How to ship a side project on evenings only

You will not find more hours, so the only variable you control is scope. Projects that ship after work are the ones where the first release was embarrassingly small and the build order put the boring, risky parts first, while motivation was still high enough to survive them.

  1. Define the smallest thing that is usable by one person

    Not a demo, not an MVP in the fundraising sense. One person, one job, done. Everything else is version two.

  2. Do the boring risky part first

    Auth, payments, deploy. These are what kill projects at week six, and they are far easier to face in week one.

  3. Ship broken rather than late

    A live thing with rough edges teaches you more in a day than another month of polish, because real users find the actual problems.

  4. Automate the repeat, not the build

    Automating deployment pays back every week. Automating the thing you will do once does not.

The method behind the projects Kevin actually shipped on evenings, including a live game site, a DR 70 directory and a blog network that publishes on its own.

How to Ship a Side Project When You Only Have Evenings | Kevin Gabeci