Made 10 side projects since 2016, but only started learning distribution in 2025. Thoughts from a senior engineer

For 9 years I picked every side project to learn a new technology, not to solve a problem for a specific ICP. The first one was in 2016, a social network like X but with no algorithm. I built it with Symfony and used it to try a bunch of third party services (Algolia, AWS SNS/SQS, Sentry, Pusher, Redis, OneSignal etc). After that came a 4K-only video platform, a site for reviewing YouTube videos, a meme site like 9gag, a site where people find contractors for home repairs, meme posting on a blockchain and cross-chain charity donations. Every one started from a problem I had, and every one was also my excuse to learn something new: React, Twig, Vue, NestJS. They all had domains but none of them got any marketing. I think it was the right choice every year. I was a PHP dev at the same company for about 8 years, and technical skill is what got me the raises and an offer every time I interviewed somewhere else. So learning a new stack felt like the best use of my evenings. Then in 2025 the blockchain job I had stopped paying, and I needed something that actually makes money. That's when I found out I had no idea how to sell anything. Since then I tried to sell 3 things. One I killed after talking to people, because they were fine with spreadsheets. I tried a tech newsletter but got about 15 subscribers in 4 months. And another project got a single sale of $19 before I shut it down. A few things I learned so far. Views don't mean customers: one of my Reddit posts got 151K views and sent zero traffic. Most of my traffic came from X, but all my sales came from outreach or Reddit. And giving a product away for free doesn't fix onboarding: I offered a free month to about 80 people, a few signed up, and none of them finished the setup. The old projects are all offline now, and most of the domains aren't mine anymore. Building still comes easy to me, selling is the part I'm learning now and it's slow. Now I am working on a new product where I got my first $10 MRR. It's not much, but it's a start that I am at least improving my marketing and distribution skills. For those of you building side projects to learn, do you ever decide upfront that one of them is meant to sell, or does it only happen when one gets some traction?