Motivation and the startup

I’m noticing a few interesting things about myself while working on twords.

1. I’m incredibly motivated by building things that solve problems for people I care about. My favorite little improvements all came from talking to Joe and the kind friends who send me suggestions. I solve their problems, I get a boost of happiness. Easy.
2. I feel happiest when I push out improvements regularly and incrementally. If I work on it no more than about three hours a day, perhaps every other day, I’m good.
3. I feel most confident about the product when I go learn something about psychology or business in general, and then implement it on the site within 24 hours. Closing the gap between learning and action feels really, really good.
4. Obviously, I still get a rush with every new user and when I see people actually coming back to the app regularly. New and sometimes unexpected events are motivating and captivating.
5. I don’t know why, but I get things done a lot faster after about 9pm. I feel a bit insecure about that because it’s a bad habit to work on an exciting project at a time when you’re supposed to be winding down for sleep, but I. Get. Shit. Done. And then I can’t sleep until 4am. Oy.
6. I’m motivated by doing things that are difficult for me to do. Somehow I can’t get myself to design a logo or write copy for the site, things I normally do for other people, but I can sit there and stare at code for a long time. Weird.

I’m hoping that these business/startup motivation hacks keep working over time, although I’m sure there’s going to be a steady decrease in marginal return over time. Or maybe not, who knows.

If you have any motivation tricks or observations of your own, please feel free to reach out to me on twitter (@chka) and share them! I’m looking forward to learning more from the community.