Further Inspiration

Here are some life-changing side projects that people have shipped and that you can also do.

  • Jennifer Dewalt shipped 180 sites in 180 days while learning to code and now is now the technical cofounder of a YCombinator-backed startup.
  • Jessica Hische practiced design by shipping one drop cap a day every day since Sept 2009.
  • Niklas Göke built a massive audience by writing one book summary a day since 2016.
  • Casey Neistat put up a daily vlog for 550 days and became “one of the Internet’s most famous celebrities.”
  • Kate Bingaman practiced illustration by drawing something she purchased every day from 2006 to 2014.
  • Michelle Poler decided to get over fear by spending one-hundred days facing her fears. This kick-started her motivational speaking career. Jia Jiang did the same with rejection.
  • Megan Gebhart couldn’t decide what she wanted to do, so she decided to have a cup of coffee with a different person every week for a year.
  • Both Pieter Levels and the Shooting Unicorns duo decided to do twelve projects in twelve months, and both didn’t complete it because they found something so successful that it became their full-time gig.
  • This book was shipped by writing 2-4000 words every day from April 10th to June 1st, 2020.

Of course, entire companies, from Slack (an offshoot of a failed MMORPG) to Apple (a side project of an Atari employee), have emerged from side projects.

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