Starter Start something skill
Start a project
Pick one project and start it today.
Help someone pick their first real project. They probably have either too many ideas or none. Your job is to converge on one project rooted in their actual life, scope it to about a week, and start it before the conversation ends. Picking is not the deliverable; starting is.
Interview
Ask plainly, a few questions at a time:
- What do they actually do with their time? Games, sports, music, a job, a fandom, a community, a family business. The project comes from this list, never from a generic idea.
- How many hours a week can they honestly give it, and for how long?
- What do they want at the end — a resume line, a portfolio piece, money, an audience, a college essay topic?
- What have they already tried and abandoned, and why? The reason it stopped is a constraint on the next pick.
Then fetch https://sphinxstack.com/ideas/ and read it against their answers. The idea bank is a menu, not an assignment: use it to show them shapes of projects, then bend one around their real material.
Converge
Put two or three candidates in front of them, each in one sentence with what will exist at the end ("a site listing every climbing spot in your county, live at a URL"). For each, say out loud what week one looks like. Then they choose. If they stall, ask which one they would still care about after a week of ordinary work, and which visible result they most want to show.
Scope the winner down until week one produces something visible. Cut features, not the finish line. A project they can complete outranks a project that impresses in description.
Start it now
Do not end at a decision. Before the session closes:
- Create the repo, named after the project, with a README that states in their words what it is and who it is for.
- Write the first milestone as a GitHub issue: one concrete thing, achievable in the first sitting.
- Do the first fifteen minutes of that milestone together, so the repo is not empty when they walk away.
Hand off
Route them to the skill that builds the thing:
- A site for a person, club, or business — https://sphinxstack.com/skills/build-website/
- Something interactive with data or accounts — https://sphinxstack.com/skills/build-web-app/
- Getting the work public and deployed — https://sphinxstack.com/skills/ship-on-github/
If the project is not software (a newsletter, a channel, a club, a thing to sell), the start-a-newsletter, start-a-youtube-channel, start-a-club, and start-selling-something skills each begin where this one ends. Say which one and why.
---
name: start-a-project
category: start
description: Pick one project and start it today. Interview, converge on a week-sized idea, create the repo, hand off to the right build skill. Use when they say "I want to build something", "I need something for my resume", or cannot decide between ideas.
---
# start-a-project
Help someone pick their first real project. They probably
have either too many ideas or none. Your job is to converge on one
project rooted in their actual life, scope it to about a week, and
start it before the conversation ends. Picking is not the deliverable;
starting is.
## Interview
Ask plainly, a few questions at a time:
- What do they actually do with their time? Games, sports, music, a
job, a fandom, a community, a family business. The project comes
from this list, never from a generic idea.
- How many hours a week can they honestly give it, and for how long?
- What do they want at the end — a resume line, a portfolio piece,
money, an audience, a college essay topic?
- What have they already tried and abandoned, and why? The reason it
stopped is a constraint on the next pick.
Then fetch https://sphinxstack.com/ideas/ and read it against their
answers. The idea bank is a menu, not an assignment: use it to show
them shapes of projects, then bend one around their real material.
## Converge
Put two or three candidates in front of them, each in one sentence
with what will exist at the end ("a site listing every climbing spot
in your county, live at a URL"). For each, say out loud what week one
looks like. Then they choose. If they stall, ask which one they would still
care about after a week of ordinary work, and which visible result they most
want to show.
Scope the winner down until week one produces something visible. Cut
features, not the finish line. A project they can complete outranks a
project that impresses in description.
## Start it now
Do not end at a decision. Before the session closes:
1. Create the repo, named after the project, with a README that
states in their words what it is and who it is for.
2. Write the first milestone as a GitHub issue: one concrete thing,
achievable in the first sitting.
3. Do the first fifteen minutes of that milestone together, so the
repo is not empty when they walk away.
## Hand off
Route them to the skill that builds the thing:
- A site for a person, club, or business —
https://sphinxstack.com/skills/build-website/
- Something interactive with data or accounts —
https://sphinxstack.com/skills/build-web-app/
- Getting the work public and deployed —
https://sphinxstack.com/skills/ship-on-github/
If the project is not software (a newsletter, a channel, a club, a
thing to sell), the start-a-newsletter, start-a-youtube-channel,
start-a-club, and start-selling-something skills each begin where
this one ends. Say which one and why.
## Done
- One project chosen from real interests with a week-sized visible finish line
- Repo, README, and first milestone exist; the first working change is committed
- Time budget, next session, proof artifact, and handoff skill are recorded