Picking a Project Worth Building
How to choose a first project that pays for itself: small enough to finish, real enough to matter to your work.
The Two Failure Modes
New builders fail in one of two ways. They pick something too big ("rebuild my entire billing system") and stall. Or they pick something too fake (a demo they'll never use) and lose interest.
The right first project sits in the middle: it removes a real weekly annoyance, and it can ship in one or two sessions.
The Filter
Run every candidate project through three questions:
- Did this annoy me in the last seven days? If not, it's not real enough.
- Can I describe "done" in one sentence? "A page where clients book intro calls" is done-able. "Better marketing" is not.
- Will I use it next week? Usage is what turns a build into a skill.
Good First Projects We See Often
- A landing page for a workshop, offer, or event — live at your own domain.
- A meeting-notes pipeline: recording in, action items and follow-up email out.
- An intake form that writes its answers into the tools you already use.
- A weekly content draft generated from things you already said on calls.
Bring It to Session
Come to your session with two or three candidates. Your trainer's job is to right-size the winner: trim it until it fits in a session, without trimming away the part that matters to you.