What I Got Right And Wrong Building a Solo Project Around Real Life | by Ivan Genchev | Jun, 2026 | MediumSitemapOpen in appSign up<br>Sign in

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What I Got Right And Wrong Building a Solo Project Around Real Life

Ivan Genchev

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I’ve always wanted to build something on my own and run my own business. That’s one of the things that drew me towards software engineering in the first place. All the stories of people building something exceptional and genuinely useful from their bedrooms and garages always seemed very fascinating. They still are but these massive success stories are exceptions, not the norm. For most entrepreneurs it’s not that straightforward. Real life gets in the way, motivation fluctuates, priorities change, the initial idea doesn’t always work and of course bills, mortgage payments and other responsibilities are not to be underestimated. That’s what I’ll cover here. Not magical stories of success but a bit more down to earth, day to day grind on the path of getting something out there, covering both the successes and the mistakes along the way.<br>Before we jump into covering the project in question — NoxidJobs, I’d like to go back a few years, quite a few in fact. Just to paint a fuller picture. This is not the first project I’ve published. I even made a profit from a few projects and a loss from others. Looking back and reflecting on these projects, I can clearly see the importance of distribution. I was lucky enough to be involved in application development when the iPhone App Store was just starting up and around 2008 I was already writing apps for the company I worked for back then. By 2009-10 I had published a few apps for the iPhone on my own. I barely had any experience, just over two years. The massive success of the AppStore and the iPhone and the fact that I got in so early had both a positive and negative impact on my ambitions to start a business. The reason it was both positive and negative was that in the early days, the AppStore made it so easy to just build and sell something, it created the illusion it is actually easy to get users and sell products. This illusion kept me motivated to keep trying but it also held me back from learning some crucial skills because in my head, the product was the sole thing required to start a business. I’ve seen it — build it and users will come. But once the AppStore matured everything changed. Even there, the product is no longer the only thing you need and that’s been the case for many years now. I think with the advance of AI, the barrier to build something is becoming even lower but the barrier to build a business will stay pretty much where it is. Maybe it will help a few skilled people move faster but I think the skills will still have to be learned.<br>With all that, I’ll start on the project in question. NoxidJobs is a platform mainly targeted towards small businesses to help them with their recruiting needs. I have the aspiration to make it an end-to-end recruitment and HR platform one day. The idea didn’t come from an epiphany of any kind. It was a combination of a few things. First, I worked in quite a few small startups where I knew everyone and spoke with everyone. That helped me understand what they’re struggling with and recruitment and HR tools were almost always in the mix. My partner of 13 years as of writing this article used to work in an agency that supplied hospitality staff for quite a few years. And last but not least when my daughter was born, I bought a Kindle and can’t even count the number of books I have read during all the sleepless nights when she was a baby. One of these books was That Will Never Work by Marc Randolph, the founder of Netflix. I really enjoyed the book. The story of how Marc Randolph bounced hundreds of ideas off Reed Hastings was one of the stories that left an impression and I decided to try it, albeit in my own way.<br>My last attempt at starting something was way back in 2017 and by 2023, after the COVID pandemic and after my first child was born, I really felt like it was time and I’ll regret it if I don’t try to launch something again. The problem was that I wasn’t set on what to do. That’s where the idea from the Netflix book came into play. I usually cycle to work and absolutely love it but for a few months I took the train and bus every day and took my iPad along. This was the closest thing to a real pen and paper I could use on the train and the bus — I just love handwriting. I didn’t really bounce ideas off anyone but wrote them down in notes instead, neatly organised in folders. My commute ended up being split up between writing down ideas for projects and research around them. As I mentioned before, I’ve seen the HR and recruitment platforms as an interesting space and that’s what some of the ideas were about. Once I was set on an idea, I used that time to...