Upgrade to Pro
— share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …
Speaker Deck
Features
Speaker Deck
PRO
Sign in
Sign up for free
Search
Search
Side Projects
Search
zachleat
March 02, 2013
Programming
4
1.2k
Side Projects
How I generate ideas for, manage, and work on meaningful/less side projects.
zachleat
March 02, 2013
Tweet
Share
More Decks by zachleat
See All by zachleat
NEJS CONF 2017 Interstitial Slides
zachleat
0
140
Credibility
zachleat
0
74
A Brief History of that Time You Used Web Fonts
zachleat
7
1.4k
The Performance and Usability of Font Loading (Velocity NYC 2015)
zachleat
3
590
The Performance and Usability of Font Loading (Velocity Santa Clara 2015)
zachleat
27
4.5k
Performance and Responsive Web Design
zachleat
7
1.8k
Remodeling @font-face
zachleat
17
3.3k
How and Why I Built fontfamily.io
zachleat
2
1.4k
Bulletproof Font Icons
zachleat
19
2.8k
Other Decks in Programming
See All in Programming
Dart 参戦!!静的型付き言語界の隠れた実力者
kno3a87
0
200
フロントエンドのmonorepo化と責務分離のリアーキテクト
kajitack
2
130
『リコリス・リコイル』に学ぶ!! 〜キャリア戦略における計画的偶発性理論と変わる勇気の重要性〜
wanko_it
1
580
ゲームの物理
fadis
5
1.5k
実践 Dev Containers × Claude Code
touyu
1
230
Nuances on Kubernetes - RubyConf Taiwan 2025
envek
0
180
kiroでゲームを作ってみた
iriikeita
0
180
Vibe coding コードレビュー
kinopeee
0
460
Flutter로 Gemini와 MCP를 활용한 Agentic App 만들기 - 박제창 2025 I/O Extended Seoul
itsmedreamwalker
0
150
#QiitaBash TDDで(自分の)開発がどう変わったか
ryosukedtomita
1
380
技術的負債で信頼性が限界だったWordPress運用をShifterで完全復活させた話
rvirus0817
1
1.9k
新世界の理解
koriym
0
140
Featured
See All Featured
Connecting the Dots Between Site Speed, User Experience & Your Business [WebExpo 2025]
tammyeverts
8
470
YesSQL, Process and Tooling at Scale
rocio
173
14k
Become a Pro
speakerdeck
PRO
29
5.5k
Navigating Team Friction
lara
188
15k
Sharpening the Axe: The Primacy of Toolmaking
bcantrill
44
2.4k
How To Stay Up To Date on Web Technology
chriscoyier
790
250k
Speed Design
sergeychernyshev
32
1.1k
The Straight Up "How To Draw Better" Workshop
denniskardys
236
140k
Exploring the Power of Turbo Streams & Action Cable | RailsConf2023
kevinliebholz
34
6k
Scaling GitHub
holman
462
140k
Distributed Sagas: A Protocol for Coordinating Microservices
caitiem20
333
22k
Visualizing Your Data: Incorporating Mongo into Loggly Infrastructure
mongodb
48
9.6k
Transcript
SIDE PROJECTS This ain’t my main gig.
@zachleat http://www.zachleat.com Filament Group
A creative endeavor that isn’t your primary source of income.
Maybe you’ve heard of:
None
Side project of: Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie
None
—The White Stripes Side project of:
None
‘s Side Project
None
Side project of:
allow you: SIDE PROJECTS
a fresh, independent perspective.
a creative outlet.
an opportunity to learn something new.
What would you do if money were no object? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siu6JYqOZ0g
SIDE PROJECTS
A few of my SIDE PROJECTS http://www.zachleat.com/web/projects/
http://www.alarmd.com
http://www.alarmd.com
http://www.alarmd.com
http://www.alarmd.com
http://www.alarmd.com
None
http://www.zachleat.com/projects/Malarquee/
http://www.zachleat.com/bigtext/
A few of my favorite SIDE PROJECTS
http://whatcheer.com/
http://whatcheer.com/
http://whatcheer.com/
How to decide what to work on?
I have a book.
(Well, it started as a notebook. Now it’s in Evernote.)
All of my ideas go into the book.
“What if I could…”
“Why doesn’t this…?”
“Man, it’d be cool if…”
But, I also have a few Rules.
#1 It doesn’t matter how weird or unachievable the idea
is, it goes into the book.
For example,
A Gritty Mary Poppins Reboot
Spoiler: She’s a drug dealer.
#2 Never work on an idea right away.
#3 Revisit achievable ideas; order in a big list by
Motivation & Complexity.
can be: SIDE PROJECTS
Esoteric.
should be: SIDE PROJECTS
Simple.
For example, a NSFW Url Shortener
Fun.
For example, a multiplayer online Ouija board. Credit to @davatron5000
For yourself.
For example, a real Deal with It Glasses kit.
@zachleat http://www.zachleat.com