I’m gonna be a HackStar! Part 2: Doin stuff just ’cause (you love it)
Founder dating was awesome and it gave me a taste of what was going on outside of my 9-5 world. That being said, knowing about something and wanting it doesn’t necessarily make you qualified for it. The TechStars 2010 teams had been chosen and the program moved to the back of my mind for the time being. Work was going pretty well so I was content (happy, in fact) to keep doing my 9-5 and screw around with whatever side projects I could in my freetime.
CheckoutCheckins.com
I was a foursquare fan, so I wanted to play around with their API (one of the best around in my opinion). I made CheckoutCheckins, a (now defunct) Google Maps/Foursquare mashup. Decided it could be cool with a mobile app so I started playing around with Android. After experimenting with that I had a hairbrained scheme to send a phone into space so I started a Kickstarter project to do it. That got me more involved in android so I’d have an idea every couple weeks and put it into action.
Astdroid, a Kickstarter funded phone-in-space project
In the time between Founder Dating and applying again for TechStars again in 2011 I put out 2 mashup websites and 10 android apps, just about an idea a month. I didn’t do it eyeing a TechStars spot, I did it because it was fun for me. Sure, there were a couple ideas that I thought “Oooo, if this goes well I can make some money!”, but it was more about creating things and learning something new and interesting than anything else. (Sidenote: they never did make money)
My most visited website got about 10,000 views and my most successful app has been downloaded about 4,000 times. Plenty of people working on stuff in their spare time have had far greater successes. Nonetheless, my “cred” seemed to slowly build. At first it was a couple tweets, then some emails asking to talk, toward the end I even had foursquare request my resume.
My intention in the onset wasn’t to leave my job, it was just to build cool stuff and put some ideas into action. The side effect of that was that I was proving that I could execute. Doing so began to attract attention from those looking for workers (particularly in the Android realm). It also had the added benefit of being a HUGE piece of the TechStars application. You have a lot more going for you when you say “I did this and this and this” then you do saying “I can do this, just haven’t yet”.
If I had only tinkered with projects that I made me money or granted me fame, I’d have nothing to show today. I did it all because it was fun for me and I wanted to. Pretty simple. It’s as cliché as cliché gets, but I worked on what I loved working because I loved working on it and the rest of the good stuff came as a consequence.
