For the past 7 years, I’ve operated around 30 websites, some getting millions of impressions each month, most with publicly contributed content to curate daily. Server outages, security patches, social accounts to keep alive, newsletters, site emails, trying to grow revenue and SEO, monitoring expenses, and everything else that goes along with running a side project, multiplied by 30. Throw in a pandemic and AI and the tech world has been a rollercoaster of highs and lows.
On the surface, it seems obvious: running that many sites is going to burn anyone out! However, through it all, I got to work alongside incredible people, really talented folks who inspired me to learn more about business, investing, and being fired up to build whatever was next. That kept me going, despite rolling into every Friday wiped out.
I’ve invested just under 15,000 hours toward this role and here’s what it taught me:
People care more about projects when they know the creator(s)
Trying to build anonymously is incredibly difficult. I’m not sure if it’s simply because it feels good when we support a creator, or if it’s because having a face to the project adds validity, or something else. I do know that silently pushing work into the ether and hoping it finds an audience without your voice is nearly impossible.
Have laser-focus on one project at a time, not several
This doesn’t mean you can’t build lots and lots of projects. However, focusing on one at a time and seeing it through saves significant mental bandwidth compared to project-hopping each day. And yes, burnout is a real thing when juggling 30 projects. The only cure that I know of is truly giving yourself time to recharge. More seat time in front of a screen is not the answer. Delegate and automate as often as possible.
AI is reshaping the web faster than most people realize
It’s a consolidation of information. The importance of individual sites is becoming less clear, but there are new opportunities as well. Having good ideas and an understanding of proper site architecture is enough to prompt your way to building anything, and fast. When starting new projects, ask yourself: is this useful beyond an LLM? If not, keep thinking.
Authenticity is the new currency
As AI gets better at mimicking text, images, and videos, genuinely connecting with people feels more valuable than ever. Everyone is racing toward AI-generated content, which inevitably means the pendulum will swing back toward the middle at some point. Perhaps blogs will become popular again or we’ll see goods saying “Made by a human” rather than just the country of origin.
Gatekeeping information is a dead concept
I might’ve paid for an online course before, I’m not now that I can generate any course I want with a $20 AI subscription. The web got sloppy with search sponsors and sites buried beneath cookie consents, subscription popups, and more Google ads than actual content. That web is fading quickly as users go straight to LLMs for answers.
Building in public (again)
I’m loving the AI energy in the design and dev community right now, it’s reminiscent of why I started learning HTML and CSS two decades ago. I’ll be pushing a lot of personal projects this coming year, mostly tools I’d want to use, and sharing what I learn along the way.