> My decision to sell it was met with a lot of backlash but was successful enough to launch me into a self-sustained career.
As someone who is interested in eventually freeing myself from the corporate job and diving head-first into my side projects, I would love to hear more about this aspect.
For some reason the idea of trying to charge folks for the work I would normally do for the fun of it on the side is daunting to me, even though I know it could enable me to focus on doing the stuff I love full-time.
It's perfectly reasonable to get compensated for the (good) work that you do if it's solving problems for someone, which you probably already know.
So I think it's important to figure out why the idea of doing that is daunting to you. Some common "reasons" are:
- People you interact with frequently tell you to not to do it.
- Not having all the skills to execute what you want to do well.
- Asking people for help feels embarrassing and/or is annoying to them.
- The fear of having your work judged by others.
- Losing the "safety" that part of, or all of, your current income offers; especially if you have dependents.
For most people (in the context of what you said), those aren't really good reasons—it's just because it's difficult to leave the comfort zone (nothing wrong with that) because that will require at least some degree of readjustment that seem "risky". With that mindset it's actually very difficult to ever find a good time to do what you _want_ to do because all opportunities appear to be risks instead.
On a somewhat related note, I think it's important to just do what you think is fun and show it to the world, but turning that into something that you can make a living with is an entirely different challenge.
Most people don't actually get to do what they love doing for a living; even if you do, having the pressure that is the expectations of paying customers and/or maintaining revenue could take that love away from you. That's absolutely not to say that you shouldn't—it's just something that's good to be aware of before you jump into it.
As someone who is interested in eventually freeing myself from the corporate job and diving head-first into my side projects, I would love to hear more about this aspect.
For some reason the idea of trying to charge folks for the work I would normally do for the fun of it on the side is daunting to me, even though I know it could enable me to focus on doing the stuff I love full-time.