TLDR: I never had the needed self-belief to work alone. There’s something for me to learn there. So I’m solo launching JumpHigher: learn to jump higher with a phone camera.

I’ve waited

I’ve waited for a long time to have a friend, a crew that I can work with towards a “thing”, shoulder to shoulder, pulling each other up. In the rare glimpses where I’ve felt that in my life it was amazing: my motivation was as high as it has ever and I enjoyed every moment no matter how grueling the actual work was.

One of my favourite memories is an FPGA competition me and my friend Gergő entered. I had minimal exposure to FPGAs while he had none. The goal was to build a TETRIS machine, so we did, in one month. It had a display, bitmapping, a small synth engine, keyboard support, in the worst code style you can possibly imagine. But it worked flawlessly on the day of the demo ( thanks to a last all nighter ), we finished in the 3rd place, learned a lot. That feeling of constantly one-upping each other, seeing your partner amazed by your work and be amazed at theirs was the fuel I searched for.

I felt that way before that experience, but after that I was sure: I’d be happy if I could live my life like that. With some rest every now and then…

So I looked around and searched for people that had the same “spark” and tried to build companies, products with them. That sometimes flat out didn’t work, sometimes it was okay, but I never felt the same and I was usually let down. I thought that people with the “spark” just need more space and it will work out just fine, so I gave and gave, until there was nothing to give, burning out in the process.

Working alone

Working in a motivated team is smooth. It has it’s ups and downs, sure, but it’s “easy”. Going alone is a different beast:

  1. I daydream about an idea. Sometimes a quiet fear seeps in: “I won’t finish this either”
  2. Doing step 1. long enough builds steam and after a while it boils over: I start doing it
  3. Euphoria: “I’m really doing this! This time is different, I feel it”. Huge progress in a short time
  4. As time goes on the quiet fear gets louder and louder and every session gets more stressful and less productive
  5. There comes a point where a session is just draining, motivation collapses

Then comes the time for the excuse duo:

I stop the project but never really stop it: it’s always in the back of my mind, not properly “ended”.

That’s how spark turns to pain for me.

My rule

A few years ago I made a rule: I won’t start another thing until the ones that I’m currently doing either: