I had to deal with some guy at work trying to do some tiktok video and including me in it so I could complement his side gig or some shit (and likely only including me because women get views). And if I complain too much about being included in their grift everyone will shit on me for being a karen or for not helping him with it. Jesus fucking christ, I hate people that try to constantly plaster their face and name on everything to make money. Fuck youtubers, fuck tiktok, fuck ads, stop stealing peoples work for a quick buck ‘by doing commentary’, leave me the fuck alone
I do a lot of things for fun that I could theoretically make money from. I model and 3d print stuff, I woodwork, I make electronic projects, I’m a musician, and a software engineer.
Sometimes I’ll get people saying stuff like “you could sell XYZ”. I tried it. I had an Etsy store where I sold my 3d prints. It was successful. Too successful. I was working my day job and then spending most of my free time printing and sanding and painting and talking with customers and dealing with shipping.
Initially I thought how great to be able to spend all my free time doing something I enjoy. In the end i thought how dreadful it is to spend basically all of my time working.
It fucking sucked. I’m glad to have had that experience, but now I know It’s actually super important to have hobbies that are just hobbies.
You didn’t just raise your prices till you weren’t that busy?
Several times, but there was a limit to how much I felt comfortable charging someone for 3d printed plastic
That or until you no longer need to work your other job and can ideally reduce total number of hours worked. May not work out, but at least you can balance it out somewhere like that.
As someone looking to make their own first electronic project, tips and tricks you wish you knew beforehand? Thinking of building my own music player, since the ones on the market are either overpriced or just a toy
A half-decent soldering iron is way better than a super cheap soldering iron.
Plan the build as much as you can, and then order all the parts at once. This way you’re not tied up waiting for parts to ship which kills momentum.
Wires take up more space in an enclosure than you think.
If you can order 3 of something for not much more money than 1. Do it. It’ll allow you to build up stock of things you use. That way when you get an idea, you’ll have parts on hand.
Allow yourself to fail. Some ideas sound good but aren’t. It’s ok to abandon a project.
Lean on the community. If you have an idea for a project, someone’s probably done it before. Look it up, see how they did it, learn from their mistakes. You can stand on the shoulders of giants and you absolutely should.
Not to discourage you but that is a super ambitious first project. If you want a good audio player but don’t want to spend a ton, I have the fiio snowsky echo. It’s super affordable, but surprisingly powerful. It drives my 250 ohm headphones without issue. No way you’re DIY’ing anything that good for its price. However if you want to DIY a music player just because you want to, absolutely go for it!
Thanks so much! Really helpful :)
I looked at all the dap’s that are out now and none do it how I envision it. I don’t mind spending more than a luxury dap for it if I can say I made it myself haha