1.  
2. HOWDY
3. I'm a principal designer who's passionate about open source product design.
4. INTERESTS
5. • Open Source Design
6. • Product Design
7. • Side Projects
8. • User Research
9. • User Onboarding
10. CURRENT JOB
11. • Principal Designer @Automattic
12. PREVIOUS JOBS
13. • Growth Designer @Wildbit
14. • VP of Product/Design @HelpScout
15. • Creative Director @Automattic
16. • Design Lead at @CampaignMonitor
17. MY SIDE PROJECTS
18. • Howdy
19. • Product Designer Daily
20. • TableChamp Leaderboard
21. • JS For Designers - Video Series
22. • Modal Monitor
23. • Qualitative User Feedback Surveys
24. FOLLOW ME ON
25.  
26.  
27. CONTACT ME
28. its@davemart.in
29.  
30.  
31. Enter your email
32.  
33. The Resistance is Real
34. Today marks 12 full months that I’ve been working on a side project called Howdy.
35.  
36. Howdy Homepage
37.  
38. In that time I’ve:
39.  
40. Re-written the code base 4 times (Laravel, Vanilla JS, React, then back to Vanilla JS).
41. Started working with a partner, then broke it off.
42. Seriously considered stopping and working on other side projects at least half a dozen times.
43. Taken 2 month-long sabbaticals where I didn’t work on the project at all.
44. I’m happy with the tech stack that I have now and the project is probably 90% complete, but I’m finding it extremely hard to finish.
45.  
46. THE RESISTANCE
47. In The War of Art and Turning Pro, Steven Pressfield talks about “The Resistance” that keeps us from doing our work.
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49. If you’re a maker and you’ve yet to read these two books, do yourself a favor and buy them today.
50.  
51. IT GET’S WORSE THE CLOSER YOU ARE TO COMPLETION
52. Pressfield says:
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54. The danger is greatest when the finish line is in sight. At this point, Resistance knows that we’re about to beat it. It hits the panic button. It marshals one last assault and slams us with everything it’s got.
55.  
56. My brain is literally trying to convince me to quit and to start working on “this other exciting new project”.
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58. The ever so quiet whispers in my head are saying:
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60. A year! Why haven’t you shipped yet? What a failure. Save your dignity. Just call it a wraps.
61. This is boring. Just shelve this project and move on to something fun & exciting.
62. No one will actually use this.
63. Will designers really find this useful?
64. What if you launch and no one finds it valuable?
65. This niche isn’t big enough. You should change the target to developers? Marketers? Sales?
66. Stay safe. Make it as generic of an offering as possible. That way anyone can use it.
67. And even though I know that these are all fabricated to get me to stop, the temptation to actually stop is legit.
68.  
69. I am very tempted to stop.
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71. IT GET’S WORSE THE MORE IMPORTANT IT IS TO US
72. Pressfield says:
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74. The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we’ll feel towards pursuing it.
75.  
76. As tempting as it is to call it quits, I honestly think my heart will break if I don’t finish this project. I can think back to so many moments where I still had optimism, hope, and excitement for this project. Where did all of that excitement go? Where is the hope now? How can I get it back?
77.  
78. SIDE PROJECTS ARE BLOODY HARD
79. Massive props to anyone who is able to launch a side project and stick with it for a year or more.
80.  
81. Optimism, hope, and excitement be damned…
82.  
83. I’m not giving up on this one.
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85. The resistance is real, but so is my aspiration to have dogged determination!
86.  
87. I will launch this project. ?
88.  
89. Wish me luck.
90.  
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94. < read more
95. Archives
96. November 2018
97. September 2018
98. August 2018
99. March 2018
100. February 2018
101. Categories
102. Book Notes
103. Howdy
104. Life Principles
105. Personal
106. Product Designers
107. SaaS Tech
108. SaaS User Onboarding
109. Side Projects
110. Startups
111. Work Principles
112. Work Principles
113. Principles, People, Product, Profit
114. The Resistance is Real
115. Test Every Assumption
116. Test Your Designs
117. Embrace Process, Avoid Ego
118. Don’t “Growth Hack”
119. Intentionally Tiny Side Projects
120. Be Gut Driven, But Data Informed
121. First Iterations Always Suck
122. Always Work on Side Projects
123. Start Each Design from Scratch
124. Reducing Time to Clarity with Your Designs
125. Don’t Pay for Design School
126. I No Longer Want to Start a Startup
127. Life Principles
128. Avoid Bandwagon Wisdom
129. Tenacity
130. Finding Balance
131. Appearances
132.  
133. http://davemart.in/resistance/