I'm starting this year the same way I start every year, with a New Year's resolution to make some money from my side projects. It hasn't happened in the past, but as I'm getting older, I realise that if I want to retire at a reasonable age rather than being worked into the ground, I really need to pull my finger out and make it happen.
So I've set myself a goal - I want to end 2026 earning £1,000 MMR from my side projects. It doesn't sound like much, but given my track history (of £0 revenue), even this figure is going to be very challenging.
Looking back over the last few years working on my side projects, I've noticed a pattern of overload and paralysis - I need to write a blog, build new features, submit my site for backlinks, write a newsletter, research competitors, be an active participant in the communities and spaces my potential customers are in, maintain a 9-5 (until I hit it big), dad's taxi to school and clubs, spend time with the wife and kids etc etc.
It's not too long before all these result in sheer overload and spiral into decision fatigue, analysis paralysis, quickly followed by imposter syndrome, and I end up doing something completely different to avoid feeling like I've failed - again. A lot of the time, I'm worrying about problems, the obvious ones - What if my product flops? What if folks think I'm a crap developer? and the unexpected ones - What if my product succeeds? How am I going to juggle supporting it and a 9-5? These are problems I likely won't encounter for months, possibly years, if at all, but the "what-if" is enough to stop me in my tracks.
Over the Christmas break, I spent a little time pondering all this, and I realised I'm not a crap developer.
- My 9-5 has employed me based on my skills are happy with my performance.
- Last year, I built a digital noticeboard (https://noticeboards.info) for the pipe band my daughter is part of
- And a good friend has asked me to consult on a new greenfield project.
These people believe I've got what it takes to build and run these things, so I need to have more faith in my own abilities.
But it's clear to me that I can't do everything. Unlike the indiehackers/buildinpublic influencers on X/BlueSky who are constantly blowing up my feed, I'm not fortunate enough to have free days or weeks to build things to scratch my own itch (but hopefully one day I will). Don't get me wrong, I have great respect for these individuals and what they've achieved is amazing, but they now feel completely detached from the ethos of indiehacking / bootstrapping, for me anyway.
For me, it's about getting started with nothing - no audience, no money, no time and building something successful from it. These individuals have already achieved this, sometimes several times, and are inspiring, but are now so completely disconnected from those starting on their journey, it now serves as a reminder that I'm not shipping 12 features a day, not making $50K MRR, not by the pool with my laptop, and telling me that the imposter syndrome I'm feeling is right.
It's not healthy to try and hold myself up to their level, not if I want to achieve anything. I need to ground myself, to go back to the ethos I associate with indie-hacking and buildinpublic, to trying to build something with "no audience, no money, no time", and interact with others at this same point on their journey - I feel that's where the real value is.
So rather than trying to do everything, I've decided to restrict my focus - to go slow instead of push for the "now now now" hustle culture - and see if I get better traction that way. My back-of-a-napkin plan for each month is roughly
- 1 x Product Feature
- 1 x Blog article
- 1 x Marketing / Research
- 1 x Documentation updates
- 1 x Monthly Standup article with what I've done/achieved/going to do next.
The newsletter has fallen off the list for now, but I might resurrect that in a few months as a lift-and-shift of the monthly stand-up article, depending on how well I get on.
So let's consider this the "1 x Blog Article" for January - Give me a shout if this post resonates with you, and I'll see you again in next month.
Originally published at https://chrisshennan.com/blog/new-years-resolution-2026-1000-mmr