"Vibe coding" has actually been a boon for me on this front. Fewer than 10% of my side projects are serious and 95% of it are static pages, so there's no big security concerns to worry about. Most of them are joke pages anyway, which I've started calling "Sht Coding," as in Vibe Coding + Sht Posting.

I’ve only bought one domain name since then and got the project out!

I think the domain name is your reward for finishing your minimum viable product.

> I think it’s part of the procrastination cycle; buying a domain name feels like progress towards the goal, but is incredibly low effort, and thus feeling like I’m making progress I wander off and get attracted to the next shiny thing.

So, yup, except that it sounds like you typically make more progress than me!

Edit: Context is https://paperstack.com/hntags/

Okay, there were some beers involved...

i have a lot of cool ones i tried to give away or at least start the conversation w a few relevant sites but i guess that seems weird to randomly get

I have my own graveyard here moralestapia.com

It's a hobby, like any other.

In 2025, with new vibe-coding projects being pushed every second, I think it's not even worth the time unless you have $$$ upfront for marketing (and/or a massive audience). Otherwise, you're wasting your time.

I built the prototype in a weekend. I spent the next 8 months turning it into a product people cared about. As soon as people started using it, I realized I was going to spend the next 10 years beating around the bush on a product with a very low ceiling.

I eventually decided to build Phrasing [1]… and kanji plus just kind of disappeared. Dependencies updated, subscriptions expired, service providers went offline. I feel bad because I sold some lifetime memberships - genuinely expecting to just leave it on the internet forever - but man, apparently websites don’t do that out of the box anymore.

Luckily the entire product of kanji plus will fit nicely as a feature in Phrasing, and it’s written with the same front end tech so it should be a very simple copy paste. 2 weeks of work max (famous last words).

Still, I feel really bad that people paid me money and the service just went offline. I didn’t know I was being so naive just expecting things to work for more than 6 months unattended.

If any old kanji plus subscribers are reading this, please feel free to get in touch. I’m planning to give all my old supporters a free lifetime membership to phrasing once it’s ready to go! (a membership tier that will not be available to the general public)

[1]: https://phrasing.app/

I however have a similar but more expensive problem, I develop side projects to an MVP and leave them up for literal decades with no one but myself using them, paying for the domain and hosting. I can't let things go.

I rewrote a number of things in Go recently so they could scale down to zero on Fly.io and save me some money.

For example though I have been developing a note keeping SaaS for fifteen years. It fits my own needs perfectly and I use it every day, but everyone I have ever had try it has bounced in a couple minutes. I literally removed the sign up after GDPR scared me in 2018 and never put it back. I should put it back, everything is client side encrypted and I don't keep any PII.

I have an ad free emojipedia-esq tool, a tool for making API controlled README badges, a tool for converting MIDIs into print outs of colored sheet music for children's keyboards, a joke API, so much more.

I did accidentally let the domain expire for my Wordle knockoff where you guess the soup based on the ingredients. It never worked very well anyway.

One the other hand, I have a great idea for CI and it's an itch I am currently suffering...

[1]: https://github.com/elkowar/eww

At least you're actually doing the "I code for 3 all-nighters" step!

I've stopped too many projects at the "I buy a domain name" stage, and added an intermediate "I create a Trello board" step between that and starting to write code. No need to pull all-nighters, which are hard to do with family and a full-time job, if all I need to do is add a card to a feature wishlist. Maybe prototype a few key functions to see how they work, wireframe a unique piece of UI, or follow the tutorial to create "hello world" in a new framework, but it turns out that those steps are also optional.

The problem seems to be that my brain gives me a dopamine buzz for merely _imagining_ accomplishing the project, whether or not I eventually implement, publish, and get users for the it. I can give myself a similar cognitive reward for simply reading on HN about other people completing projects, and even (at my lowest) passively watching YouTube videos of other people building cool stuff. It's all the mental rewards of participating in a group project where the tribe accomplished something great, except I'm barely in a parasocial relationship with a dude on Patreon or Discord a thousand miles away who actually performed 100% of the work. Maybe he likes my comment "Nice work! I really liked how you did [thing], have you considered [alternative strategy]?". Maybe he even comments back. Bang! Neurotransmitter pump engaged, dopamine boost received.

It's a scary thing to realize that you're doing this, and very, very hard to train yourself out of those bad habits. I find it's important to write down and consciously review my daily/weekly/monthly/yearly goals, my productive and unproductive activity towards those goals, and my actual accomplishments. It's too easy to get addicted to fake reward loops, whether because they're engineered by social media companies who make money off my attention span or because brains are just vulnerable to low-effort high-reward stimuli. What did I do in July? X hours of Reddit, Y hours of HN, Z hours of Youtube... and a half dozen things I'm actually proud of.

(Note to self: Don't get too excited about upvotes or replies to this comment, acquiring HN or Reddit fake Internet points are not part of my actual goals and should not be considered real accomplishments.)

So does my github or the 5 rack servers in my homelab lol. At least the servers aren't running and consuming power 24/7

ALWAYS, it comes down to one thing. If you built the best thing in the world, and no one visits it, then it's a "failure" at least in terms of earning anything.

But I have a decent half-baked AI based investment portfolio manager, one month of hard work (nights/weekends) dreaming of selling it for a bank. Projects of such complexity are impossible for people stuck in the ordinary life (job/family). PS: I'm not complaining - I love my family. But it demands energy.

I’ve done the same , bought many domain names, got super hyped, coded for a few nights… then lost interest. Now I’ve got a bunch of random projects that never saw the light of day.

But honestly, I learned a lot from each one. Even if they didn’t go anywhere, I got better at building stuff. And who knows, maybe one of them will work out someday.

Glad I’m not the only one doing this.

Vibe coding actually helped me get a few projects out of the door finally! But even now I can't resist the urge to buy a domain when I get an idea for a new side project.

And, I bought my last domain less than 10-days back. Built a landing but left it to research further and talk to customers. :-)

i have lots of ideas for fun little side projects that would never be revenue generating.

i'll go on a tear and start building it, but when it comes time to figure out how much it'd cost each month for domains/cloud services/etc I talk myself out of it. I'm not talking about big LLM bills here, just things like $25/month for the database, $10-50/year for a domain, etc.

I don't think it's just that I'm being cheap, it's that I don't like the idea of having to pay for something in perpetuity. Because that leads to me thinking about how long I plan to keep it active and when I'll sunset it. And once you start thinking about that before you've even launched, it's pretty easy to conclude it's not worth the time to build it given its limited shelf life. If I could just do a one-time upfront payment I'd probably go through with it.

The solutions to this are either buying a server and self-hosting (no thanks) OR making peace with having a recurring 'goofy computer stuff' monthly bill.

So... how much do yall spend each month on your side-projects? Having some numbers would help me contextualize and justify this

that's all that matters. it's important to enjoy the process of making things.

i know how to start. i know how to ship. i don’t know how to pick what’s worth staying with.

and i still don’t know what my next thing is.

i’ve shipped real SaaS apps.

– https://truereviews.co // OAuth-based verified customer reviews.

– https://refersend.com // Referral tracking via email for non-digital industries.

– https://postpov.com AI-powered content machine for professionals with AI content simulation.

if you’re also in that “smart but tired” phase, DM me or reply. maybe we can get out of it together.

here’s the pattern: i sprint hard. i get it live. i stall.

not because I’m lazy. b/c promotion/selling burns me out way more than building.

i’m not some weekend hacker. i’ve been a Chief of Staff, a founder, a fixer, a builder. i’ve managed up, down, and sideways in a real company. i’ve coached teams. i’ve been coached. it’s helped friends escape the corporate treadmill.

i still don’t know what my next thing is.

i’m not writing this for pity. i’m writing it because i see myself in this post, and maybe someone else sees themselves in mine.

niklasbabel.com

Apart from this I see myself represented in this post.

Haha we are building one too!

Got any advice for us?

Here's the waitlist page with all the features: https://waitlist-tx.pages.dev

Email is in profile if you want to connect.

Thanks in advance!

I myself have left 6 domains expired over the last 4 years so you are not alone! 3 are from this year alone

Now a days I don't buy the domain until I have actually set up the server with the codebase. Project might get dropped just before that. It has happened

Edit: I feel validated after reading the replies. I am not alone!

A tip to everyone: subdomains are free, and you can set up a 301 redirect once the project gets some traction. As others have mentioned, I only buy a domain once there is some traction, or when I start getting organic/indirectly referred traffic.

Looking back, how do you think you did on the marketing/sales front? I don't mean the results of the efforts but I mean the input front.

Curious if those pivots were caused because the problem addressed wasn't painful enough, the solutions didn't address that pain well enough, or if it was simply distribution.

If the former two, I imagine it's only a matter of time until you strike gold. But if it's the final third, there's a chance one of the 17 could have worked out well.

What if we started with a product idea for which we know there is demand for: things people are already paying money for. For example: apples, or tires, or etc. something you know people are paying money for. and then try and either build that product or another product that makes building the product easier.

Then it came down to producing customers not artifacts and I ran out of steam. I posted on Product Hunt and a few other places but never took it further. I'm glad I did it once as a solo dev, but now I know how far I'll go on my own.

It helps devs build parallel agents from the cli. (think claude code, gemini, aider)

And simplifies the git workflow for testing and accepting the best solution.

Check it out: https://github.com/sutt/agro

I keep a little text file pr.txt and try to link my project to HN / X / other aggregators once a day...

This way I spend a few hours each day coding, and a few minutes each day promoting and refining me message.

Stopped working on it because Mastodon is good enough for me.

I had a Handshake domain registry/registrar: https://neuenet.com

Stopped working on it because Andrew Lee tried to take over the blockchain.

An analytics tool: https://chew.sh

Gauges shut down and I enjoyed that service. My previous domain is now owned by someone who's last name is Chew, which is cool.

Forgot I just let https://design2code.me expire because I didn't put in the work to get my name/services out there.

---

I'm currently working on https://nickel.video and think I'll stick with it for awhile. I also registered https://neue.host a few weeks ago, with the idea that a lot of the side projects I had in the past would actually work as a collection of services.

It offers searching in transcriptions of all Norwegian podcasts in (roughly) real-time. Also offers subscribing to alerts, for example if anyone mentions your business name. Launched some days ago

side project, business partnership, personal music streaming site, serverless blog.

It's hard to do if you have a regular 9 to 5 and also some other hobby(I'm into motorcycles :D).

Only remaining domain is of my name pusparaj.com (but it's in auction mode)

I have also lost ownership 2 times or more i think, because i tend to rotate registrars and forgot to renew it.

now 3 domains are remaining, will let them expire.

That's ADHD for you.

A former coworker of mine lamented this - "I start so many projects or hobbies, but just when I feel like I've learned a lot I lose interest". I had to point out to him that his hobby isn't - whatever, sheep shearing or book bindery or underwater basket weaving - but rather his hobby is learning things. That's a common thing for ADHD people, absorbing all you can in a rapid amount of time, devoting every minute of thought to something, and then suddenly completely forgetting it exists until you get the domain renewal notice.

At least you (seem to) have (some degree of) acceptance of the circumstance and recognize the benefits of this behavior rather than just focusing on the drawbacks; too many people have this behavior and think it's a personal failing, when really they just have a different hobby than they think they have.

That particular domain was going to be like a Netflix DVD style subscription product for Eurorack modules but I never even ended up trying to build that after buying the domain.

As a learning project, copy a successful project and mind map it, program it and find customers. You will learn so much that you can apply to whatever project you come up with. You'll get frustrated because you will need to go out and learn a lot but power thru it. You'll be better off for the hard work. Good luck!

(Most recent example: I made an unreleased browser extension for HN, the MVP feature of which is to let you block annoying users, such that any of their comments are replaced with poop emoji. But since I can't put an AI spin on that, to attract funding or job offers, I'm better off selling the domain names, and not spending any more time on it.)

Here’s an easy way to test this: imagine your product suddenly takes off — it gets picked up on Reddit or Hacker News, you start getting lots of users and feedback. Would you still feel uninterested? Or would you find yourself energized, working late into the night to improve it?

That thought experiment reveals something important: there’s a gap between building a product and getting people to use it. You haven’t figured out how to bridge that gap yet, so you stay in “builder mode” — because it feels safe and familiar.

[0] https://www.tacavo.com/ [1] https://abrega.com

But, I'll likely come back to build another some day when the mood strikes me.

https://retroclones.com/

I first remember reading this phrasing here on HN and I've been using it for years to explain to others that what I am doing is not "work", its just a hobby.

In the end it was a weekend hack to make something simpler that turned into an app release, which a year or so after that turned into a business.

Sometimes people have a great idea, build it and feel entitled to success with it, but it's largely about relevant eyeballs. If enough relevant eyeballs find your thing and use/buy it then it's a success. It's quite easy to launch something that gets lots of views on launch, but there has to be a reason to come back (sticky apps/content).

I've also built several things that could have been good but I lost interest and ironically the thing I work on now is arguably one of the most boring topics conceivable, but perhaps that's why few people do it well.

Haha. Thanks this made me laugh. I also know the feeling of being rich in expired domains.

Work on a side project because it's interesting (e.g. you want to learn the tech) or because it's useful to you (i.e. you want to use it). Not because it may make you rich.

In the former case, you may lose interest, but that's okay: you've learned in the process. In the latter, if you get to a point where you can use it, it's really rewarding.

And this is a couple weekends ago: https://www.danesh.app/

Let's be friends! I've hacked couple websites with other people before and honestly the learning itself is worth the time even if the project doesn't take off.

https://www.mallardgames.com/

Maybe some of them could make money, with more polish and marketing. Who knows! I have never tried.

I just make whatever I feel like.

Before that, i only started them and lost motivation after ~2 weeks. The projects a wanted to do were cyclic though, so i often came back to restart things i had left unfinished.

It took me time to change that, but the main thing i did was starting with extremely limited projects, that i knew i could finish in 2 weeks. I did very basic things at the beginning, like hosting a pure html website (but it was by first website i hosted, with nginx and certbot). Sometimes i would get back to it and improve something, like styling, text, SEO,...

I say "finished" because the bottleneck is finding users, not the code. So i still work on these projects, but not at the same speed.

Another thing I do more, which I find hard as a developer but somewhat more rewarding, is talking to potential users. Sometimes it makes you realise your ideas are crap haha.

But it's a different thing to build for fun, which I tend to do less these days and want to do more.

And agreed on the learning side. Building full-on projects is the best way to learn. I've picked up so many skills that have landed me new amazing jobs, i.e. that's basically how I transitioned from a native iOS developer to a full-stack React/React-Native developer.

Keep building! and don't forget the user side :)

Far too often I build a project, only to get ready to deploy it, then struggle to think of a name/domain for it.

Then coupled with the thought of struggling to market the project, I end up fizzling out at that stage.

If I already have users of the project, then I'll deploy it as a subdomain and forget about it until a user complains.

the whole too-many side projects is for indie-hacker influencers like levels who make money on notoriety. for the rest of us -- going deep helps.