A Checklist I Made After a Year of Solo Side Projects

Since last March, I've been working on side projects by myself. Now I'm shutting down one service and starting a new one. Here's what I learned in the process.

1. Idea Validation

• Get feedback as quickly as possible with a mockup or landing page. It's a hundred times better to check whether people want it before writing code.
• Find a paying customer first, even if it's just 10,000 KRW.

2. Tech Stack

• If you're going solo, stick with languages you know well. Since I'm familiar with Next.js, I used it all the way.
• Postgres + Prisma is more than enough even for personal projects.
• Using PaaS like Vercel or Render saves far more time than renting a server and deploying with Docker.

3. Basics of Operations

• Set up error monitoring from the beginning. A free tier like Sentry is sufficient.
• I split deployment automation into two workflows using GitHub Actions.

4. The Most Important Thing

• A sustainable structure matters more than polish. Because these are toy projects built and used by one person, they often crumble during maintenance rather than development.

There are still many areas where I'm lacking, but in the end, I think consistently creating something with familiar tools is itself the way to grow as a developer.

by 데이터덕후322