Why I'm sharing my ideas before they're finished

On the About page I wrote about why this site exists: most of my ideas used to stay in my head, AI has made it possible to actually build them, and sharing is the next step. But there's an older reason behind it, one that goes back to 2008.

OpenConcepts

In 2008, I worked on a project called OpenConcepts, together with Lorenz van Gool.

The idea was simple: instead of developing a concept behind closed doors until it was finished, you make the public part of it. You share the concept early, collect feedback from the people who would actually use it, and feed that back into how the concept develops. Not after the launch, but while it's still taking shape.

OpenConcepts never became big. But the idea behind it did.

The idea that won anyway

Today, sharing early and learning from users is pretty much how products are built:

• The Lean Startup. Eric Ries made the minimum viable product mainstream: build the smallest thing that lets you learn from real users, then improve. One of the best-known examples is Dropbox, which validated its idea with a simple demo video before the product was finished.
• The perpetual beta. Gmail launched in 2004 and only dropped its beta label in 2009. For five years, millions of people used a product that was officially still being tested, and it kept changing based on how they used it.
• Early Access. In 2013, Steam opened Early Access: players buy games while they're still in development and give feedback along the way. Games like Kerbal Space Program and Prison Architect were shaped by their players long before they were finished.
• Building in public. Countless makers now share their progress openly: what they're building, what works, what doesn't, and what they learned from the things that failed.

What once felt like a slightly odd idea, showing something before it's ready, has become completely normal.

Putting it into practice

This felt like a good moment to finally apply that idea to myself.

I have more ideas than time, and many of them never made it past my head. This site is my own small version of OpenConcepts: a place to share projects while I'm still working on them, explain the thinking behind them, and hopefully get feedback from people who know more about a subject than I do.

That's also why projects here have a phase. Some are active, some are experiments, some will be paused. That's fine.

Not every idea has to become a product

Not every idea needs to grow into a full product. Most won't, and that's okay.

Even an idea that stops halfway teaches you something: about the problem, about the technology, about what you'd do differently next time. The only real waste is when those lessons disappear along with the idea.

Writing things down is part of the process for me. Documenting a project, including what went wrong, makes sure the learnings don't get lost, and that I can carry them into the next idea. Sometimes that next idea turns out to be the one that does grow into something.

How this site works

• Projects come first: what I'm building, why, what I've learned and what's next.
• Writing is for the longer stories behind them.
• Feedback is very welcome. If you spot something I've missed, know a better approach, or want to try something I'm building, you can reach me through the form on the About page.

OpenConcepts was about letting people in early. This site is me finally doing that with my own ideas.