u/JackGierlich

I've been doing side projects for 15+ years. Most didn't make money. A few made a lot.

What I've noticed is that the projects I started because I wanted to get rich almost always died, and the ones I started because I wanted to figure something out usually turned into something useful, even if the "something useful" wasn't always cash.

Back in high school I started a source gaming community around servers for CS:S, TF2 and Gmod. I was not going to get rich running game servers. But I learned how to run Linux boxes, handle DDoS attacks, manage a community of people who all thought they were right about everything, write website copy, run promos, etc. I cleared maybe 5k total but the skills paid for themselves a hundred times over in everything that came after.

Then I started AnonCloud, an anonymous hosting business. Again, not a rocket ship. But I learned how to handle payments, abuse reports, customer support at 3am, how to hire people, and the actual mechanics of running infrastructure at scale.

The issue with chasing money on your early projects is you pick things you don't actually care about more often than not, so you bail the second things get hard. Things always get hard. If you're in it to learn, the grind feels like progress. If you're in it for the money, the grind feels like you're wasting time.

The people who made $500 on their "boring" first projects and built real skills will always be ahead of the person who spends years hunting for the "right" idea, and never building anything.

So I encourage everyone to just build.
Build what you think is cool.
Build what you think is interesting.
Build what you wish you had.

Even if you don't get on Forbes because of it- it doesn't mean the skills and experience won't let you land your next venture there.

Where can I report a chain of bot accounts?

Building to learn is way more valuable than building to get rich, at least early on.