Everyone has a "side project."
Most of them will never ship it.
And the reason isn't time or resources or lack of opportunity. It's that they're waiting for it to be good enough to show people.
Here's what I've learned: if you're not embarrassed by your first version, you waited too long to ship.
The perfectionism trap
Side projects die in the "just need to fix one more thing" phase.
Just need to:
Clean up the UI
Add that one feature
Write better documentation
Make the onboarding smoother
Fix those edge cases
Get to "MVP quality"
None of these things actually matter before you have users. But they feel like they matter because they give you a reason to delay the scary part: showing it to people.
Perfectionism isn't about making something great. It's about avoiding judgment.
As long as your project is "in progress," you can't fail. The second you ship it, people can tell you it's bad.
So you keep polishing. And your side project stays on the side, perpetually "almost ready."
What actually happens when you ship broken things
I've shipped probably a dozen half-broken versions of Nexus features. Bugs everywhere. UI that barely made sense. Features that didn't fully work.
And you know what happened?
Users told me exactly what was broken. I fixed it. The product got better.
The ones who stayed weren't the ones who saw a polished product. They were the ones who saw potential and stuck around as it improved.
Nobody cares that your first version is rough. They care whether it solves their problem. And you can't know if it solves their problem until you put it in front of them.
The "side project" mindset is the problem
If you call it a "side project," you've already lost.
Because "side project" means:
It's not my main thing
I work on it when I have time
There's no real pressure to finish
It's okay if it never launches
That mindset kills momentum.
Real projects don't stay on the side. They become the main thing because you care enough to prioritize them.
If you're working on something for months and it's still a "side project," that's not because you're busy. It's because you're not committed.
The embarrassment threshold
Here's the test: would you be embarrassed to show what you have right now to potential users?
If yes → ship it anyway
If no → you probably already waited too long
The right time to ship is when it barely works. When the UI is ugly. When half the features are missing. When you're genuinely worried people will think it's trash.
That's the moment most people keep polishing. That's the moment you should ship.
Because that discomfort you feel? That's not a sign you're not ready. That's a sign you're about to learn what actually matters.
What users actually care about
Users don't care about:
Perfect UI (as long as it's not actively confusing)
Edge cases (until they hit them)
Feature completeness (if the core thing works)
Your tech stack or architecture
Users care about:
Does this solve my problem?
Can I figure out how to use it?
Is it fast enough?
That's it. Everything else is optimization you should do AFTER you have users, not before.
But most people spend months optimizing things users don't care about because it's easier than facing the possibility that users don't want the core thing.
The real cost of delay
Every month you spend polishing before launch is a month you could have been:
Getting real user feedback
Iterating on what actually matters
Building features users actually want
Growing your user base
I've seen so many people spend 6 months building "the right way" while someone else shipped a broken MVP in 2 weeks, got users, and iterated to something way better in the same 6 months.
The person who shipped early learned what actually matters. The person who waited learned what they thought mattered, which is usually wrong.
When polish actually matters
I'm not saying never polish. I'm saying polish AFTER you have users.
Once you have 100 users who actually rely on your product, then polish makes sense:
Fix the bugs that are annoying real users
Improve the UI for the flows people actually use
Add features people are explicitly asking for
But polishing a product with zero users is just procrastination with good aesthetics.
The two types of builders
I've noticed there are two types of people:
Type 1: Ships constantly. Everything is rough. Half of it doesn't work. But they're learning fast and iterating.
Type 2: Plans carefully. Builds thoughtfully. Launches when it's "ready." Which is never.
Type 1 looks messier in the moment. Type 2 looks more professional.
But in 6 months, Type 1 has a product with users and real feedback. Type 2 has a polished thing that nobody's using.
What I'm actually saying
Your side project isn't going to magically become "ready" if you just work on it a bit longer.
It's ready now. It's just scary to ship it.
That fear isn't protecting you from failure. It's protecting you from learning.
Ship the embarrassing version. Get feedback. Fix what's actually broken (not what you think might be broken).
The distance between "side project" and "real project" isn't more features or better design.
It's the willingness to be embarrassed.
— Arjun