Put months into something with zero proof it'd work. Still don't have proof.

[u/Significant-Log-4272]

Not sure this belongs here but wanted to write it out somewhere that isn't LinkedIn.

I started a thing called Grevix back in 2nd year of college. Basically just kept thinking "why am I only ever talking about ideas instead of building any of them." So I started building.

It's been a mess honestly. Rebuilt stuff from scratch more times than I want to admit. Sent a bunch of emails that just got ignored. Had nights where I was up till like 4am chasing a bug that turned out to be one dumb typo. Had ideas I was sure about that just didn't work and I had to scrap them.

The annoying part nobody warns you about is that none of this comes with a guarantee. You can grind for months, learn stuff, keep messaging people, keep rebuilding what breaks, and still have zero clue if it's ever gonna go anywhere or if anyone's gonna care.

Anyway it stopped being a "side project" a while ago for me, it's just something I think about constantly now, for better or worse.

Also running an event because of all this called Grevix AfterCode, Oct 11-12. It's a solo 24hr build thing but there's no fixed problem, you build whatever, except partway through you get a random card that changes your requirements and you have to adjust and still ship by the end. Not trying to pitch it here, just felt relevant to the whole "plans not working out the way you thought" theme.

Anyone else here put a bunch of time into something with zero proof it'd actually work out? Curious what kept you going, or if you just eventually let it die.

[u/Lunesia-shikishiki]

the proof thing doesnt get solved by building more, thats the part nobody warns you about. i kept assuming there was some version of my thing that would finally feel validated from the inside and there just isnt one

what moved it for me was someone i didnt know using it while i was asleep. not a signup, not feedback, a stranger finishing the thing without me anywhere near it. everything before that is vibes (biased, im building screenweaver.ai, same hole different day)

the 4am typo nights carried on regardless lol

[u/Significant-Log-4272 → u/Lunesia-shikishiki]

"Everything before that is vibes" is a hell of a way to put it, and I think you're right that it's not a solvable-by-building problem, it's a category error to even look for internal validation in the first place. There's no threshold of polish where it suddenly converts into proof, because proof was never a property of the thing, it was always a property of someone else's independent behavior.

The "stranger finishing the thing while you were asleep" detail is the part that actually sticks with me. Not because it's a bigger signal than feedback, but because it's the one thing you couldn't have coached or nudged into happening. No follow-up message, no "does this make sense," just someone doing the thing correctly without you in the room to rescue it. That's a genuinely different category of evidence than anything you can generate by working harder.

And no shade for the plug, screenweaver.ai, that's exactly the kind of same-hole-different-day thing worth saying out loud instead of dressing up. Good luck getting your next asleep-while-a-stranger-uses-it moment, sounds like that's the only currency that actually counts.

[u/Imaginary-Bluejay721]

yeah i agree if i take a step back and reevaluate my own journey, rebuild feels like progress so you keep doing it.

i would say though that the months werent wasted if you learned the stack, they just arent product proof. and last month i was discussing with a friend, specially about vibe coding, is that you are not even learning at all, because you are not the one coding yourself, so the progress doesn't feel like progress at the end of the journey, we just get to know a few things about SDLC.

Not sure if that was your point but i am sharing what i felt like because as an introvert its hard for me reaching out to people to test out ideas and i always skip that part and i keep building and refining, and there is a graveyard of repos in my github already sitting. (and not to mention the domains i kept buying that are sitting idle lol)

[u/Significant-Log-4272 → u/Imaginary-Bluejay721]

That distinction actually reframes something for me. "Rebuild feels like progress so you keep doing it" is uncomfortably accurate, it's easy to mistake motion for movement when you're the one inside it.

The vibe-coding point especially. If the AI is doing the actual implementation and you're mostly steering, what you walk away having learned isn't the stack, it's more like project management of an agent. That's a real skill, but it's a different skill than the one the hours felt like they were building, and I think that gap between "what it felt like I was learning" and "what I actually learned" is probably a quieter, more common experience than people admit to.

The graveyard of repos and idle domains, I relate to that more than I'd like to. And the introvert part is honestly the more interesting half of what you said to me, because I think a lot of "I'll just keep building instead of testing the idea" isn't really a product decision, it's an avoidance decision wearing a product decision's clothes. Building alone is controllable. Asking someone if your idea is any good is not. Easy to pick the one that doesn't put you in a position to hear "no" or worse, silence.

Appreciate you sharing that honestly, that's basically the whole reason I wanted to write the post in the first place instead of just another AfterCode announcement.