The 12-Month Bug: Why Your Side Project Is Still Just an Idea
Posted4 months agoActive4 months ago
zakelfassi.comTechstory
calmmixed
Debate
20/100
Side ProjectsProductivityLlms
Key topics
Side Projects
Productivity
Llms
The author discusses the '12-Month Bug', where side projects remain stuck as ideas, and the HN community shares experiences and insights on overcoming this challenge, including the role of LLMs in rapid prototyping.
Snapshot generated from the HN discussion
Discussion Activity
Light discussionFirst comment
2h
Peak period
1
1-2h
Avg / period
1
Key moments
- 01Story posted
Sep 15, 2025 at 2:38 PM EDT
4 months ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
Sep 15, 2025 at 4:31 PM EDT
2h after posting
Step 02 - 03Peak activity
1 comments in 1-2h
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03 - 04Latest activity
Sep 15, 2025 at 10:19 PM EDT
4 months ago
Step 04
Generating AI Summary...
Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns
ID: 45253382Type: storyLast synced: 11/17/2025, 2:05:49 PM
Want the full context?
Jump to the original sources
Read the primary article or dive into the live Hacker News thread when you're ready.
That’s the core of what I was trying to name with the 12-month bug: our tendency to loop in abstraction long after execution could’ve started. Doesn’t matter if the code’s rough; the point is you crossed the boundary. From there, the real operating system is iteration.
If it’s useful, I wrote a companion post called Stuck Theory: Resistance as Fitness Function. Similar~ish meta-conclusion. For me the blog as a whole is a running attempt to debug how we keep pushing dense, sometimes unwieldy information down our own neural pathways while AI is gradually offloading the lighter parts of cognition. Thanks for reading!