Introducing Team Projects: The Best Side Projects Are Built Together

Most side projects fail in the same way. Not from a bad idea. Not from a broken product. They fail because the person building them runs out of momentum. There's no one in the boat with them. No one to ship the next feature when they're stuck on outreach, no one to send the next cold email when they're knee-deep in code.

sidething has always been about fixing that. The strategy. The accountability. Knowing what to do next instead of staring at a blank to-do list on a Sunday night. That works. We've watched it work.

And now you can do it together.

96% of YC startups have co-founders

That isn't a marketing number. It's a Y Combinator stat, and it's one of the strongest indicators of whether an early-stage company will make it. Not the idea. Not the market. Not the funding. Whether there's more than one person committed to the build.

The reason is boring and obvious once you say it out loud. Side projects are a momentum problem, and momentum is much harder to lose when someone else is depending on you to show up.

If you've ever tried to build something on your own at 9pm after a full day of work, you already know this. The energy isn't always there. Some weeks the product is fine but you've got nothing left for sales. Some weeks the outreach is humming but the codebase has rotted because you haven't touched it in ten days. You can't be two people. But you can have two people.

What team projects actually do

Today we're launching team projects on sidething. Bring your co-founder into the workspace. Same roadmap. Different lanes.

Here's what that looks like.

You invite your co-founder by email. They get a clean invite into your project. They land directly inside the build you've already started, not a generic onboarding flow.

Tasks split by role. One of you ships product. The other runs outreach. Maybe one of you owns growth and the other owns retention. sidething already knows what the next move is on the roadmap. Team projects assign that move to the person who should actually be doing it.

You see each other in the workspace. Two people on the same plan, different lanes, both moving. When your co-founder closes a task, you see it. When you ship something, they see it. The roadmap becomes a shared surface instead of a private notebook.

That's the point. Momentum stops being your job alone. Accountability stops being a calendar reminder you can dismiss. Strategy stops being a thing you have to figure out by yourself at midnight.

Same lane, or different lanes

Some founding teams want to work the same lane. Two builders pairing on product. Two operators pairing on sales. That's fine.

Most teams we've talked to want different lanes, and that's where the structure really shines. The classic split: one technical co-founder ships the product, one non-technical co-founder owns customers. Both of you get the next-best task from sidething's roadmap, filtered by what you're actually good at. No "we'll figure out who does what tomorrow." It's already figured out.

Solo builders on sidething have always focused on one priority at a time. Focus is a feature, not a limitation. With a co-founder in the project, you double the surface area without breaking that focus, because each person is still working on one priority at a time. The team moves on two fronts. Each person still only thinks about one.

Built for the way real co-founders work

A few principles we held to while building this.

No new app for your co-founder to learn. They land in the same sidething workspace you're already in. Nothing to download. Nothing to set up. You invite them, they're in.

The roadmap stays the source of truth. No second checklist. No project manager on top of the project manager. One plan, two people executing.

The work lives next to the work. Updates, blockers, and decisions sit on the tasks they're about. You don't need a fifth Slack channel for the one side project you're trying to ship in the evenings.

Why we built this now

Two reasons.

The first is what we kept seeing. A lot of the biggest breakouts on sidething have a second person in the build. Sometimes it's a formal co-founder. Sometimes it's a friend who's "kind of involved." Either way, there's a second person in the boat.

The second is what we kept hearing. "I want to build this with my co-founder, can you help us run the same project?" We were patching it together with screen shares and shared docs. That isn't the experience we wanted for either of you.

So we built it properly.

How to start a team project

If you're already on sidething, open your project, hit invite, drop your co-founder's email. They'll land directly in the workspace. The next planning cycle splits tasks by role.

If you're new, start here. Get your project set up, get your first roadmap generated, then bring in whoever you're building with.

The best side projects are built together. Bring them in.

FAQ

Do all team members need separate sidething accounts? Yes. Each person has their own account so tasks, progress, and accountability stay personal even when the project is shared. Invites are free to send.

My co-founder is non-technical. Will this still work for us? That's where team projects shine. sidething assigns roadmap tasks based on role, so the technical co-founder gets the build tasks and the non-technical co-founder gets the customer, content, and growth tasks. Each of you sees the lane that matches what you're best at.

Can we both work on the same lane if we want? Yes. Lanes are a default, not a lock. Some teams want to pair on the same lane, especially early on. The roadmap supports that.

What if I don't have a co-founder yet? Solo projects on sidething aren't going anywhere. Most members start solo. Team projects are an option for when you have someone, not a requirement.