Start Something: The Power of Side Projects

Little Projects that have Changed the World

Would you take your side projects more seriously if you found out someone would pay you tens of thousands for it?

Side projects are much more than simply hobbies, they are indicators of what you are capable of building. In an age where so many people are talkers and so few are doers, side projects can be the factor that sets you apart from the rest of the pack.

More importantly, side projects are not creatively stifled by the ordinary campaigns or work-related projects that you have to endure through. You can explore any of your curiosities, and that freedom is the elixir behind the effectiveness of the side project.

Companies that have taken advantage of the power of side projects have found it to pay dividends. A famous example was Google’s 20% time; for those unfamiliar, Google allowed employees to spend 20% of their time on a fun side project they were passionate about. It was through this 20% time that some of Google’s most important products, such as Gmail, Google News, and AdSense came about.

Garrett Camp, StumbleUpon, and Uber

Social network StumbleUpon has over 30 million users and 100,000 advertisers. It was previously acquired by eBay for $75 million. This gigantic social network was started by Garrett and a handful of his peers from the University of Calgary in 2001 as a Firefox extension.

Later on, while he was CEO of StumbleUpon, Garrett would be compelled enough by another idea to start working on it as a side project. As Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick explains in this blog post, Garrett brought up the idea of solving the taxi problem in San Francisco by introducing a limo timeshare service. This happened while the two of them were at a conference in Paris in late 2008.

Uber’s founders in Paris. Image Source: NetConcierge.

“By March of 2009 Garrett started working in earnest on figuring out what this iPhone app would look like,” wrote Kalinick. “The prototype was coming along, but it was still a side project — Garrett had spun out StumbleUpon and was now CEO again.”

Today, Uber has 300 employees, raised $200 million in a funding round led by Google, and been valuated at $3.5 billion. Now one of the world’s fastest growing companies, Uber would not have existed were it not for Garrett’s curiosity and passion for side projects.