Adam Noffsinger

My approach to side projects is to make things I want to use. This is the only way to keep my energy high enough to keep working on something when life gets busy. If I frequently feel the pain of something not existing, I'll have the drive to keep pushing.

To your point about adoption—I try not to overthink constraints before giving ideas a chance to breathe. That's not to say I didn’t think about market saturation, or what it would take to build a customer base for Found. Rather, I didn't let that deter me from chasing down the idea. Once I explored the space, I felt confident there was an opportunity.

I do understand getting stuck on the details in the upfront, though. I'd describe myself as a person who overthinks things. I'm also aware that I'm this type of person. Because of this, over the years, I've pushed myself to put pencil to paper or pixel to screen faster. Doing this tends to reveal whether an idea is good or bad fast. It's hard to figure that out if your idea never makes it out of the doc you’ve been working on forever. Foster your ability to make things quickly to break this pattern. Whether that's design, code, or a blend of both, it doesn’t matter.

A while back, I also realized that I was executing on many ideas, but not carrying any to completion. I had a moment where I had to reassess the side projects and skillsets I was pursuing and be honest with myself about how much I could do. I decided to align my side projects with the skillsets I enjoyed most and were relevant for my career. This resulted in focusing on Found, which aligned with iOS development (helpful for prototyping at work) and mapping technologies (which was relevant to my role at the time, but will always be a passion of mine). This meant I wouldn't be focusing on learning React, Cinema 4D, or Unity. Of course, since then I’ve learned new tools, but I’m more aware of the cost of doing so.

”Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you get good at.”

- Matthew McConaughey, True Detective

People often get stuck (especially in Silicon Valley) in the trap of thinking that every project has to be a massive success. In reality, there are many well-crafted products with small to medium sized customer bases that are lucrative and fulfilling for their creators. If you build a thoughtful product that solves a targeted problem for a small group of people, don’t underestimate their willingness to pay for it.

This is the thinking behind Found. I was tired of my collections of saved places being treated as a secondary feature set in Apple and Google Maps. I wanted a focused and beautiful product to save the places I’d traveled around the world. Apple and Google will never invest in the best experience for this use case. That’s not a knock on Apple or Google Maps, either—they’re just primarily navigation and discovery products.

All this being said, Found is still a new and small product. We have a long way to go. Our next update will be our largest and our roadmap for next year is even more exciting. At the end of the day, even if Found fails, I’d never regret having worked on it because it solves a problem I have, we’ve built it thoughtfully, and we’ve learned a tremendous amount along the way.

My approach to side projects is to make things I want to use. This is the only way to keep my energy high enough to keep working on something when life gets busy. If I frequently feel the pain of something not existing, I'll have the drive to keep pushing.

To your point about adoption—I try not to overthink constraints before giving ideas a chance to breathe. That's not to say I didn’t think about market saturation, or what it would take to build a customer base for 

. Rather, I didn't let that deter me from chasing down the idea. Once I explored the space, I felt confident there was an opportunity.

I do understand getting stuck on the details in the upfront, though. I'd describe myself as a person who overthinks things. I'm also aware that I'm this type of person. Because of this, over the years, I've pushed myself to put pencil to paper or pixel to screen faster. Doing this tends to reveal whether an idea is good or bad fast. It's hard to figure that out if your idea never makes it out of the doc you’ve been working on forever. Foster your ability to make things quickly to break this pattern. Whether that's design, code, or a blend of both, it doesn’t matter.

A while back, I also realized that I was executing on many ideas, but not carrying any to completion. I had a moment where I had to reassess the side projects and skillsets I was pursuing and be honest with myself about how much I could do. I decided to align my side projects with the skillsets I enjoyed most and were relevant for my career. This resulted in focusing on Found, which aligned with iOS development (helpful for prototyping at work) and mapping technologies (which was relevant to my role at the time, but will always be a passion of mine). This meant I wouldn't be focusing on learning React, Cinema 4D, or Unity. Of course, since then I’ve learned new tools, but I’m more aware of the cost of doing so.

”Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you get good at.”

People often get stuck (especially in Silicon Valley) in the trap of thinking that every project has to be a massive success. In reality, there are many well-crafted products with small to medium sized customer bases that are lucrative and fulfilling for their creators. If you build a thoughtful product that solves a targeted problem for a small group of people, don’t underestimate their willingness to pay for it.

This is the thinking behind Found. I was tired of my collections of saved places being treated as a secondary feature set in Apple and Google Maps. I wanted a focused and beautiful product to save the places I’d traveled around the world. Apple and Google will never invest in the best experience for this use case. That’s not a knock on Apple or Google Maps, either—they’re just primarily navigation and discovery products.

All this being said, Found is still a new and small product. We have a long way to go. Our next update will be our largest and our roadmap for next year is even more exciting. At the end of the day, even if Found fails, I’d never regret having worked on it because it solves a problem I have, we’ve built it thoughtfully, and we’ve learned a tremendous amount along the way.

How do you think about working on Found when it feels like in order to get adoption for a location based product it would take a huge amount of marketing etc. especially in a particularly saturated space. 

Mostly asking out of interest from thinking of building my own side projects. 

Adam Noffsinger

What's your mindset behind working on Found as a side project?