I quit my job to build my own software products

2 weeks ago was my last day at work. It was bittersweet leaving my coworkers behind and venturing into the unknown. On one hand, I’m super excited to work on my own projects. On the other hand, I’m taking a big risk and committing a lot of time for likely no reward. Building a business is hard and countless people have failed before me.

If building my own software products is high risk and high effort with a low probability of success, why do I even want to do it?

First, I love to have ownership. When I started my career in tech, I was at Amazon. I didn’t particularly enjoy it there primarily because I felt I had no impact on the business. Whether or not I was there, Amazon would still be Amazon. If I stayed, I could have put my entire life’s work into the company and still would’ve made effectively no difference. The thought of that haunted me. Over time, I worked at smaller and smaller companies, each one being noticeably more fun for me. I like to know that if I or the business fails, it was my fault. Likewise, if the business succeeds, it was because I put in effort and got a good result.

The second reason why I want to build my own products is that I love to see things grow. One of the most exciting projects I’ve worked on in the past was exciting because we got several thousand users on launch day. My involvement in the project wasn’t as large as I would’ve liked (which goes into my first point of ownership), but seeing out product grow was thrilling. At my last company, I joined as the 7th engineer and I left when the engineering team was around 50 people. Growth is just exciting to me. Small projects are inherently risky. Growth validates that this project was more important than it initially seemed and you made the right decision to invest time/effort/money into it.

Finally, I wanted to address the point of timing. I knew this was something I wanted to do at some point in my life. I think it makes more sense to try this now while I’m young and have few other life commitments than when I’m older. I can truly give this my all and have minimal risks if I fail. In my opinion, all external factors about the market, the tech industry, etc. are secondary to my personal factors.

Recently, I’ve been consuming content from the “indie hackers” and “build in public” communities. My plan largely reflects the experience of others from these communities.

I have a healthy amount of pessimism with creating my own business. My first project will not succeed. My second project will not succeed. But with every iteration, I will learn more than if I just studied others. And eventually, one of my many attempts may have some success.

I’ve set aside 1 year to work on my own products. I plan to make many attempts over this next year. If a product shows promise, I’ll focus on marketing/sales and make it grow. If a product does not show promise, I’ll move on to the next one. By the end of the year, I plan to have built 5–10 products.

I’ll be building these products in public, posting progress updates as they happen. With each product, I plan to own the ideation, design, development, marketing, and sales. I know this is a lot of hats to put on, but these are all skills I want to be functionally knowledgeable on. If a product has proven itself worthy of other people’s time, then I may consider getting some help.

This will be a risky and uncomfortable journey, but one I want to be on. Whether I succeed or not, in one year’s time, I hope to look back on this entry with zero regrets.

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