Sparking Joy
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Starting a startup is pure joy. All the “firsts” feel fresh and full of hope. First idea; first mockups; the first line of code; first prototype; first MVP; first customer; first paying customer. Every step along the way is energizing.
That extra energy and enthusiasm allow me to make massive progress at the start. But it's not unlimited.
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Eventually, things start to become harder. New and exciting milestones become less regular; growth begins to slow. I start to notice that the mounting technical debt is holding me back from iterating as quickly before.
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That's when I think it's useful to work on something that “Sparks Joy” (borrowed from Marie Kondo).
Something that “Sparks Joy” is not just something which you enjoy. It's something which reminds you why you love working on your startup. Something that expresses your personality.
Sparking joy keeps me motivated and loving what I do. If I love what I do then I think it becomes much harder for anybody to compete with me.
I'll post some things which spark joy for me in the comments. I'm interested to hear what aspects of your startup spark joy for everybody else?
Also, I love making animated SVGs. I made 3 last week and I'll make another 3 next week. It's a mix of design + creativity + simple programming. I find it relaxing.
Here's a tweet + video of the 3 that I made last week. In the tweet thread you'll see some animated SVGs that I made for my previous (failed) startup too: https://twitter.com/DaveJ/status/1173599416244211712
I hate writing tests. But my startup has got to the stage where I absolutely need to have them.
So I set up part of my test suite to dance “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” by Daft Punk. When I had the idea, I was suddenly excited to start writing the tests. Most of the tests were not as fun but this got me started. When I finished I made that into a promo video. I tweeted the promo video and got a little bit of traction. I know that I got at least 1 new paying customer from that tweet.
Here's the tweet + video: https://twitter.com/DaveJ/status/1167386564240056321
Totally understand your point about technical debt. I'm still very early in my product, but I've already found myself converting my codebase from JavaScript to TypeScript because of pesky type-caused errors after compile time
That's funny, I absolutely LOVE writing tests. I think it has something to do with the way I do it that makes it feel like I'm doing progress.
Haha, yeah, different strokes for different folks. It's funny how different activities can energise different people. I definitely find that visual, creative work is what gives me energy.
I'm probably exaggerating when I say that I HATE writing tests. I just hate getting started. I launched with very few tests so I had an impending sense of doom around the fact that I was writing more and more untested code. Once I got started writing tests again, it was ok.