DEV Community

Arno Le Mans
Arno Le Mans

Posted on

How I Got Over My Fear of Launching by Building a Simple Tool in a Few Hours

Hey There! šŸ‘‹

Iā€™ve been building small projects on the side for a while now, but if I'm honest, finishing and launching them has always been my biggest challenge. I get ideas, I build prototypes, I write codeā€”but they usually sit on my machine, hidden away, waiting for some ā€œperfectā€ day that never seems to come.

I decided it was time to break the cycle. I wanted to finally push something live, no matter how basic it was. So I set myself a simple goal: build and launch a tool in one day, start to finish. Hereā€™s what I ended up with: Dupl - a tool to detect and remove duplicate lines from text files. Itā€™s something small and specific, but it does what it needs to do!

Why This Worked for Me
Hereā€™s why this approach finally helped me get over my fear of launching:

Kept It Simple: I focused on building one specific featureā€”detecting duplicate lines in text. No fancy features, no complex UI, just the core functionality. Keeping it small meant I didnā€™t feel overwhelmed.

Set a Time Limit: I gave myself a few hours to get the core functionality working. Limiting the time I spent kept me from endlessly tweaking and obsessing over minor details.

Let Go of Perfection: I had to accept that it wouldnā€™t be flawless. Itā€™s not about building a perfect productā€”itā€™s about shipping something and learning from it.

Treated It as a Learning Experience: The whole point of this project was to get over my fear of launching. Whether people used it or not, it would still be a win for me.

The Result
In a few hours, I had a basic tool deployed on Vercel. Itā€™s not groundbreaking, but itā€™s out thereā€”and thatā€™s what matters! Now, Iā€™m excited to keep iterating on it, maybe adding features or learning from feedback. But for the first time, Iā€™m not afraid to put my work in front of people.

If youā€™re also struggling to launch, my advice would be: start small, set a deadline, and just go for it. Youā€™ll feel a huge sense of accomplishment just by seeing your work live, no matter how simple it is. Plus, youā€™ll be one step closer to building and launching something bigger.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to check out Dupl if youā€™ve ever wanted a quick way to clean up duplicate lines! šŸš€

P.S. Iā€™d love to hear your thoughtsā€”if you have feedback, ideas for new features, or just want to share how youā€™re using it, drop a comment or reach out. Your input would be super valuable as I continue improving the tool!

Top comments (0)