Crazy Eight Challenge
For me, creating something from nothing is a miracle. I always loved making things. As a child and in my youth, I spent plenty of time building all kinds of things. When I started my professional career, the time I spent making on my own decreased rapidly. This is about to change in 2022. I commit myself to launch 8 projects and I'm calling this endeavor Crazy 8. These are the rules and thoughts behind it.
Six-Week Cycles
Every project will be built in a six-week cycle. Doing eight such cycles will take 48 weeks. This gives me four weeks to spend time off with my family. By making each cycle six weeks long the deadline is always in sight. So I need to prioritize and really focus on finishing and launching. I will need to decide what projects are possible in one cycle and scope each of them to make sure they are finished on time.
Public Launch
At the end of a successful cycle, the project is made publicly available. The project does not have to be digital. Also, no users are required. I'm sure most (or all) of the projects I'll build during Crazy 8 will not be very original. The result does not have to be perfect, but it needs to work, and it needs to be launched after six weeks.
Each project will be officially launched by a post on this website. I plan to include my learnings, as well as the obstacles I've encountered. Maybe I'll also give short updates on the progress of the project throughout the cycle, but I'm not sure yet. You can follow me on Twitter to keep up to date.
Important side note: I'm not aiming for starting a business. I actually like my job and have no plans on leaving that to venture out on my own. But as said in the first paragraph I'd like to get back into the habit of building stuff and for that I believe Crazy 8 is a valid approach.
The Schedule
The first cycle will start on Tuesday, February 1, 2022, and ends on March 15, 2022. This gives me two weeks to brainstorm and come up decide on the idea for my first project. Once we've planned our vacations, I'll schedule the other seven cycles and update this list.
- February 1, 2022 - March 15, 2022
But, Why?
Why launch eight projects, you might ask. Why not just build one thing? My goal with Crazy 8 is to learn to launch; and like everything, learning to launch requires practice. Like Jon Yongfook once wrote, the ability to launch products is a muscle that you need to exercise. I believe eight projects over the course of a year is good exercise, and having six weeks for each fits my schedule besides work and family.
Prior Art
I'm not the first one to start a series like this. There's Jon Yongfook who started with 12 Startups in 12 Months in 2018. He stopped after startup number 7 to focus on one project and now runs Bannerbear. Before Jon Yongfook there was Pieter Levels who launched 12 Startups in 12 Months in 2014. Pieter Levels is the guy behind sites like Nomad List, Remote OK and other successful sites. I am sure there were quite a few others who started such a challenge, but Pieter Levels and Jon Yongfook are probably two of the more popular ones.