Ask HN: Obsessing over Side Project Metrics
For the past year I've been pushing my side projects harder to make something more formidable out of them in the hopes of someday achieving either financial freedom or freedom to completely rely on them for income.
But for a couple weeks now, I've started feeling down when I'm staring at all the metrics related to my projects. I'd obsessively look at my downloads, conversions, page views and what have you.
Earlier this week I had a revelation. What I was doing was in no way helping my work or the users - it was just bringing me down because I was comparing with all the people who had "made it" already. And feeling anxious about not getting overnight success.
Couple days I decided to stop that. For all those moments I'd rather read a book or play with the kids or listen to the wife. Feeling a bit better already to be honest, and interestingly somehow more... free.
I guess you can set out to find freedom but get trapped in pursuing it.
An open Ask HN community consultation from 2020 where @frankbyte convened hundreds of developers and bootstrappers to share real experiences, hard numbers, and tactics.
Hundreds of active indie hackers contributed case studies, pricing heuristics, and pitfalls to avoid when moonlighting on side projects.
Set a weekly time to review your metrics. Do it every time on time and take actions based on the analysis. If you take no action, monitoring metrics is pointless. A decision tree is a great way to make positive progress without the obsession.
Look at you, already shipped products. Here I am with my current side project not launched yet and all the old ones offline.