Pause, shelve or burn?

The weekend was productive. I already wrote today about my Monday kickstart, but it also got me thinking about the things I've built and the ideas I'm still carrying around in my head.

The plan has always been to build a portfolio of smaller micro-SaaS apps, some useful, a few genuinely absurd. But once something gets past the bug-fixing stage, I keep coming back to the same question. Do I pause it, shelve it, or burn it completely?

Right now my priority is the docs editor, followed by the note-taking app for language learners. But I also need to start thinking about real revenue, because I don't want to burn through my entire "seed round" for the 168M challenge before anything is paying for itself.

Read also: The 168M challenge starts negative, and I'm fine with that

For a long time I told myself that having no revenue at all for a few years was fine. That changed the moment I set a real bankroll limit and watched my current 168M balance go negative after costs.

At that point, "eventually" stops being fucking good enough. I need something more short-term and more aggressive.

I'll admit I was too hasty during my vibe coding honeymoon phase. I spent, probably wasted, too much money on the wrong domains and brand names.

I still think of the half-built projects as a real learning experience, but it's starting to bother me that they're just sitting there, unfinished, doing nothing.

So I started asking myself the real question. Should I pause these, shelve them as something I learned from, or burn them completely and toss them in the let-it-fucking-go bin?

There's a real difference between shelving and burning. Shelved means there's still a path back. I could revive it later if the timing or the idea makes sense again. Burned means deleting the repo, writing off whatever I spent on the domain, and moving on for good.

The problem is I still want that portfolio. I want the micro-SaaS apps, the stupid builds, the experiments that end up proving themselves either genius or stupid. I don't want to lose that by being too aggressive about cutting things.

Read also: $12, a typo, and the dumbest website I've built

Idea Bench

I think I found a middle ground. I don't like making drastic decisions on the spot, so I built a page called Idea Bench.

What you're seeing there right now is hardcoded example data. I'll update it this week with the builds I'm working on and the ones I'm shelving.

Based on how I operate, it makes sense for me to put ideas on a public page, write my way through the reasoning in a blog post, and then decide. That's how I process things anyway, so I might as well make it visible.

Read also: I think I found my place in content creation

That way I end up with a real track record. Every idea, genius or stupid, is documented on this blog. Even if I decide it's not the right time for something now, I can point back to it later and see exactly why.

Vibe coding lets me create fast. But creating fast isn't enough to justify the post-mortem work or the impact at scale. I also need time to build a real framework, a standard playbook for go-to-market, and I'm testing that right now with TWO Docs, and probably Sorano next, which is close to ready but still needs fine-tuning.

The problem with vibe coding is that it lets you build incredibly fast, but that doesn't mean you should validate just as fast. Some ideas need better reasoning behind them.

If I can't write down a clear motive for something, I might be missing a piece I'd want later for a portfolio expansion.

Writing it down publicly just fits how I work.

My biggest fear was that if I put every idea I've had, have, or might build out in the open, someone else would copy it. But the ideas that aren't the right fit for me might be exactly the nudge someone else needs. I think that's fine.

What happens now?

I have my own trajectory. Even if someone copies what I build, they can't copy the documentation, the reasoning, the thinking that I'll have built up on this blog by the time my traffic and newsletter have grown into something real.

So the plan is dead-ass simple.

Every idea gets a spot on Idea Bench. Every real decision gets written up here first. And nothing gets quietly abandoned without at least being marked pause, shelve, or burn. Not a clever system, just an honest one about what's happening with the things I've started.