to Be the 10%)

I have a folder on my desktop called "Projects."

It has 47 subdirectories. Want to guess how many of those projects are finished?

Three. Three.

The rest? Dead. Abandoned. Half-built monuments to optimism and ADHD. There's "TaskMaster3000" from 2019 (never launched). "QuickNotes" from 2020 (stopped at 60% done). "DevToolkit" from 2021 (abandoned after I discovered someone else built the same thing better).

I'm not unique. Talk to any developer and they'll show you the same graveyard. We start projects with enthusiasm, work on them for a few weeks, then they quietly fade into that folder where side projects go to die.

According to literally every survey on this topic, 90% of developer side projects never ship. Some studies say it's higher. We start 10 projects, finish 1, and call ourselves "bad at finishing things."

But what if you're not bad at finishing? What if most side projects are designed to fail from day one, and nobody told you?

This is the brutally honest guide to why side projects die—and how to be the 10% who actually ship.

The Side Project Lifecycle (You've Lived This)

Let me tell you a story you've lived a hundred times.

Week 1: The Spark ✨

You're in the shower. Or driving. Or reading Hacker News. Suddenly: idea. A brilliant, perfect idea that nobody has built yet (they have, you just don't know it yet).

"I'm going to build a tool that [solves problem you have]. It'll be so useful! I could even charge for it! This is The One!"

You rush to your computer. You create the repo. You pick the perfect tech stack. You write a beautiful README with a roadmap. You make your first commit: "Initial commit "

You're going to ship this. For real this time.

Week 2-3: The Honeymoon Phase

You're coding every evening. The app is taking shape. You're making progress. You're excited to work on it. You tell your friends about it. You tweet "Building in public!" with a screenshot.

You research competitors. Good news: they're all bad! Your version will be better! You start thinking about pricing. Maybe $9/month? $29? You'll figure it out.

Week 4-6: The Grind

The fun parts are done. Now you're implementing authentication. And user settings. And email notifications. And password reset flows. And error handling. And loading states.

This is boring. You didn't sign up for this. You wanted to build cool features, not boring infrastructure.

You start working on it less. 5 nights a week becomes 3. Then 2. You tell yourself you're "just taking a break."

Week 7-12: The Fade

You haven't touched it in 2 weeks. You feel guilty every time you see the project folder. You think "I should work on that" but you don't.

A new idea pops up. This one is way better. Way more exciting. You start researching it...

Month 4+: The Graveyard

The project is dead. You'll never admit it's dead. "I'm still planning to finish it" you tell yourself. But you know. It's over.

You start a new project. The cycle begins again.

Sound familiar? Yeah. Me too. Let's talk about why.

Why Side Projects Die: The Real Reasons (Not the Ones You Tell Yourself)

You tell yourself you failed because you're lazy, undisciplined, or you "don't have time." That's what I told myself for years.

But after finishing 3 side projects (and abandoning 40+), I figured out the real reasons. And they have nothing to do with discipline.

Reason 1: You're Solving a Problem You Don't Actually Have

Be honest. How many of your side projects were built to solve a problem you actually experienced?

Most developers build "solutions" to hypothetical problems:

• "Wouldn't it be cool if there was a tool that..."
• "I bet people would pay for..."
• "This would be really useful for..."

Notice the pattern? You're building for imaginary users, not yourself.

Here's the problem: If you don't personally feel the pain of the problem, you won't stay motivated to solve it.

When the project gets hard (and it will), you'll quit. Why? Because you don't need the solution. You thought it sounded cool. Cool doesn't carry you through authentication hell.

My three successful projects? All scratched my own itch:

• Project 1: A tool that auto-generates social media images for my blog posts. I was annoyed at designing them manually. Now I use it every week.
• Project 2: A Chrome extension that blocks distracting websites during work hours. I needed this. When development got boring, I pushed through because I wanted to use it.
• Project 3: A script that automates my dev environment setup. Every time I got a new machine or reformatted, I'd spend 4 hours reinstalling everything. Not anymore.

Notice something? They're all selfish. I built them for me. Other people using them is a bonus.

If you're not user #1, you're building on sand.

Reason 2: You're Building a Product, Not a Project

There's a difference:

A project is something you build for fun, learning, or personal use. It's "done" when it works for you. No users, no marketing, no support. Just code.

A product is something you build for other people. It needs users, marketing, documentation, support, updates, bug fixes, and oh god you have to think about billing and taxes and terms of service.

Most developers start a "side project" but actually have "side product" ambitions. They want users. They want revenue. They want to launch on Product Hunt.

But they're treating it like a project—coding alone at night with no validation, no users, no marketing plan.

You can't build a product like a project. Products require business work, not just code. If you're not willing to do the business work, build a project instead.

Project mindset: "I'll build this for myself. If others want it, cool. If not, whatever."

Product mindset: "I'll validate demand first, build an MVP, get 10 users, then iterate based on feedback."

Pick one. But stop trying to do both.

Reason 3: Your Scope Is Insane

You know that meme: "I'm going to build the next [huge successful product]!"

Yeah, that's your problem.

Developers are hilariously bad at scoping side projects. We think:

• "I'll build a full social media platform with messaging and video calls!"
• "I'll make an all-in-one productivity suite!"
• "I'll create a platform that connects [group A] with [group B] and has a marketplace and analytics dashboard!"

Cool. That's 18 months of full-time work. You have 5 hours a week. Do the math.

The projects that ship are stupidly small. Like, embarrassingly small. So small you're ashamed to tell people about them.

Here's what shipping looks like:

• Not "a productivity platform" → A script that blocks Twitter during work hours
• Not "an e-commerce solution" → A Shopify theme for one specific niche
• Not "a developer tool suite" → A CLI that does one thing well

My most successful side project makes $2K/month. It's 400 lines of code. One feature. That's it.

My failures? All 10,000+ lines. All "platforms." All dead.

If you can't build it in a weekend, the scope is too big.

Reason 4: You're Coding Instead of Validating

Here's what you do: You have an idea. You immediately start coding. You spend 3 months building. You launch. Nobody cares.

"But I built it! It works! Why doesn't anyone want it?"

Because you never asked if they wanted it before you built it.

Validation doesn't mean "ask your friends if it's a good idea." Your friends will lie to you. They'll say "yeah that sounds cool!" to be supportive. That's not validation.

Validation means:

• Finding people who have the problem
• Confirming they actually want a solution (not just agreeing it's annoying)
• Ideally, getting them to pay before you build

How to validate without coding:

1. Write a landing page – Explain the product. Add an email signup. Buy $20 of Google Ads. If nobody signs up, the idea sucks. Move on.

2. Sell it before you build it – Create a Gumroad page. Price it at $29. Share it. If 10 people pay for something that doesn't exist yet, NOW build it. If nobody pays, saved yourself 3 months.

3. Do it manually first – Before building automation, do the task manually for 10 people. If you hate it or nobody values it, don't automate it.

I know, I know. You want to build, not validate. You're a developer, not a marketer.

Cool. Enjoy your graveyard of projects nobody uses.

Reason 5: You're Perfectionist-Procrastinating

You know that thing where you rewrite the authentication system for the third time because "it's not clean enough yet"?

Or where you spend a week debating which state management library to use?

Or where you refuse to launch because "the UI isn't perfect yet"?

That's not perfectionism. That's fear disguised as quality standards.

You're afraid:

• Afraid it won't work
• Afraid people will hate it
• Afraid you'll launch and nobody will care
• Afraid you'll look stupid

So you keep working on it. You keep "improving" it. You keep it private where it's safe.

But here's the truth: Shipping a mediocre product is better than perfecting a product nobody sees.

The best products are embarrassingly bad at launch. Twitter was buggy and crashed constantly. Facebook was college-only and ugly. Amazon was just books.

They shipped something, learned from users, and improved. You're trying to skip the learning part. You can't.

Launch when it's 60% done. I promise, you'll cringe, but you'll learn more in a week than you did in the previous 3 months.

The Psychology of Abandonment: Why Your Brain Betrays You

Let's talk about dopamine.

When you start a new project, your brain floods with dopamine. New! Exciting! Possibility! You're energized. You code for hours without noticing.

This is the honeymoon phase. It feels amazing. You think "this time is different!"

But dopamine is a liar. It doesn't care about finishing. It cares about novelty.

After a few weeks, the novelty wears off. The dopamine stops. Now the project is work. Boring, tedious work. Your brain screams "DO SOMETHING NEW!"

So you do. New project. New dopamine hit. The cycle continues.

This isn't a discipline problem. This is neuroscience. Your brain is literally wired to seek novelty over completion.

How to fight it:

1. Build in public – Social accountability. When people are watching, quitting feels worse. Tweet your progress daily.

2. Set a ship date – "I will launch on March 1st, no matter what." The deadline forces completion. No deadline = no urgency = no shipping.

3. Find a co-builder – Solo projects are lonely. Partner with someone. Weekly check-ins. Shared accountability.

4. Make it smaller – Dopamine comes from completion. If your project takes 6 months, you get zero completion hits. If you ship micro-features weekly, you get weekly wins.

5. Remember: Shipping > perfection – Finished and mediocre beats perfect and non-existent. Every. Single. Time.

Time Management for 9-to-5 Devs (The Real Talk)

Let's address the elephant in the room: "I don't have time."

You work 9-to-5 (realistically 9-to-7). You're tired after work. You have a partner, friends, hobbies, a life. Where's the time for side projects?

The uncomfortable truth: You probably don't have time for side projects.

Wait, what?

Here's the thing: side projects aren't a time management problem. They're a priority problem.

You have time for what you prioritize. If your side project mattered as much as your Netflix shows, you'd find time. But it doesn't, so you don't.

And that's okay! Not everyone needs a side project! If you're happy with your job and your free time, don't force it!

But if you want to build, here's how:

The "1 Hour Sacred" Rule

Forget "work on it when you have time." You never have time.

Instead: 1 hour, same time, every day.

Not "evenings." Not "when I feel like it." 6-7 AM before work. Or 9-10 PM after dinner. Pick one. Block it in your calendar. Treat it like a meeting.

1 hour doesn't sound like much. But 1 hour/day = 7 hours/week = 30 hours/month = 365 hours/year.

That's enough to ship multiple projects.

The "No Scope Creep" Commandment

You have limited time. Every hour matters.

No new features until you ship. Write them down. Put them in a "v2" list. But don't build them now.

The goal is to ship, not to build the perfect product. Ship first. Add features later.

The "Energy Management" Hack

After work, you're mentally drained. Your brain is mush. Don't force yourself to code during mush-brain hours.

Instead: Use low-energy hours for low-energy tasks:

• Write docs (boring but necessary)
• Design UI (more creative, less logical)
• Plan features (thinking, not coding)
• Write marketing copy

Save high-energy hours (mornings?) for actual coding.

Validation Before Building: The Framework That Saves Time

Let me give you a framework I wish I'd known 10 years ago. It saves months of wasted work.

The 3-Question Filter

Before writing a single line of code, answer these:

1. Do I personally need this?

• Yes → Continue
• No → Stop. You'll quit when it gets hard.

2. Can I build and launch an MVP in 2 weeks?

• Yes → Continue
• No → Cut scope until the answer is yes

3. Would I pay $10 for this?

• Yes → Continue
• No → Why would anyone else?

If you can't answer yes to all three, don't build it.

The "10 People" Test

Before you launch publicly:

1. Find 10 people who have the problem
2. Show them your half-finished solution
3. Ask if they'd pay for it (and how much)
4. If 7+ say yes, finish it
5. If <7 say yes, kill it

This test saved me from wasting months on projects nobody wanted. Do it early. Do it honestly.

Shipping vs. Perfectionism: Just Launch the Damn Thing

You know what the difference between successful indie hackers and everyone else is?

They ship ugly products.

Seriously. Go look at the first version of any successful product. They're bad. Ugly UI. Missing features. Bugs everywhere.

But they shipped. And then they improved.

You're trying to skip the "ship ugly" phase. You're trying to launch perfect. It's not going to happen.

Here's your new definition of "ready to launch":

• Does it solve the core problem? (even barely?)
• Does it work without crashing? (most of the time?)
• Can people use it without instructions? (kinda?)

If yes to all three: Launch. Now.

But what about:

• "The UI is ugly" → Nobody cares if it solves their problem
• "There are bugs" → Fix them when people report them
• "It's missing features" → Add them in v2
• "People will judge me" → Nobody's paying attention, I promise

I launched my first successful product with a UI I was embarrassed by. Buttons were misaligned. Colors were awful. The logo was literally just text.

First month: 120 users. 8 paying customers. $180 revenue.

Turns out people care more about solutions than aesthetics.

Real Success Stories: How They Did It

Let me share some stories of developers who actually finished their side projects. Not the famous ones—regular people like you.

Story 1: The Developer Who Built a $4K/Month SaaS Working 1 Hour/Day

Jake (not his real name) worked at a startup as a frontend dev. He noticed he kept copying the same email templates between projects.

So he built a tiny SaaS: a library of email templates for developers. HTML emails, pre-coded, customizable.

Scope: Super small. Just templates. No editor, no fancy features. Just copy-paste code.

Time invested: 1 hour every morning before work, for 3 weeks.

Launch: Posted on Reddit's webdev community. Got 40 signups first day. 3 people paid for the premium pack ($29).

Today: $4K/month. Still works 1 hour/day. Adds one new template per week. That's it.

Key lesson: Solve your own problem. Keep it tiny. Ship fast.

Story 2: The Side Project That Became a $80K Acquisition

Maria built a Chrome extension that auto-formats code when you copy it from GitHub. She was annoyed at reformatting snippets manually.

Took her 2 weekends to build. Launched on Product Hunt. Got 2,000 users in a week.

Made it free with a "buy me a coffee" button. Made $400 in donations the first month.

Someone from a dev tools company reached out. Offered to buy it for $80K. She said yes.

Key lesson: Even tiny projects have value. Don't overthink it.

Story 3: The Developer Who Finished 0 Projects for 5 Years, Then Shipped 5 in One Year

This one's me.

I abandoned projects for 5 years straight. Always the same pattern: start excited, quit when it got boring.

What changed? I lowered my standards and started building just for me.

I stopped asking "will this make money?" and started asking "will I use this tomorrow?"

Projects I shipped:

1. A script that auto-generates social images for my blog (use it weekly)
2. A website blocker Chrome extension (use it daily)
3. A dev environment setup script (used it 3 times, saved 12 hours total)
4. A Notion template for tracking habits (sold 40 copies for $5 each)
5. A tiny CLI tool for converting files (use it occasionally)

None of them are impressive. None of them made me rich. But I finished them. And finishing feels better than the graveyard of perfect ideas.

Your Action Plan: Ship in 30 Days

Okay, enough theory. Here's your 30-day plan to actually ship something:

Week 1: Idea + Validation

• Day 1-2: List 10 problems you personally have. Pick the most annoying one.
• Day 3-4: Find 10 people with the same problem (Twitter, Reddit, forums). Ask if they'd pay $10-20 for a solution.
• Day 5-7: Define the smallest possible MVP. Cut every feature that's not essential. Cut more.

Week 2-3: Build (Fast and Ugly)

• Goal: Build the core feature. Ignore everything else.
• No authentication (add later)
• No user settings (add later)
• No pretty UI (add later)
• Just make the thing work

Week 4: Launch

• Day 22-24: Make it barely presentable. One landing page. One CTA. That's it.
• Day 25: Launch. Post on Twitter, Reddit, Indie Hackers, wherever your audience is.
• Day 26-30: Talk to the first 10 users. Fix critical bugs. Ignore feature requests (for now).

30 days. One project. Shipped.

Not perfect. Not impressive. But done.

The Real Lesson: Done Is Better Than Perfect

Let me end with this:

Your project graveyard isn't a failure. It's training data.

Every abandoned project taught you something. What you liked coding. What you hated. What worked. What didn't. That's valuable.

But at some point, you need to stop collecting lessons and start shipping.

The 10% who ship aren't smarter than you. They're not more disciplined. They're not more talented.

They just decided that done is better than perfect.

They shipped something small, ugly, and incomplete. And then they improved it. And then they shipped again.

That's it. That's the secret.

So here's my challenge: Pick one idea. The smallest one. Build it in 2 weeks. Launch it.

I don't care if it's perfect. I don't care if it's embarrassing. I don't care if nobody uses it.

Just ship it.

Because a shipped project—even a mediocre one—is infinitely more valuable than 47 perfect projects sitting in a folder called "Projects."

Go build something. Actually finish it. Then come back and tell me you did it.

I'll be waiting.