How to Build Side Projects 🕹️
How to stick with them, and why you should start them in the first place. A chat with Vic Vijayakumar.
My longest professional experiences have been, respectively:
CTO at Wanderio — my former startup, for 10 years, and
Writer (?!) at Refactoring, for 3 years and counting.
Both were born as side projects.
When I started Wanderio I was a PhD student, and when I started Refactoring I was a manager at Translated. In both cases, I stayed for one more year and then I left to turn that side project into a full time gig.
I may also give a shout-out to other, less successful projects from the past:
In 2018 I created a mobile app called Fuorigioco (Italian for offside) to play fantasy football with friends.
In 2020, during lockdown, I created an app called Trovaspesa to help people in Rome buy groceries online.
Both apps kind of bombed, but taught me solid lessons:
With Fuorigioco I learned React Native + Expo, which then I used a lot in Wanderio.
With Trovaspesa I had to do sales by talking with tens of local shops over the phone. I had never done this in my life and I learned a lot.
This was supposed to be just a short intro before I tell you more about my recent chat with Vic Vijayakumar, principal engineer and side project master. But I got sidetracked, which is just fitting given today’s theme.
When I prepared for the chat, I figured out Vic has a lot on his plate:
He has a happy family with three young kids.
He is Principal Engineer at Twilio.
He runs multiple small SaaS apps.
He runs a podcast about engineering leadership.
He has a great online presence, with 13K+ followers on Twitter.
My whole idea was to inquire him about how he manages to do it all, but the conversation ended up being about much more than this. We covered a lot of ground, from how side projects saved him from burnout, to what productivity truly means.
So here is what we discussed, and what we will cover today:
🕹️ Why you should have a side project — there is more to it than just money or tech chops.
🔄 How to work on side projects — process, mindset, friction, and goals.
🔋 Productivity, constraints, and… kids — the counterintuitive rules that govern our energy.
⚖️ Tech choices for side projects — should you use what you know best, or the new shiny thing?
💪 Building is a muscle — a final recap with lessons learned and some parting advice.
Let’s dive in!
🕹️ Why you should have a side project
As an indie hacker myself, I have talked over the years with many people who run side projects.
A side project can be anything, really, but for the sake of this conversation let’s stick with stuff that has some relation to your work — say, if you are an engineer, some web or mobile app.
In many cases, people I talk with would take these things extremely seriously. They hustle to grow users and MRR, with the dream of quitting their job and do that full-time.
And there is nothing wrong, of course. I did that too 🙋♂️
But this is not the only reason why you may run projects on the side, even though threadbois want to convince you otherwise. When I spoke with Vic, in fact, I didn’t feel such a tension between his full-time job and his other projects. He loves his job! And he loves his projects, too.
So what’s the deal?
Let’s cover the main reasons why you should have a side project.
1) Skills 🎓
Side projects create excellent chances to practice new skills. Two examples:
Vic used to be a PHP developer, then he started using Next.js in a side project, eventually building the confidence to use it at work, and gradually became more of a JS developer.
I learned React Native + Expo to create a small app to play fantasy football with friends. The experience was awesome, and we later decided to use React Native for our Android app at work.
This doesn’t only apply to tech skills.
In general, you may want to look for skills that are complementary to your day job. Are you a backend developer? Try some frontend. Are you an IC? Do some project management, prioritize features of your small app, talk with users.
If your project is a small business—however small—it will make you practice marketing, product, design, and develop a proactive attitude that pays dividends on your regular job, too.
Speaking of jobs and dividends, let’s talk about money 👇
2) Money 💰
When you hear money discussions about side projects, these are usually about the revenues that your project generates. Projects, however, can also seriously accelerate your career, which also means more money down the line.
Not only, in fact, skills equal money — good projects look great on your resume, too. They make for great interview topics, and display the kind of attitude companies hire for.
