The surprising affect of side projects on a team

Bob was a mediocre middle of the road developer who was struggling to complete projects at work. Six months ago, he received a performance review that effectively said he was not carrying his own weight. His manager, Sally, was frustrated with his lack of ability, and she was hesitant to give him any more of the challenging projects. Today, something is different, Bob has finished all of his projects, and he is even helping others on the team with their work.

Bob had always talked with his friends about starting a startup and striking it rich. He would debate with his friends about different ideas and which of those would likely be more successful. But He was always hesitant to pursue this goal. He feared his manager might not allow him to work on his ideas. He was right to worry, Sally regularly impressed upon the team the need to burn the midnight oil and to come in on weekends to work against company projects with short deadlines. Anything that took the team’s focus off work would be a problem in her eyes.

After his last performance review, Bob decide he needed something to motivate himself. He had come across this online community called IndieHackers, and he has been reading the posts on the site about other people creating side projects. Other members in that community discussed how they came up with ideas, the struggles they faced, and how they got their first users. Their stories gave Bob comfort that his idea was a possibility, that creating it would not be that hard. Bob’s desire for action to make something happen and to have some feeling of control over his life prompted him to finally make a commitment to work on one of his ideas.

His time was limited but he committed to work on his idea an hour a day and a few hours on the weekend. He would plan out the next steps for his idea the night before, and he would wake up an hour early to work on those next steps. Over the next six months Bob tinkered and worked out the roadblocks he encountered with his idea. He picked up new skills on demand as he needed them to complete a step in the roadmap he envisioned for his idea. He was focused and his perseverance payed off. He finally launched the idea on a small server he rented for cheap from one of the cloud providers.

His friends really enjoyed what Bob created. Bob shared a link to his side project on a few forums, and the site received modest traffic. His side projects had a freemium model, and had only received two paying users. It was not enough for him to leave his day job to pursue the side project full time.
But that was ok with Bob, he was thrilled that he launched something. This side project gave him confidence and it gave him new skills that he could use at his day job.

As a manager, you may be reluctant to allow the people you manage to work on side projects. You may think they will interfere with the goals of the team and of the company. The company may also have strict policies in place that govern outside activities or intellectual property. But ask yourself, what kind of people do you want working in your team? Consider survivorship bias which is a phenomemon where you only hear about the winners, those that survived. Realize that the vast majority of startups and side projects fail compared to those that become successful. The likelyhood of you losing a team member to a side project is infinitesimally small.

Side projects provide an avenue for people to improve themselves. For a side project to be successful, a person must make difficult choices and iterate quickly to find solutions that work. They must overcome all sorts of challenges which include finding a market, communicating with that market, and learning new technical skills. These are all skills that are transferable and can benefit your team. Side projects are not for everyone, nor they should not be something mandated by a manager. Some people have families and other obligations outside of the office. For those members of your team that want to pursue a side project, you as a manager should encourage them and help them to navigate company policy around IP and outside activities. Your company may not have the resources, budget, or time to provide the ideal training to every employee. A side project provides way to forward for employees to develop skills that can help the company and the employee. In many aspects, a side project is a superior form of training over conferences and company sponsored initiatives.