Suite Magic test runner: project aborted

Recently I had an idea for what I thought was (and still think is) a good idea for a product: a test runner/CI tool that can run any Rails test suite in about 30 seconds, no matter how big the test suite is. I even had a rough proof-of-concept working.

However, I decided to abandon the project. The reason is simple: I realized that the work involved in building this product/business would almost certainly be too much. As someone who earns my living working more or less full-time doing coding (and as someone who has a wife and kids), I can only afford to put in so much time per week on side projects.

I know the pain of trying to take on something too big because I’ve tried it before. From early 2011 to late 2015 I tried to build a business selling hair salon scheduling software, and among other reasons for failure, I was never able to achieve “escape velocity” due to the limited amount of bandwidth I had to work on the business.

So, that’s my reasoning. Now that I’ve made that decision, my plan is to continue to focus on blogging about Rails and making Rails podcasts, which I do at CodeWithJason.com and the Rails with Jason podcast, respectively. As I move forward with these things I intend to keep my eyes open to other entrepreneurial opportunities.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *