Before You Go Solo Project: A Developer Confrontation with Themself

Hello 👋

Intro

Welcome to another post where I’ll share what I learned from my Podiscover project. We’ll go through each lesson in detail to give you a good understanding of my journey.

Before we start, I want to mention that I’ve made other videos about the mistakes I made during this project. If you want to learn more about the challenges I faced, you can find these videos here. The videos are in Turkish, but auto generated English subtitles can help you if you’re not non-native Turkish.

Now, let’s talk about what I learned from this business adventure.

I started Podiscover a few years ago with lots of excitement. It wasn’t just a business for me; it was something I really cared about. I worked hard on it for about two years. But, like many new businesses, things didn’t go as planned.

Even though I worked really hard, I realized I wasn’t reaching the goals I set for Podiscover. So, I had to make the tough decision to stop the project. It was hard, but I now see that it wasn’t a failure. Instead, it taught me a lot, and I think these lessons will help me in my future projects.

After thinking about my experience with Podiscover, I’ve come up with 10 important lessons. These lessons cover many topics, like understanding what people want, managing expectations, being flexible, and not giving up when things get tough. I’m excited to share these lessons with you because I think they can help anyone starting a new project or business.

1. My problem does not mean everyone’s problem

I love listening to and making podcasts. As podcasts became more popular, I got curious about what other people liked to listen to. I wanted to know which podcasts my Spotify friends enjoyed and why. I often saw people asking for podcast recommendations on social media. This made me think, “Why not create a website for sharing podcast recommendations?”

I built the website and people liked the idea. But not many people used it regularly. Most visitors only came back once in a while to find new podcasts. I learned that most people don’t want to rate podcasts, write comments, or read what others think. Only a small group of users do these things. Most people don’t even follow the podcasts they listen to. This taught me that what I thought was a common problem wasn’t actually that widespread.

2. Knowing technology does not mean I can do everything.

I’ve been a software developer for 13 years. I was confident I could turn any idea into a working program. This confidence led me to quickly build a stable software system for my idea, Podiscover. However, I soon faced several challenges.

First, the design and user experience of Podiscover weren’t great. This wasn’t my strong suit, and I struggled to improve it. I tried to get help, but it didn’t last long. I felt I needed to learn these skills myself.

Second, although the software worked, no one was using it. I didn’t know how to market it or explain why people should use it. I tried to get help with marketing too, but I couldn’t make progress on my own.

Third, I wanted to develop the business side, but I lacked time. The software had issues, and I wasn’t sure which features users would like. I didn’t have time to figure this out, and it wasn’t my strength.

I learned that making software is just one part of creating a successful product. It might even be the easiest part. You also need skills in design, marketing, and business development. Even after you’ve built the software, there’s still a lot of work to do to get people to use it and to keep improving it.

3. Do research before starting the project

I started my project thinking everyone had the same problem as me. I talked to a few friends who agreed with my idea, and that was enough for me to start. I was so excited that I rushed into building the project without talking to experts in the field.

Looking back, I made a big mistake by not doing proper research. I was too sure about my idea and trusted my gut feeling instead of checking if there was actually a market for it. I just started coding right away. But without really knowing the industry, I kept running into problems I hadn’t expected.

Being too excited about my idea made me skip an important step - research. This ended up wasting my time because I never properly checked if my idea would work. The lesson is simple: before starting any project, take time to do thorough research. Make sure people actually want and need your solution, and understand if the market is ready for it.

4. You can’t do it alone

I don’t like working alone. However, when an idea starts, you are inevitably alone. Actually, there is nothing wrong with that. Every project is started by one person and then the team can grow. However, my mistake was to extend this time a little. I think I thought I could do many things alone. I can say that I managed to do this to some extent. However, in order to take the project further, I needed to get more help and talk to people more. Of course, talking is not enough. I need to be able to explain my problem and do it in the most efficient way in a short time. People do not wait to listen to my problem. Time is a valuable asset. I should have used it well.

5. Don’t trust everyone

When working with people, you need to trust them. Everything starts with trust. When we are a team, we need to trust each other and do our job well. I like working with a team. That’s why I trust people. In fact, I start by trusting them. I met with many people in the Podiscover project and got their help, but I trusted them too much. Let’s adjust the distance here. Since the project is still new, I think I should have kept this trust a little less. When I trusted people and handed over the work, I realized that I was moving away from the plan in my head. Actually, the problem here may be that I couldn’t express myself well. I always thought that the other party understood me, and when I didn’t get any questions, I focused on my own work. What I realized here is that if you are at the beginning of the road, you shouldn’t trust too many people. You always have to watch your back and follow your work to the end. There is nothing wrong with that. After all, this is your job and taking ownership is your first duty.

6. Quit your full time job and focus

Looking back, I didn’t realize that turning a side project into something serious meant I needed to quit my day job. Unlike some people who can balance their regular work with evening and weekend projects—which I truly admire—that’s just not how I operate. I struggled to maintain momentum with both my job and the project. Though I was reluctant to leave my stable position, the daily exhaustion meant Podiscover often took a back seat. Eventually, I had to face the truth: I couldn’t successfully juggle both responsibilities.

7. Money is important

Money is important, even if we sometimes say it isn’t. Every business needs money, though how much depends on your situation. When you start a business, you need money for basics like marketing and ads. In my case, I didn’t have enough savings for these costs. Plus, if I wanted to quit my job to focus on my project, I would have needed money to pay my bills. I only realized how important money was after my project was already running. Here’s what I learned: if you don’t plan for money needs early on, everything ends up costing more later.

8. Get out of the house

I work from home and spend most of my time in one room at my desk. Doing both my regular job and personal projects in the same spot became really tiring. Looking back, I should have worked on Podiscover in different places, like cafes or parks. A change of environment would have helped me stay fresh and focused. At first, I thought working at my desk was fine, but doing everything in one place got boring fast. I realized that taking breaks and working from different places is really important for staying productive and creative.

9. Believe in what you did, celebrate yourself

We often forget to celebrate our wins because we’re too busy working or worried about missing out. What we think is a small achievement might actually be a big deal to someone else. That’s why we need to take time to celebrate our successes, even the small ones. We deserve it!

During my time working on Podiscover, I did many good things, but I kept pushing myself to do more and more. I never took a moment to step back and say, “Hey, I’m doing a great job!” Instead of being proud of my work, I just kept pushing harder. This made me feel unhappy with my progress. As time went on, I started to lose confidence in my work.

Looking back, I realize that if I had taken time to celebrate my achievements and worked at a more reasonable pace, I would have felt much better about the project and believed in it more.

10. No one is perfect, let go when the time comes

I wanted my project to be perfect, even though I knew that’s impossible. When you’re deeply involved in something, it’s hard to see its flaws. Sometimes you need to step back to see things clearly. I struggled to understand whether my project was successful or not, which made things stressful. The hardest part was deciding when to stop. You often wonder “Is it time to quit?” but there’s no clear answer. The best approach is to watch for warning signs that tell you it’s time to move on. While it’s not easy to let go of something you’ve worked hard on, sometimes it’s necessary. If you hold on too long, things only get harder. Fortunately, I didn’t drag this out too long. Though I could have stopped earlier, I’m glad I recognized when it was time to let go.

Outro

I learned a lot while working on this project. But just knowing these lessons wasn’t enough - I had to act on them too. My friends actually warned me about some of these things, but when you’re so focused on your work, it’s easy to miss what’s right in front of you. Looking back, I see that while I made mistakes, they were all part of the learning experience. Instead of seeing it as wasted time, I now view it as a valuable journey. The important thing is to keep going forward. This doesn’t mean ignoring our mistakes - it just means we should learn from them and move on without letting them hold us back. Focus on the good parts, learn from the challenges, and keep moving forward.

❤️