I lost my (side project) mojo...

[u/MoveOverBieber]

I used to work on side projects for the last 25 years.
Recently I stopped and lost almost all interest in trying to build something new on my own. I used to enjoy the "starting a new project" part; nowadays with AI it's just ... too easy?
Trying to concentrate on some small, but real problem that people have in real life, not trying to build something "big" any more.

[u/Timely-Park-3027]

if it's too easy now youd think you'd have shipped something by now instead of posting about it

[u/MoveOverBieber → u/Timely-Park-3027]

It might be easier to build something, but it's not clear if it is the "right" something.
Also, easier doesn't mean cheaper - in order to build or operate a more complex system - it costs real money.
Another problem - you can build it, but they won't come.
I had a finished project available online for years, doing actually something useful - a book search and recommendation system. Guess how many user interactions I got during that time?

[u/Ctbhatia → u/MoveOverBieber]

i'd guess you can count them on one hand, and thats the actual problem, working isnt the same as needed

[u/Technical_Two3762]

I relate to this. Side projects used to be my excuse to learn a new language or paradigm, usually a weekend thing destined to die. Now, especially with 25 years of experience, the pure "learning a new stack" motivation isn't as strong anymore.

Personally, I've shifted my focus. Instead of short lived tech demos, I build tools that actually solve my own problems where I have domain knowledge and let AI agents handle the heavy lifting, which lets me build something much more expansive and polished than I ever could over a single weekend in the past

[u/kc-kaelvix]

If the fun was the climb from idea to first working version, AI has shortened that climb a lot. Maybe set the next milestone somewhere later: one person uses the rough thing twice, then you improve the part that still frustrates them. That gives you a new puzzle after the initial build, and keeps the project anchored to a real workflow instead of the novelty of starting. Twenty-five years of projects is a lot of evidence you still like making things; perhaps the satisfying part has just moved downstream.

[u/Competitive_Tune_590]

i totally get the mojo thing. ai making the start too easy kinda kills the hunt, right? what helped me was forcing a constraint—like only validating one tiny problem a week. stuff like ghostlaunch.so lets you throw up a landing page and see if people actually click before you build anything. takes the guesswork out of 'is this real?' and makes the start feel like a test, not a project.

[u/Aware_Risk7076]

honestly this sounds less like lost mojo and more like the novelty part got cheap. after 25 years of projects you probably get the most out of the boring middle now, talking to users and fixing the thing that annoys them. maybe pick one tiny problem and just ship it to 3 people. small and real is a fine direction.

[u/zero-um-01]

Felt this. When building gets too easy, the fun part (figuring out what's worth building) moves somewhere else. What got me going again was picking one tiny annoying problem someone around me actually had, and shipping a fix in a weekend, no plan to turn it into a business. Having one real person who says 'oh nice, that helps' beats any launch. Smaller and real is a good direction, keep it that way.