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
Sponsored
·
SiteGround - Reliable hosting with speed, security, and support you can count on.
→
zachleat
March 02, 2013
Programming
1.4k
4
Share
Side Projects
How I generate ideas for, manage, and work on meaningful/less side projects.
zachleat
March 02, 2013
More Decks by zachleat
See All by zachleat
NEJS CONF 2017 Interstitial Slides
zachleat
0
160
Credibility
zachleat
0
99
A Brief History of that Time You Used Web Fonts
zachleat
7
1.5k
The Performance and Usability of Font Loading (Velocity NYC 2015)
zachleat
3
650
The Performance and Usability of Font Loading (Velocity Santa Clara 2015)
zachleat
27
4.8k
Performance and Responsive Web Design
zachleat
7
2.1k
Remodeling @font-face
zachleat
17
3.5k
How and Why I Built fontfamily.io
zachleat
2
1.5k
Bulletproof Font Icons
zachleat
19
3k
Other Decks in Programming
See All in Programming
(Re)make Regexp in Ruby: Democratizing internals for the JIT
makenowjust
3
1k
過去のレビュー知見をSkillsで資産化した話
pkshadeck
PRO
1
1.8k
ハーネスエンジニアリングとは?
kinopeee
13
6.9k
Agentic Elixir
whatyouhide
0
450
The Past, Present, and Future of Enterprise Java
ivargrimstad
0
580
ソースコード→AST→オペコード、の旅を覗いてみる
o0h
PRO
1
130
サークル参加から学ぶ、小さな事業の回し方
yuzneri
0
160
2026-04-15 Spring IO - I Can See Clearly Now
jonatan_ivanov
1
190
Road to RubyKaigi: Play Hard(ware)
makicamel
1
560
mruby on C#: From VM Implementation to Game Scripting (RubyKaigi 2026)
hadashia
2
1.7k
PicoRuby for IoT: Connecting to the Cloud with MQTT
yuuu
2
770
「OSSがあるなら自作するな」は AI時代も正しいか ── Build vs Adopt の新しい判断基準
kumorn5s
7
2.5k
Featured
See All Featured
Claude Code のすすめ
schroneko
67
220k
Darren the Foodie - Storyboard
khoart
PRO
3
3.3k
エンジニアに許された特別な時間の終わり
watany
106
240k
RailsConf 2023
tenderlove
30
1.4k
Building a Scalable Design System with Sketch
lauravandoore
463
34k
Dealing with People You Can't Stand - Big Design 2015
cassininazir
367
27k
State of Search Keynote: SEO is Dead Long Live SEO
ryanjones
0
190
DevOps and Value Stream Thinking: Enabling flow, efficiency and business value
helenjbeal
1
190
The Language of Interfaces
destraynor
162
26k
Ecommerce SEO: The Keys for Success Now & Beyond - #SERPConf2024
aleyda
1
2k
Facilitating Awesome Meetings
lara
57
6.8k
Practical Orchestrator
shlominoach
191
11k
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