I’m trying to decide what I should do with my side projects as I find a job related to my degree. I could release some of them as open source and ask for donations, or release them as closed source and sell a license. I have invested a lot of time into them and am hoping to make at least a little revenue from them.
Even if I don’t make any revenue, I think they will help me stand out in the job market. I think some of them would be a better fit for open source than others. Most of them would probably be more useful to power users than general users. I would be a little upset with myself if I give them away and get nothing when there is a chance to make some income.
Either way, I’ve heard that marketing is important. Now that they are mostly done, this will probably be what I work on next. For some advice, I’ve been in contact with a successful independent developer. They attribute their success to hard work, and a large portion to luck and timing.
If you also have any personal experience with side projects you can share that might relate to my situation I would appreciate it. Did you release the project as open source or closed? What went well? What mistakes did you make? Etc.
Some more background information for those interested. There are a few bigger projects that I have worked on. The first is a goal management app with a focus on habit creation that uses the Beeminder API. The next is a tool to help learn more advanced keyboard shortcuts. A couple are related to window management and window switching, sort of an alt tab enhancement. One is educational content for having a better relationship with your screen based devices.
I graduated from college close to four years ago. After I graduated I was struggling to find a job related to my degree (Applied Computing Technology) so I took on a job to get by and I started to work on my side projects more. Before I knew I it I was working on them a lot. It has gotten to the point where I have finished most the major work on them. I want to do something with at least a couple of them as I get more serious about applying for jobs related to my degree again.
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39507831
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