The Builder's Trap (And How I Escaped It)
I used to be that person. The one who never stopped starting new side projects.
I'd finish work early on Friday afternoon, grab a coffee, and dive straight into building something new. Vibe coding with Cursor, sketching wireframes, spinning up databases, coding late into the night.
The pacific timezone was my ally; I could stretch those weekend hours, pulling all-nighters that bled into Monday morning, shipping quick prototypes nobody asked for - but I was sure someone would buy.
I was chasing the thrill, the dopamine rush of creation, and the hope of "what if.”
The Builder’s Trap
Every project started the same way - with excitement and possibility. And every project hit the same wall: the messy middle. When the initial users didn't convert like I hoped. When growth was slower than I imagined. When someone else launched something similar and I started second-guessing everything.
Building stuff isn't the constraint anymore. You can spin up a SaaS in a weekend. Deploy with a few clicks. Have a landing page live before Monday morning. I could go from idea to prototype faster than ever before, and I did. Over and over again.
But after a few years of this cycle - sprint, burn out, abandon, repeat - I realized. The problem wasn’t lack of intent or ideas. It was something more fundamental. I had no respect for the one thing that actually mattered: persistence through the boring parts.
Intent wasn't the problem. Commitment was.
Because here's the brutal truth I learned: if you can quit by any rational standard, you probably will. And there's always a rational reason to quit.
A Story About Twenty Punches
Warren Buffett tells a story that changed how I think about everything.
He was once asked what advice he'd give to young investors. His answer wasn't about diversification or market timing or reading financial statements. Instead, he painted a picture:
Imagine I handed you a card with twenty empty spaces on it. This card represents every investment you're allowed to make in your entire life. Once you punch all twenty holes, you're done. No more investing. Ever.
How differently would you approach each decision?
The room fell quiet. Because everyone understood instantly - you'd research deeper, wait longer, think harder. You'd stop chasing every hot stock tip or market trend. You'd become incredibly selective about what deserved one of those precious punches.
But here's what struck me most about Buffett's story: it wasn't really about investing. It was about recognizing that everything meaningful in life has constraints. Your energy. Your focus. Your ability to care deeply about something.
And side projects? They're no different.
I started wondering - what if instead of 20 punches, I decided to give myself only 3 punches for the next 5 years.
Three side projects. That's it. Once those slots are filled, you’re done.
The idea terrified me. And that's how I knew it was right.
Because Side Projects Eat Everything
Here's what nobody tells you about building on the side: these projects aren’t constrained.
They bleed into your best creative hours - those precious Friday afternoons when your mind is fresh and the weekend stretches ahead full of possibility. They consume your evenings, your sleep, your ability to be present anywhere else.
Each abandoned project left a residue of guilt. Each half-built SaaS platform reminded me that I was great at starting but terrible at the unglamorous work of finishing.
The truth hit me one Monday morning as I stared at yet another promising prototype that would never see real users: if I'm going to sacrifice my weekends, my sleep, my sanity for something, it better be worth it.
It better earn those sacrifices.
The Weight of Only Three
When you can only punch three cards in five years, everything changes.
That B2B analytics tool I sketched during a boring meeting? I found myself asking different questions. Not "could I build this?" but "am I willing to think about user onboarding and customer support emails for the next three years?"
The agentic platform that seemed to address an obvious market gap? Instead of diving into code, I sat with it for weeks. "Does this align with the kind of business I want to be running in 2030?"
The SaaS idea that was "definitely going to be different this time"? I forced myself to be honest: "Will this still excite me when I'm debugging edge cases in year two?”
Most ideas didn't survive this scrutiny. The excitement would fade when confronted with the reality of long-term commitment. And that filtering was the entire point.
Because the real question isn't whether you can build something. It's whether you can build something and still want to improve it two years later when the novelty has worn off and you're dealing with customer complaints and feature requests that make you question every architectural decision you made.
The One Big Thing
Something else hit me during this process: you only need to be right about one big thing throughout your entire career. Not a thousand small things.
I'd been operating under this delusion that I needed to nail every project, catch every trend, build everything that seemed promising. But looking at the builders I actually admired, none of them were serial launchers. They were serial improvers.
They found something worth obsessing over and refused to let go.
Most of what you build will be mediocre at first. Hell, most of what everyone builds is mediocre at first. The difference between people who break through and people who stay stuck isn't that they have better initial ideas - it's that they stick with something long enough to get good at it.
You get good over time. But only if you freeze and iterate instead of hopping to the next shiny thing.
Anything can work, but not everything will, because most people don't give anything enough time and attention.
The Emotional Undertow
But limiting myself to just three shots wasn’t easy. Every time I said no to a project, guilt showed up uninvited
- "What if this is the one that actually takes off?"
- "Am I being too careful? Too afraid of real commitment?"
- "Maybe I'm just making excuses for not shipping enough."
The fear of missing out was even worse. Seeing other builders launching weekly, gaining traction, building their reputation while I sat on my hands - it felt like everyone was moving forward except me.
But slowly, I realized something: guilt and FOMO feed on a lie. The lie that opportunities are scarce and must be grabbed immediately, that if you don't jump on every trend you'll be left behind forever.
The three-punch rule taught me the opposite. Opportunities aren't scarce - focus is. Energy is. The ability to care deeply about something for years instead of months.
There will always be another SaaS idea. Another market gap. Another whitespace to go after.
Timeboxing: A Pressure Valve
Even with my three-punch limit, new ideas kept coming - that familiar itch to ship something started to build up.
I wasn't ready to kill my curiosity entirely. That felt like cutting off a part of myself.
So I created a second rule: timeboxing.
When an idea grabbed me, instead of either diving in completely or ignoring it entirely, I'd give it a container. One weekend. Twelve focused hours. Just enough time to build a rough prototype and test whether the challenges were as interesting as they seemed.
This wasn't about building a real product - it was about satisfying curiosity without derailing focus.
I'd set a timer, build fast and dirty, see if the core hypothesis held up. When the time was up, I'd step back and ask honestly: does this deserve one of my three punches?
Nine times out of ten, the answer was no. But it was no with peace, because I'd given the idea a fair chance to prove itself.
And occasionally - very occasionally - something would emerge from a timebox that made me think: "I can't stop thinking about this."
Those were the ones worth punching for.
The Irrational Commitment
The three-punch rule created something else that I lacked: an irrational commitment.
Here's what I mean by that. When you're building something, there will always come a moment - usually around month three or six - when quitting becomes the smart choice. The rational choice.
Logic will always give you an out if you're looking for one. Users aren't signing up fast enough. Revenue is growing too slowly. Someone else launched something similar. Market seems much more saturated than you anticipated. Your spreadsheet shows better opportunities elsewhere. Your friends start suggesting "pivots" or "maybe try something in AI instead.”
And here's the thing: logic is often right. Most projects should be killed. Most ideas don't work.
But every successful project I've studied went through this exact same valley - where quitting would have been the rational choice. Where the metrics looked grim and the path forward was unclear.
The builders who made it through weren't the most rational - they were the most committed. They'd artificially constrained their options so that when the rational voice said "quit," they had nowhere else to go. They'd burned the boats.
When you only have three punches for five years, you can't afford to waste one on something you'll abandon at the first sign of trouble. So you choose more carefully. And once you choose, you stick. This irrational commitment changes how you approach problems. When quitting isn't on the table, you get creative.
You dig deeper into customer research. You try unconventional growth strategies. You iterate on features you might have scrapped. You become resourceful in ways that only emerge when your back is against the wall.
When you're dating, every incompatibility is a reason to move on. But when you're really committed you work through problems differently. You find solutions instead of exits.
That's what the three-punch rule does for your projects. It makes you married to your choices instead of just dating them.
Anti-Hustle Manifesto for Builders
The three-punch rule did something I didn't expect: it made me a better builder.
When you know you can't just abandon a project and start fresh next weekend, you think differently about everything. Decisions matter more because you'll be living with them for years. User experience matters more because you'll be the one fielding support emails.
You stop building for the thrill of building and start building for the satisfaction of sustaining something over time. Instead of starting something new, I was usually improving something I'd already committed to.
I started to understand that constraint isn't the enemy of creativity - it's what makes creativity useful.
Confession of a Launch-a-holic
The magic isn't in the number three. It's in choosing a constraint that forces you to take your own time seriously.
Maybe your limit is two projects in four years. Maybe it's one big bet per decade. The point is having a number small enough that each choice feels consequential.
In a world where building has never been easier but sticking has never been harder, choosing to focus deeply on a few things instead of dabbling in everything is almost a radical act.
It's saying: I'd rather be right about one big thing than wrong about a thousand small things.
And when you treat them like they are, you end up with a graveyard of good intentions instead of something actually looking back to.