They aren't all good ideas. Start with your goals.
Do you want to "build something" where you follow through all the way to launch and hit some # of users that will feel like you "did it"?
Do you want to replace your day job? Do you want to raise funding and explode into the sun? Do you want to learn specific things throughout the process?
After you know why you want to work something, then rank your possible projects through the lens of "most likely to achieve my goals".
Lots to consider during that process: how excited you are about the thing, dogfooding opportunities, market size, competitive landscape, problem scale, technical challenges, business overhead (admin required beyond just coding the product).
Without any additional context I'd suggest building something that: you'll use (helps with motivation and you are your first user), will stretch your skills and challenge you to improve weaknesses (even if it fails, you've grown), can be launched then improved and extended through incremental iteration (avoid an all-or-nothing megaproject).
Very well said and I am amazed to see that a lot of us fail to realize this key thing about life. If you don't have goals of some sort, it becomes a lot harder to do anything with a purpose. I am not saying everyone needs to have some crazy goals but you need to ask yourself: where do I see myself in next 2,5,7,10 years and you work your way through it then.
Starting a side project also should follow this. Yes we all have lot of ideas that are similar, nothing new. We all struggle to focus on that ONE thing to start with. The reason is because we are fearful. We fear what if that ONE thing fails since we have so many ideas. We analyze and paralyze. Result is: we do nothing.
Ok so lets say you have your 2,5 years goal set. Now lets say multiple ideas could take you there in theory (since you don't know for sure without trying execeution). In that case, give yourself few days.
Day 1: Make a list of all your best ideas that you want to execute on.
Day 2: You have a gun to your head. Take 1 idea off that list. Only one. leave the rest. Once you discard the idea, you can not add it back to the list.
Day 3-n: Repeat Day 2 until you are left with that 1 idea.
Final day: execute, execute, execute. No remorse. No guilt on dropping other ideas.
Comments
They aren't all good ideas. Start with your goals.
Do you want to "build something" where you follow through all the way to launch and hit some # of users that will feel like you "did it"?
Do you want to replace your day job? Do you want to raise funding and explode into the sun? Do you want to learn specific things throughout the process?
After you know why you want to work something, then rank your possible projects through the lens of "most likely to achieve my goals".
Lots to consider during that process: how excited you are about the thing, dogfooding opportunities, market size, competitive landscape, problem scale, technical challenges, business overhead (admin required beyond just coding the product).
Without any additional context I'd suggest building something that: you'll use (helps with motivation and you are your first user), will stretch your skills and challenge you to improve weaknesses (even if it fails, you've grown), can be launched then improved and extended through incremental iteration (avoid an all-or-nothing megaproject).
"Start with your goals"
Very well said and I am amazed to see that a lot of us fail to realize this key thing about life. If you don't have goals of some sort, it becomes a lot harder to do anything with a purpose. I am not saying everyone needs to have some crazy goals but you need to ask yourself: where do I see myself in next 2,5,7,10 years and you work your way through it then.
Starting a side project also should follow this. Yes we all have lot of ideas that are similar, nothing new. We all struggle to focus on that ONE thing to start with. The reason is because we are fearful. We fear what if that ONE thing fails since we have so many ideas. We analyze and paralyze. Result is: we do nothing.
Ok so lets say you have your 2,5 years goal set. Now lets say multiple ideas could take you there in theory (since you don't know for sure without trying execeution). In that case, give yourself few days.
Day 1: Make a list of all your best ideas that you want to execute on.
Day 2: You have a gun to your head. Take 1 idea off that list. Only one. leave the rest. Once you discard the idea, you can not add it back to the list.
Day 3-n: Repeat Day 2 until you are left with that 1 idea.
Final day: execute, execute, execute. No remorse. No guilt on dropping other ideas.
Thank you for your take - it's helpful to hear your approach