Buying Someone's Side Project: a Waste of Money?
A founder's only job before reaching product-market fit is: to find product-market fit.
I like Mondays, because somewhere halfway through the day the SideProjectors newsletter lands in my inbox.
It's a showcase of the latest side projects that people uploaded to their website. Some products are for sale, some are seeking co-founders, and others just want to show off. I can end a Monday with sipping coffee and look for the hidden gems and good deals.
(No, we aren’t affiliated with SideProjectors in any way.)
Like many of you reading the TechEye newsletter, I too have projects being built on the side. All my current side projects are before reaching product-market fit.
A founder's only job before reaching product-market fit is, to find product-market fit.
We don’t “focus on” building a great product, we don’t “focus on” getting customers, we don’t “focus on” changing the world.
We focus on building a business. A defensible business is the only way to survive in the long term.
All the other things are a side effect. Startups build great products, because that helps building a great business.
Browsing side projects is important because sometimes they can help getting to product-market fit cheaper. Purchasing products can make perfect sense if you can use them to answer some of the questions you could answer by building an MVP — but quicker.
Before you build anything, look at the free and open source projects out there. There’s always a chance that you’d get lucky if you just look at Github.
Onwards,
to happy Mondays!
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PS, I have in fact bought side projects before, but never from SideProjectors. Also, do yourself a favor and talk to a lawyer before making offers.
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PS, PS, as always, we’d love to hear your thoughts! Ping us over on Twitter or in an email.
Talk soon!