I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

Side projects turning into unwanted jobs

• Many relate to building a “fun” side project that slowly morphs into a draining second job: constant support, on‑call incidents, and pressure that far exceed the revenue.
• Several describe eventually shutting projects down, selling them for little, or freezing them at “maintenance only” once the excitement fades.
• A recurring theme: the engineering part is the minority of running a business; the rest is support, billing, disputes, compliance, and admin.

Customer support burden & user behavior

• Support is described as mentally exhausting: repetitive basic questions, users not reading instructions, entitlement, and being ghosted after long, careful replies.
• Some see this as a sign they don’t actually enjoy customer-facing work; others emphasize it’s normal and must be managed, not taken personally.
• There’s consensus that a small minority of users generate most of the pain, and that free or very cheap users are often the worst.

AI, automation, and self‑service

• Many advocate automating everything possible once the core product is stable: onboarding, trials, refunds, common support flows, and routing.
• Opinions on AI chatbots are split:
  • Critics say most bots are useless FAQ-wrappers that block access to humans and waste time.
  • Supporters report success with well‑scoped AI for trivial requests, triage, search, and preparing answers, as long as escalation to humans is easy.
• Several argue plain forms and good UX/docs often beat chatbots for well-defined workflows.

Pricing, “revenue/agony,” and customer quality

• Strong theme: raise prices and/or restrict purchases to filter out low‑quality or abusive customers; optimize for “revenue per agony,” not max revenue.
• Higher prices can reduce volume and fraud, but also increase expectations; the right balance is unclear and context‑dependent.
• Some suggest separating tiers: cheap, largely self‑serve plans vs. expensive plans with real support.

Fraud, chargebacks, and payment mechanics

• Chargebacks are widely viewed as brutal: processors levy fixed fees per dispute, and banks often side with cardholders even when evidence favors the merchant.
• This makes small-ticket, high-volume B2C especially fragile; a few bad actors can erase months of profit.
• Using a merchant of record (for VAT/sales tax and dispute handling) is seen as valuable by some, overkill by others.

Choosing markets and coping strategies

• Market choice matters: certain niches (trading, crypto, real estate, consumer apps) are perceived as attracting more fraud and difficult users than professional B2B.
• Common coping tactics:
  • Invest in clear docs and simple UX; link to docs instead of rewriting answers.
  • Develop a “polite but curt” support tone and clear expectations/SLA.
  • Aggressively refund and/or fire problematic customers.
  • Use VAs or staff as a buffer when revenue allows.
• Several conclude they now prefer hobbies or one‑off products with no ongoing support over SaaS‑style side businesses.