Launch a Month - Principles

Ecosystem

  • Core:
    • Gamified Creation (e.g. Daily Missions & Goal Reviews) -- can be AI-assisted in the future.
    • Community Chapters (e.g. Mentorship/Fellowship Program, Talks, Chapter Leaders, Interest-specific groups.)
  • Provides Software-based Automation Tools
    • Community: CommunityKit (e.g. EventDuty, DotBudget)
    • Product: ProductKit
  • Provides Frameworks in gamified/automated ways.
    • Product: Design Thinking, Lean Startup, UX

Templates

Launch a Month can help you create:

  • Tech Projects & Products (Main Focus)
    • Open Source Libraries
    • Open Source Applications
    • Software Projects
    • Tech Products
  • Community Projects
    • Events
    • Camps & Bootcamps
    • Protests & Groups

Key Principles

  1. You are a creator.
    • We believe that everyone have the capacity to create great things, and learning should be fun.
    • You don't have to be skilled to create new things. In fact, the objective of creating things is to learn. Don't be afraid to create fun or silly projects, as that can be a great learning experience.
  2. Start Small to create Awesome Things.
    • Don't start out to create your next big idea right away. Roam isn't built in a day.
    • Start with small pain points or wishes, and build MVPs to validate your ideas.
    • Know the difference between your vision and your action, although both are important. Start by daydreaming what your vision or end goal is, and start working towards making it come true, step-by-step.
  3. Build it for yourself, or for someone else.
    • The most innovative things come from building something for yourself to solve your personal pains and wishes, or building it to solve pain points for someone close to you.
      • For example, if your parents are charity workers and they suffer from some problem at work, it might be interesting to create tools to solve their pain points!
    • You don't have to create useful projects, because it depends on your objective. Fun or silly projects are truly fantastic and educational if the objective is to improve your skills. Your goal should always be to learn.
      • For developers: Take a look at Stupid Hackathon events!
    • Choose the domains you and your team are passionate or have domain expertise in. This is important, as creating something for the domain/cause you're passionate in will help fuel your determination and move forward.
  4. Always aim to learn new things and be experimental.
    • The true objective of creating new things is not to solve problems, but to try new things and learn new skills along the way. Always aim to experiment with things you've never tried!
    • If you're a developer, don't use the same tech stack when building new personal projects. Don't be afraid to over-engineer and experiment with new libraries and technologies.
    • If you're a community leader, try to improve your ways of working, create automation and experiment with new mechanisms or activities.
  5. Always Learn in Public with your communities.
    • Building and learning by yourself can be boring and ineffective, because you don't have feedback or measurement metrics on how well you're doing.
    • Always try to learn in public by writing blog posts and articles, giving talks on your journey to create your project, and sharing your experience and knowledge with the community. This will help a lot in getting people to know you more.
    • Even if your project has no users, creating write-ups can be truly useful to the community because you'll be able to share your learning experience with others. Besides, you may get help on how to make it useful for others!
    • Great employers in tech companies care about what side projects you've created much more than where you've graduated from, as that's a great conversation starters for interviews. If you're a first jobber, building projects is a great way to go!
  6. Have Fun! Follow the fun.
    • Creating anything should never be a painful experience. Don't be afraid to ask for help from the community when you struggle with something, as that will accelerate your learning curve and give you pointers on improving your understanding of things.
    • If you're not having fun, it's always okay to pivot and start over on new projects. Remind yourself to share your experiences on failures with the community, as that will be extremely beneficial for everyone!

Web Experience

Title

  • Launch your next project and learn new things.
  • Typeahead: "Launch your ((first/next)) ((things/random ideas)) in 30 days"
    • Launch your first open-source software project in 30 days.
    • Launch your next community project in 30 days.

Ideas

Inspiration

When I'm building my personal projects (DotBudget, EventDuty, etc.), I'm building it to solve MY personal problems, not others. Some are useful to other people, while some are useful to myself. However, all of them are educational and help me improve my skills.

This is why I've created Launch a Month.

My objective is to help people learn new things by building projects.

My vision is to replace traditional education systems by providing means for employers to know , and create a community of amateur founders and educate people on how everyone can contribute to society by creation.

Idea

  • Launch a Month Certificate/Portfolio/Showcase
    • Can be a discussion point for potential employers.
  • Launch a Month Incubator
    • After a month, you can decide whether to continue this project or to create another project. If you want to continue, you can be evaluated to join the incubator.
  • Mentorship/Fellowship System
  • Onboarding
    • "What do you want to create?" ->
    • "Why do you want to create it?" -> Drag & Drop to sort priority (e.g. to learn new skills, etc.)
Back to Home