Two years ago, frustrated with a long list of unfulfilled project ideas in my phone notes, I decided to start trying one idea each week in its tiniest form.
两年前，我对电话簿上一长串未实现的项目想法感到沮丧，我决定开始每周试着以最小形态实现一个想法。
I never kept to a weekly schedule, but I've kept plodding along since then and launched 8 things.
我从未遵守一个周计划，但是从那开始我保持缓慢推进，并落实了八件事。
Each morning I sit down with a coffee and bash out some project code. It's a hobby I love, and one that's starting to generate some decent passive income now.
每天早上我坐下喝杯咖啡，然后写出一些项目的代码。这是我喜欢的爱好，而且现在开始产生一些 不错的 被动 收入。
In this post I want to update you on everything I've launched, and share what I've learnt about building lots of these tiny internet projects.
在这篇文章中，我将更新出所有我发布的项目，分享我从构建这么多小型互联网项目所学到的知识。
Let's go back to the start.
💡 Tiny Website
The first project I made is this blog you're reading right now.
我做的第一个项目就是你正在阅读的这个博客。
The purpose of the blog was to simply document all the other projects I'd make.
这个博客的目的是简要记录所有我做的项目。
I launched it the day after I turned 25, and the very first post I wrote, "Tiny Websites are Great", went semi-viral, which was very lucky and spurred me to keep going.
在我25岁生日后我发布了它，我在上面写的第一篇文章： "Tiny Websites are Great"，很幸运地以半病毒式的传播开来，这也激励着我继续下去。
Not much has changed here since then. I've written 17 blog posts, and, of course, there's now dark mode.
Objectively, looking at page views, this is the most successful thing I've ever created.
从那开始便没再有太大变化。我已经写了17篇，现在还有了黑暗模式。客观来说，从页面浏览量来看，这是我创作过的最成功的作品。
- Launched: May 2020
- Page views: 840,000
- Revenue: £0
🌐 Silicon Valley Domain names
One week after launching this blog, I thought it would be a brilliant idea to buy domain names from several FAANG companies, e.g. google.קום
发布博客一周后，我觉得购买硅谷大厂的域名是个好主意，比如google.קום
This wasn't really a project, but I'd always been interested in domains, and the blog post I wrote "I bought netflix.soy" again went semi-viral.
这并不算一个项目，但是我一直对域名很感兴趣，而且我的 “我买了 netflix.soy” 这篇博客再次半病毒式传播。
I still own netflix.soy. With Netflix stock tanking, maybe it'll be worth more one day.
我仍然拥有 netflix.xoy。随着网飞股票的下跌，也许有一天它会变得更值钱。
- Launched: May 2020
- Facebook cease and desists: 1
- Revenue: £0
⚔️ 8-bit Battle Royale
The next project I made was a tiny 8-bit battle royale game for Android.
下一个项目是一个安卓端的 8-bit 大逃杀游戏
This was so fun to build, but ended up being my least successful project.
构建过程很有趣，但是最终成了我最不成功的项目。
I launched it to crickets, which was gutting after the success of the last blog posts.
我将它发布到 crickets，但在上一篇博客发布后它崩溃了。（？）
Sadly I lost the code for the game when I switched laptops. It's still live, but very buggy. This didn't stop someone streaming it on Twitch last month though.
不幸的是，当我更换我的笔电时，我丢失了游戏的代码。它仍可以实时玩，但仍是有bug的。但这并没有阻止上个月还有人在twitch直播它。
- Launched: June 2020
- Downloads: 183
- Revenue: £0
🛍️ One Item Store
Next up I built a micro online store builder to sell a single product on repeat; just imagine a tiny Shopify.
接下来，我构建了一个微型网店构建器，为了重复销售单一的产品；可以联想一个小型的shopify。
I cobbled this project together in 2 weeks, and launched it on Product Hunt.
我用两周拼凑出了这个项目，并在 Product Hunt 发布了它。
Amazingly, people started selling real things on there, netting me a mighty £1.63 in 1% transaction fees.
令人惊讶的是，人们开始在上面出售实物，让我以1%交易费的方式净赚1.64英镑
Although this wasn't even enough for a Tesco meal deal, it was my first taste of internet money, and boy did it taste good.
虽然这些钱都不够 Tesco 的套餐，但这是我第一次尝到互联网上赚钱的味道，而且真香。
Amazingly, a few months after launching One Item Store, I was approached by someone looking to buy it.
令人震惊的是，推出 One Item Store 几个月后，有人找到我想买它。
I ended up selling for $5,300, which blew my tiny mind.
最后我卖除了 5300美元 的价格，这属实震撼到了我。
- Launched: June 2020
- Page views: 28,000
- Revenue: £1.63
📗 Snormal
After conquering the e-commerce world, building a social network was the obvious next step.
在征服了电子商务世界后，下一步显然是构建一个社交网络。
In a few weeks I launched "Snormal": a social network for people to post everyday normal things, like "I just ate a baguette".
几周后，我推出了“Snormal”，一个供人发布琐碎日常的社交网络，比如在上面发“我刚吃了一个🥖”
In hindsight, this does not make an exciting social network that people want to visit, and the website is kind of dead.
事后再看，这并不是一个让人想访问的使人兴奋的社交网络，这个网站死掉了。
I've abandoned this project, but it still has a few daily users.
我抛弃了这个项目，但它仍然有几个日常用户。
- Launched: August 2020
- Page views: 9,800
- Revenue: £0
💸 Earlyname
I sign up to a lot of new products to snag a "rare" handle, e.g. @ben. My next project turned this into a business.
我注册了很多新产品来获得一个稀有的称呼，比如 @ben。我的下一个项目把它变成了一门生意。
Each month I'd send out a newsletter with 4 new social networks, and let you know if your username was available on them.
每个月我都会发送一份带有四个社交网络信息的时事通讯，让你知道你的用户名在这些平台上是否可用。
For an optional $10/month, I'd actually register the usernames for you.
如果选择了 10美元/月 的可选服务，我将替你注册这些用户名。
After a 1 month build, I launched "Earlyname" on Product Hunt, and surprisingly got a few paying customers.
1个月后，我在 Product Hunt 上发布了“Earlyname”，并意外地收获了一些付费用户。
For 6 months I sent out newsletters, growing Earlyname to $350/month in revenue, but ultimately decided I didn't enjoy running it.
发送时事通讯6个月后，我通过Earlyname的收入来到了 350美元/月，但最终我觉得我不喜欢运营它。
Having already sold one project, I confidently listed Earlyname on MicroAcquire and sold it for $10,500.
在售出过一个项目后，我自信的将 Earlyname 放在了 MicroAcquire 上，并以 10500 美元的价格售出。
- Launched: October 2020
- Page views: 10,000
- Revenue: $4,200/year
💌 Mailoji
One day, I found you could use emoji domains in email addresses, e.g. hi@👋.kz
有一天，我发现可以在email地址上使用emoji域名，比如hi@👋.kz
Realising there were many .kz emoji domains available, I decided it would be a great idea to buy 300 Kazakhstan emoji domains and launch an emoji email address service.
在意识到有很多这类域名可供使用后，我决定购买300个哈萨克斯坦表情符号域名，并推出一个表情符号email域名地址服务。
One month after launching, I had 150 customers, but I'd actually made a loss from the domain name costs.
上线一个月后，我有了150个用户，但是实际上减去购买域名的成本，我亏损了。
Like all these projects, I wrote up a blog post about it and put it on Hacker News.
像所有这些项目一样，我写了一篇关于它的博客文章，并把它放在了 Hacker News 上。
The post did nothing for 30 minutes, then absolutely skyrocketed.
这篇文章30分钟后迅速蹿红。
I sold $9,000 in subscriptions over a weekend; the most I've ever made in such a short period of time.
我一个周末就卖出了9000美元的订阅费；这是我在这么短时间内赚得最多的一次。
Mailoji is still going strong, and now has 700 emoji domains. I collect them like Pokémon. Recently I caught ❤️.gg
Mailoji依然很强大，现在拥有700个emoji域名。我像收集宝可梦一样收集它们，最近我“捕捉”到了❤️.gg
You can now also have full emoji email addresses like 🦄🚀@🍉.fm
你现在还可以拥有完全的emoji邮箱域名，例如🦄🚀@🍉.fm
- Launched: March 2021
- Page views: 129,000
- Total Revenue: $18,500
📖 Paper Website
I really enjoy writing using pen & paper, and wanted to start a daily blog.
我很享受用纸笔写作，并且想开始一个每日博客。
Over a few weeks, I built a prototype app that let you snap a picture of a handwritten page and turn it into a website.
几周后，我构建了一个原型app，可以让你抓拍一张你的手写纸面的照片，然后让它成为一个网站。
After enjoying writing a few "paper blog posts", I decided to turn this prototype into a full-blown service called Paper Website.
在写了几篇“纸博客”，我决定让这个原型成为一个成熟的服务，命名为 Paper Website。
I bought 100 notebooks to give out to initial customers, and braced for launch.
我购买了 100 个笔记本分发给初始用户，然后做好准备上线。
Fortunately it went well. Over 200 people have built a paper website, and I only have a few notebooks left in my kitchen.
很幸运，一切顺利，200多人建立了一个纸质网站，而我的厨房中只剩下基本笔记本。
My daily blog runs on Paper Website, and I've handwritten well over 100 paper blog posts without getting a paper cut.
我的每日博客运行在 Paper Website 上，我已经手写了超过100篇博客，而且从未被纸割伤。
- Launched: November 2021
- Page views: 69,000
- Revenue: $9,370/year
👍 Pros（优点） of Tiny Projects
Rapidly launching lots of tiny projects is so much fun. This is the main reason I do it.
快速的启动很多小项目是很有趣的，这是我做这件事的主要原因。
However, with each launch, I'm slowly learning what makes a project "successful". After 8 launches, I'm starting to see some patterns.
然而，每启动一个，我都在慢慢的学习如何让一个项目“成功”。8次发布后，我开始看到一些规律。
I've also discovered what micro-businesses I like to run: I don't enjoy newsletters, but love quirky technical projects that generate passive income. I would never have known this launching just one thing.
我还发现了我喜欢的微事业：我不喜欢时事通讯，但是喜欢能产生被动收入的奇奇怪怪的技术项目。如果只发布一个项目，我是不会知道的。
The best thing about tiny projects is they're so small, the stakes are incredibly low. There's zero pressure if something fails, you just move on guilt-free and try again.
小项目的好处就是他们很小，风险很低。失败了也没什么压力，你只需要没有负罪感的继续向前，再试一次。
Another random benefit is my developer skills have 10X'ed over the 2 years of building these projects. I was decent before, but I'm on a different level now.
另外的好处就是在开发这些项目的两年间，我的开发技术提升了10倍。我以前也尚且不错，但是现在我处在了一个不同的级别。
👎 **Cons（缺点）**of Tiny Projects
A big debate is whether you should launch lots of things, or focus on just one.
一个比较大的争议是，应该发布很多，还是只专注一个。
I personally enjoy the "micro-bet" approach, but I often wonder if I gave all my attention to one project I could see better financial success.
我个人喜欢“微赌”的方式，但我经常思考如果我能把我全部的注意力放在一个项目上，我可能会获得更好的金钱上的成功。
At the moment I have 3 active projects that run on auto-pilot. Time management and context switching has been okay, but with 5+ active projects it might get hard.
目前我有三个活跃的项目在自动运行。我在时间管理和工作切换上都还不错，但如果有五个或更多可能就难以保证了。
One other weird downside is that, as I've grown an audience building these projects, I sometimes catch myself thinking "should I build something just for the upvotes".
另一个奇怪的缺点是，随着我构建这些项目的受众越来越多，我有时发现自己在思考：“我是否应该只为了获得好评而开发一些东西”。
It's tempting, because I know I could, and it would probably work. But, I think this is a sure-fire way to burn out fast.
这很诱人，因为我知道我可以，而且这行得通。但是，我认为这是一种肯定会很快耗尽精力的方式。
🔮 Conclusions & The Future
When I started this mission, I had a big list of project ideas that I'd built up in my phone. Maybe you have one of those lists too.
当我开始这个任务时，我有一个很长的项目想法清单，我把它列在手机中。可能你们也有。
Two years later, I've realised a lot of these initial ideas were pretty terrible.
两年后，我意识到当时的很多想法都很糟糕。
It's a paradox, but I've found that my best ideas now come from building other ideas.
这是一个悖论，但是我发现当下我最好的想法来自构建其他想法的过程中。
I would never have thought of an emoji email address service going about my day-to-day, if I hadn't decided to stupidly experiment with domains and buy netflix.soy.
如果我当时没有决定蠢蠢的尝试域名项目并购买 netflix.soy，我将永远不会想到emoji邮箱域名。
If you're stuck for ideas, I recommend just building something; anything; even if it's terrible, and I guarantee a better idea will pop into your brain shortly after.
如果你没什么点子，我建议你随便做点什么，即便它很烂，我保证你会在之后会有更好的想法。
Each project I build now uses a spark of an idea from the previous. It's like a monkey swinging vine-to-vine, except the vines are projects, and I'm just a dumb monkey.
现在我所构建的每个项目，都用到了之前想法的火花。就像一只猴子在藤蔓间摇摆，只不过藤蔓是项目，我是一只笨猴子。
I want to keep building tiny projects for decades, and I'm excited to see what ideas come next.
我想在未来几十年内都继续做小项目，我很兴奋的期待我接下来会有什么想法。
Now, onto the next project!
现在，进入下一个项目！
