From Frustration to Innovation: Why Great Tools Often Start as Personal Projects

Most businesses are birthed from someone trying to solve a problem. It's the same for most of our tools we use. Even new programming languages are created because of an issue with the current ones. Don't get me started on Js packages being launched every minute.

Some notable tools that were started for personal reasons

• Python: Guido van Rossum created Python over Christmas break as a hobby project. He wanted a language that could bridge the gap between C and shell scripts for systems administration tasks and data processing.
• Git: Created by Linus Torvalds in 2005 after experiencing issues with the proprietary version control system BitKeeper.
• React: Jordan Walke at Facebook created React as a solution to manage complex UIs and state more effectively.
• Docker: Solomon Hykes created Docker as an internal project at dotCloud. He wanted an easy way to package applications with their dependencies
• Homebrew: Max Howell developed Homebrew after finding package management on macOS unnecessarily complicated
• Redis: Salvatore Sanfilippo created Redis initially as a way to scale his Italian real-time analytics startup, finding other caching systems inadequate.

Someone somewhere may be experiencing that same issue. Go on. Initialize that new project.

Recently, I released VAM (Vercel Account Manager). A simple tool to manage multiple Vercel accounts via the official CLI. I use Vercel's CLI frequently and having to keep switching accounts by logging out and in is obvious tedious. With VAM, I just need to login once and switch when needed.

So, don’t underestimate the power of solving problems for yourself, others might just thank you for it later.