I'm Alyssa X, I've built and shipped 10+ products. AMA.

@darjanhren I think in order to be a successful maker (I don’t know if I would call that myself, haha) you need to have a lot of perseverance. While there’s a lot of makers who are proficient in multiple areas like design, development, marketing, and more, many are perfectionists who can’t manage to ship a single project, or they give up too easily at the slightest sign of adversity. To date I’ve probably built close to a hundred different little apps and prototypes, many of them failing or not even seeing the light of day, and with a lot of obstacles in the way (I could go on and on with all the setbacks I’ve had in pretty much all my projects, especially for those out of my comfort zone and skill level) but it’s never stopped me from keeping at it.

@hazim Thank you! I think in part it helps that it’s become a routine since I’ve been doing this non-stop for several years. I also have a bit of an obsession with being productive, I can’t stand sitting around doing nothing. There is just a lot of value to be had with making things, from getting all sorts of opportunities, to meeting awesome people. I’ve never worked on anything that I felt was a complete waste of my time, I always got something in return. So that’s sort of my motivation to keep going with it 🙂

@aaronoleary It might be a simple question, but it’s not necessarily easy to answer 😛 I feel like I enjoyed working on most of my projects (some were pretty tedious, for example Slashy, which I came close to giving up on), but the most fun one would probably be Jumpskip. Not only did I manage to solve a problem I was having, making it easier for me to watch horror movies (which I love), but I also really enjoyed how hacky it was to build. Sourcing the data and sorting it through for analyzing it was surprisingly fun to do, and it was really satisfying reverse engineering parts of the Netflix UI to make my own custom components. I think I might want to revisit this one in the future to add more functionality (different triggers), and make it available for other streaming platforms as well. Maybe I’ll do a write up at some point too, lots of things I’d like to talk about on this one!

@hfrdmnk I appreciate it! I think I’m just a bit of a hacky maker. My intention is to build things, not necessarily to become super knowledgable in a specific technology. So when I create things that require me to learn a new programming language, for example with Later, I tend to take as many shortcuts as I can to ship ASAP. I look into similar projects, read through their code, use StackOverflow a ton (who doesn’t?), and I particularly find useful watching videos to get a sense for how developers code using the specific language/framework. Sometimes just seeing in which order they write the code helps me understand how it works. For Swift specifically I found this video by Paul Hudson which helped me get started and then make the necessary changes to make it work the way I wanted.

@robertomorais I tend to work on my projects one by one, I don’t think I would be able to handle doing it in parallel, I’d end up prioritizing the product I enjoy working on more and forgetting about the rest. I also wouldn’t consider my projects businesses (they don’t really make money lol), so once I launch I don’t have a lot of work to maintain them, it’s much easier to handle in that sense. I think my tip in that regard is just to create things with low maintenance, I’ve refrained from working on projects with communities or where I’d need to proactively stay on top of it to make it work, it’s just too complicated.

@alyssaxuu Thanks for your answers. I think you nailed it with "Crate things with low maintenance", unconsciously this already was one of my priorities.

@mikk_martin 1. It mostly comes down to good planning. If you intend to build something in a short amount of time, make sure what you want to create isn’t too ambitious and wouldn’t require too much time to develop. I tend to identify the things that would be critical for a MVP, and those that would be nice to have, and then write it down in a Notion doc. Then over the weekend (as this is sort of a side hustle for me) I just keep picking some tasks, and try to get at least 5 of them done each day. I kind of cheat sometimes by creating easy ones, but psychologically I feel it helps me to keep going. I also think it’s important to avoid being a perfectionist. Many times I’ve had certain features, designs, or implementations I wasn’t perfectly happy with, but I refrained from reworking them just because it wouldn’t be worth the time, these things don’t make or break a product (usually). 2. Good question. I feel like I see all my projects as part of a plan, some sort of journey, in a way they are means to an end. Over the years I’ve set different goals for myself, early on I was trying to find a job for example, so I created projects that would look good in my portfolio, and made case studies and explorations for companies that I’d like to work for. More recently my goals changed a bit, looking for revenue and growing my audience, so I take those factors into account as well and see which of my ideas is more likely to help me achieve those. And of course I also prioritize projects that I find fun, or where I would have the chance of learning something new, such as for my app Later where I learnt a bit about Swift programming. Still, easier said than done, sometimes I end up blocked with multiple project ideas and it can take weeks before I decide on something (since I don’t want to start working on anything that I can’t finish, it’s a bit of a rule I set for myself).

@dimabraven It’s complicated, and I think lately I’ve been finding it harder and harder to come up with them. I usually try to look for problems I have, or even repetitive actions I could simplify to make more efficient. Sometimes I try to combine different products together (e.g. Figma + Google Maps = Mapus), or different mechanics. I think the easiest way to go about it is looking for an existing product, and thinking about how you can improve it - sometimes you don’t need to create something completely unique to build something great. For example with Screenity I saw some of the shortcomings of tools like Loom and Screencastify, and decided to address them with my own extension. There’s lots of ways to go about it for sure.

@kylerjphillips Hmm, I think I experienced the most growth from building Screenity. I had to learn how to use some new APIs and libraries, and overall it was pretty complicated, but I’ve been using a lot of the skills I learnt from it to build other products like Animockup, Mapus, Slashy, and more. I probably would do it all differently to be honest. I never expected it to get so big, and the way I coded it was pretty hacky so it has been difficult to add new features that users suggest or even fixing bugs in general. The main thing that bothers me about it is how I handled the completed recording screen, I remember I was super exhausted at that point and I pretty much put something together quickly without much thought, which ended up causing me a lot of problems afterwards trying to make it work properly and cleaning up the design to make it look acceptable. I think I will probably deal with this on a v2 which I’m hoping to work on soon though 😊

@yudax Appreciate it! I am not a full-time creator, I actually have a job as a product designer which I do throughout the week. It’s pretty hard to balance, mostly because I end up not having enough time to do things on my own. I essentially dedicate all of my weekends and all the free time I can find throughout the week to work on my own side projects, which is pretty tough. I’d like to say I have a good work/life balance, but the reality is that I don’t. I end up not being able to go out much, or do much at all, which sucks a bit. I just like to think it’s worth it for the opportunities it gets me, and maybe if I keep at it I could some day do this full-time, in a less crazy and demanding way.

@tim_kober I had plans to turn Mapus into a fully fledged product, the main issues I had were the fact that being a real-time collaborative tool it got expensive to run, and that the use cases are pretty niche. It mostly comes down to urban planning, organization for events or protests, helping in rapidly changing situations like emergencies, and things like that. Very few and varied ways to use the product, so there isn’t a very good way for me to market it and position it really, and much less make it cost effective, since I’d need to charge for it to break even. I did see Felt (https://felt.com/) recently launched which does essentially the same thing, and it seems to be pretty solid. Maybe one day I will revisit it!

@mikestaub I’d like to say I have some sort of intrinsic motivation and that I just work on projects because I find it fun, but that would be a lie. Sure, I do enjoy coming up with ideas and being able to see them to light, but a big reason why I build is because of the range of opportunities it offers. I’ve essentially built a very big and impressive portfolio over the years, which has helped me get plenty of jobs and meet all sorts of interesting people. Plus with every new project I create, my audience grows, which in return helps me have a bigger reach. And of course the obvious one, the money. It’s nice to have a bit of a passive income stream, it keeps things diversified and I don’t have to stress so much about life in a way 😛

@sarah_wright7 Thank you! I’ve been building things from a very young age, I suppose it all depends on your definition of a product 😅 I had been toying with creating my own Windows applications with Visual Basic when I was around 7, and creating games with Flash around that time as well. I just thought it was super fun to be able to invent anything that came to mind. Websites specifically didn’t come about until much later on, I think I must have been 15 or so when I had the idea to create my own social network, which obviously failed (pretty typical to have ambitious ideas early on, I learnt my lesson pretty quick). The first successful one I had I think was at 17, when I created a task manager as a high school project, with some degree of complexity. From there I just kept exploring ideas and sharing them with others, which quickly helped me grow a following on Twitter. In terms of advice, well, I think the main one would be to start small, don’t make your first project an overly ambitious one because it can be highly discouraging when things don’t work or go your way. If you create something simple, even if it’s something that already exists (todo apps are a common place to start, for example), you will get the motivation to keep going and facing more challenges. Also, don’t be a perfectionist, at least in the beginning. It might be tempting to try to get all the details right to make a great impression, but it’s much better to ship fast if you want to learn and get better. Most likely your first project won’t get a lot of users right off the bat, so it’s not worth overthinking it, you can always add to it later on and go from there. As per my journey, I recently did a bit of a shift to work on different things. I started the year with the goal to create projects with many users and trying to maximize revenue, but I realized it was giving me a lot of anxiety, and even panic attacks. It’s a lot of responsibility, especially when people pay you money to use your product, you want to make sure it all works perfectly. So I’ve now moved to a more laid back approach, trying to work on smaller scale projects that I find interesting, exploring new technologies, and things like that. My current one which I’m hoping to launch very soon is a web-based motion graphics editor, a mix between After Effects and Canva. Pretty excited about it and it’s been really fun to build, so I’m hoping it has a good reception 😊

@izuorah_dubem The way I usually go about it is starting with the code by building a simple prototype. If I am successful with it, then I make a plan in Notion of all the features I want the product to have, and I make some concepts in Figma. I like to have something pretty high fidelity to get started from that point on, so it takes me a few days designing tons of different iterations and screens until I get back to developing. Then it’s just a balance, some things I tend to code without making a design first since it’s faster, others I like to think though beforehand so I don’t have to redo things later.

@ignacio_velasquez_franco Thank you! There’s many different ways to learn these days. I think if you want to start from zero with coding it might be good to have a look at online courses like the ones in Codecademy, they have a variety of Javascript, HTML, CSS, and general web development courses which might be useful. Another good one that I know about is Design+Code (https://designcode.io/), which not only teaches you how to develop React and Swift apps, but also how to design them. In general I’d just start by watching some tutorials, trying to build simple things (like a todo app in React), and once you get a feel for it start working more on your own things. Don’t be afraid to look things up, StackOverflow is an amazing resource for instance when you get stuck. I personally use it all the time, despite coding for several years now. There’s also lots of libraries that can help make your life easier depending on what you want to build. And if coding seems daunting, there’s also options to create products without it, with platforms like Glide or Bubble.

@alyssaxuu thanks a lot! 🙏 I'm most definitely adding those courses to my 2023 roadmap. I appreciate a lot the answer and the time you spent on it. Good luck on your next launch. Keep creating amazing products! 💪

@victorzh It’s hard! Ideas can come randomly, usually what happens is I will be annoyed or frustrated by something and come up with a way to fix it through a product. Or I will let my mind wander a bit, and imagine absurd product combinations, until I think of something good. It takes time, and practice. As per finding early adopters, thankfully with my big Twitter audience it’s not really a problem. The most I’ve done is sharing in some niche subreddits specifically for my Later app launch, as it was a bit out of my comfort zone, which helped a lot. But it’s not something I spend a lot of time on.

@ran_t1 Haha, it’s fine to ask. Unfortunately I am not making a living (not in any possible measure) from my products, so I have a full-time job. I think it’s mainly because I like to make my products free and open source, so I sort of miss out on a lot of the money. I recently started a GitHub Sponsors so people can support my work and allow me to be more creative so I don’t have to worry about the financial aspect 😅

@shyam_prasad_reddy 1. My working day for my side projects specifically only happens during the weekend (since I have a full-time job). I tend to wake up early to have a shower, get my thoughts in order and clear my head. I then go through any emails and messages, see what’s going on, and look through my project planning. In order to get in the “flow” I tend to listen to some music in the background, I recently invested in Youtube Premium so it autoplays and I don’t have to bother with ads or anything. Then I just hack away, doing any design or development work, and constantly testing that everything works well (which it usually doesn’t, I always have bugs and issues to fix haha). I kind of over-optimize a lot, so even when it comes to eating instead of spending time cooking and cleaning up I just have Huel, so I can get a lot more work done, or if it’s later on the day I order some food. Maybe not the best but I like to use up as much of my time as possible for building. On Sundays I also spend an hour or two writing for my newsletter at around midday, it tends to give motivation to keep going for the rest of the day. I tend to stay up until midnight or later, but I make sure to get decent sleep. As per staying focused and productive, well, I think I just have good incentives, so I don’t really question it. I know that if I build more projects I get way more opportunities and it helps me grow my audience, so it’s in my best interest to get this done as soon as possible. I’ve also been able to consistently raise my salary and rate with a larger portfolio and diversity of work, so it’s a good reason for me to stay productive. I don’t know if I have any “hacks”, for me music works very well (although in some cases depending on the song I end up randomly dancing and singing and messing about so kind of debatable 😅), I get in a bit of a rhythm so it’s easier to keep building non-stop. 2. I try to make products that take no longer than 3 months to build. I sort of have a backlog of ideas so I wouldn’t count the time it takes me to come up with it, but all the planning and design I do within those 3 months. If I’m lucky I can manage to build something in a week (which has happened before, but it’s rare), sometimes just a month or two. I kind of set a deadline in my head to force me to work harder, and avoid being too much of a perfectionist to make sure I ship as soon as possible. I’m currently in a good track, as it’s been 1 month since my last launch and I’m almost ready to ship 😊 3. I haven’t worked on any B2B products, so I wouldn’t really know. I feel like I have it easy to acquire customers because of my large Twitter following, and because most of my products are free and open source. Just sharing them on social media and Product Hunt is usually enough for me to get the first users.

@jamie_sprowl I draw my inspiration from a variety of places. Ideally from personal problems I try to solve, since it’s easier to build in general, but I also come up with ideas in different ways, like by mixing different mechanics / products together, improving an existing product, or just trying to build something completely random. I don’t know if I follow trends much, I’ve considered it but trends come and go quickly, so by the time I would have finished the product it might not be relevant anymore, it’s risky.

@socialtrade I develop features without the design pretty often, but only when I am sort of further along with the product. In some cases it’s a bit harder to do, especially if it’s a complex product with more of a unique UI, but generally skipping over the design can make things a lot faster. Of course though it’s still important for me to make sure that the features look good, so I wouldn’t ship something with a poor design, just for the sake of having extra functionality.

@saurabh_daswant Haha I know that feeling. I think a better way to phrase it would be to think of “opportunities” instead of problems. Think about processes in your own life that are repetitive, that could be made more efficient. Do you tend to look something up all the time? Maybe you can build an app to have this available at a glance. Or maybe you always take a while to think of food to order, you could create something to let you choose or even pick things for you at random. If you can’t think of anything you can always look around or ask people if there’s anything that they find frustrating that you could help solve. Lots of options!