StartupComix : Lessons Learned from a Failed Side Project

06/29/2010 Kevin Owocki

It”s been about 4 months since I discontinued StartupComix.com, a side project where I had created daily comics about startup-isms, technology, and hacker life.

Initially, the idea was the share ideas, make jokes, and be involved in the hacker community. The idea was heavily inspired by Awkward Rules, xKcd, and Abtruse Goose. It was way harder than I thought it”d be. Especially as a side project. In the end, I discontinued the project as a result of a) a lack of motivation and b) a lack of inspiration.

Here”s a few unexpected things that happened, and the lessons I learned from it:

I overcommitted. From the start, I promised new comics 5 days a week. That turned out to be too much, especially for a newbie author who has little experience creating creative content. I found myself running out of energy to create good content, and I think I settled for some punch-lines that weren”t my best. I think, next time, a better strategy may be to just publish as the content comes to me.

Good content is not easy to create. I”ve come to think that humour is one of those things that is easy to understand, but hard to create. It”s really really tough to create good content on a consistent basis. To do so, you need to continually search for inspiration, even when you don”t want to.

It”s hard to fight a war on two fronts. My work at Ignighter comes first. When you”re giving 100% to something, it”s difficult to contribute more energy to a side project.

All in all, I”m glad I did it. I had some fun times and shared some laughs.

Here”s some of my favorite startupcomix:
Please forgive the formatting. I wanted them to be readable here, but couldn”t find a way to do that and still make them fit within the content area.

– 0x13 – Be careful you don”t get a PWI