Discusses how Makers, side project enthusiasts, and minipreneurs can work together to build and deliver awesome collaborative work in their spare time.

1. Awesome Projects,
Lifelong Colleagues
A Discussions on Finding
Collaborators for Side Projects
David Koelle
dmkoelle@gmail.com
v1.0 July 20, 2015

2. Side Projects are Awesome!
They give us a chance to:
Create something new, cool, and interesting
Work outside the constraints of the day job
Learn and practice new skills
Pursue an idea that can lead to a new business
Make a positive change in people’s lives and a
positive impact in the world

3. But Side Projects are Hard!
Several challenges present hurdles to side projects:
Hard to find time and energy after the day job
May be hard to find space to work on project
May need to find money to buy components
Hard to find like-minded people to also dedicate their
limited spare time to your cool ideas

4. The Maker Movement is Helping
Incremental steps to making this work:
Meetup groups help get people together
Maker spaces provide space for large projects
Kickstarter (etc.) helps projectnauts obtain funding
App stores, self-publishing, open source licenses,
Etsy, etc. help with distribution

5. But We’re Still Missing Something Big
Specifically, people working together:
Most projects on Kickstarter are 1 or 2-person efforts
Mentorship is uncommon for side projects
Meetups are often focused on presentations rather
than working together productively
Hackathons and Code Labs do not translate to
collaboration after the event

6. Why is it Hard to Find Project People?
Motivations, expectations, and communication
Unless people are gathering specifically to work on
projects together, that’s not why everyone is there
We don’t know whether people are interested in working
together on projects, or what they’re interested in
We don’t know what level of commitment people can
make to projects, even if they are interested
We don’t have a way to know the depth and breadth of
each other’s skills or interests

7. What if We Could Find Project People?
Oh, the things we could do!
We could be lifelong colleagues with awesome people in a
way that transcends working at the same company
We could learn from each other about things that we are so
passionate about that we dedicate scarce free time to them
We could work together to build something bigger than 1 or 2
people can build by themselves
We can improve the creativity and growth of our projects by
talking and sharing with others of a similar mindset

8. Awesome! How Do We Do It?
Turning the dream into a reality:
Establish organizations that focus on bringing together
project-oriented people – Kickstarter for People
Share the vision for working together in new ways to mutually
build each other and our projects
Create a system that lets us share and match our ideas,
project needs, person qualifications, etc.
Partner with Meetups and other communities and be the
place where people go to find and build impactful projects