When Did You Stop Building for Joy?
Why Your Next Side Project Should Solve Exactly One Person's Problem: Yours
I'm sitting across from Patrick at our favorite brewery, the amber light catching the foam on our IPAs. We've been friends for years, both of us CTOs who've climbed the ladder from writing code to managing teams, from building features to building companies. The conversation drifts, as it always does, to the usual topics—team dynamics, technical debt, the latest framework everyone's raving about.
Then Patrick says something that stops me mid-sip. "When's the last time you built something just for you? Not for a company, not for a client, not even for your resume. Just something to scratch your own itch?"
I set down my glass. The question hangs in the air between us like a challenge. I open my mouth to answer, then close it. The truth is, I can't remember. Somewhere between sprint planning and architecture reviews, between managing budgets and recruiting engineers, I've lost something fundamental. I've lost the simple joy of solving my own problems with code.
Patrick leans back, a knowing smile on his face. "I started building again last month," he says. "Nothing fancy. Just a little tool to organize my vinyl collection. But man, it felt good. No product managers, no deadlines, no stakeholders. Just me and the code, like the old days."
The conversation shifts, but his words stick with me. On the drive home, I'm thinking about all the tiny frustrations in my daily life that I've just accepted. The seven taps it takes to get to my favorite playlist in Apple Music. The way my smart home lights never quite remember my preferred evening settings. The scattered notes across three different apps that never quite sync the way I want.
That night, I open my laptop with a different energy. Not the dutiful energy of checking Slack or reviewing pull requests, but something more electric. Something I haven't felt in years. I'm going to build something. Not for my company, not for my career, but for me.
The Great Disconnect
Here's what happens to most of us who become CTOs: we trade our keyboards for calendars. We exchange the immediate satisfaction of solving problems with code for the complex choreography of managing teams and strategies. And somewhere in that transition, we convince ourselves that this is growth, that this is what success looks like.
Don't get me wrong—leading technology organizations is important work. But when we completely disconnect from the act of building, we lose something essential. We lose our intuition for what's possible. We lose our empathy for the developers we lead. Most importantly, we lose the joy that brought us to technology in the first place.
The irony is thick. We spend our days evangelizing innovation, pushing our teams to embrace new technologies, advocating for modernization. Yet many of us haven't written a line of code in months, maybe years. We've become generals who've forgotten what it's like to be in the trenches.
Research from Stack Overflow's 2023 Developer Survey shows that 87% of developers code as a hobby outside of work. But when they surveyed engineering managers and CTOs? That number drops to 23%. We've professionalized ourselves out of our own passion.
Enter the AI Pair Programmer
This is where the landscape has fundamentally shifted, and many CTOs haven't noticed yet. Tools like Claude Code aren't just making professional developers more efficient—they're lowering the barrier for people like us to get back into building.
Let me paint you two scenarios:
Scenario One: The Conversational Approach You open ChatGPT or Claude's chat interface. You describe what you want to build. The AI responds with code snippets, explanations, suggestions. You copy and paste, tweak and adjust, debug and refine. It's like having a patient mentor sitting next to you, ready to answer any question, explain any concept. You're still doing the work, but you have a knowledgeable companion.
Scenario Two: The Claude Code Approach You describe your vision to Claude Code. But instead of just giving you snippets, it builds. It creates files, structures projects, implements features. You're not copying and pasting; you're reviewing, guiding, and refining. It's less like having a mentor and more like having a junior developer who types at the speed of light and never forgets a semicolon.
Both approaches have their place, but for CTOs looking to reconnect with building, Claude Code offers something special: it removes the friction between idea and implementation.
My Music App Journey
Back to that night after beers with Patrick. I decide to tackle my Apple Music frustration. Seven taps to get to my favorite music feels like seven too many. I want an app that opens directly to what I want to hear, organized the way my brain works, not the way Apple thinks it should work.
In the old days, this would have meant hours of setup. Installing Xcode, configuring a new project, remembering SwiftUI syntax, googling stack overflow for basic patterns I've forgotten. The activation energy would have been too high. I would have given up before writing a single line.
But with Claude Code, I start differently. I open a conversation and simply explain what I want: "I need a SwiftUI app that gives me quick access to my favorite playlists and albums. I want it to open fast, look clean, and get me to my music in one tap."
What happens next feels like magic, but it's not. It's just a different paradigm. Claude Code starts building. Not just suggesting: building. Within minutes, I have a working SwiftUI project structure. The basic navigation is in place. The views are scaffolded.
But here's the crucial part: I'm not passive in this process. I'm reviewing every file, understanding every design decision, suggesting modifications. When Claude Code implements a standard tab bar, I ask for something different, a grid of large, tappable tiles featuring album art. When it creates a basic list view, I request a more visual approach with haptic feedback.
The conversation becomes a dance. I describe my vision, Claude Code implements, I review and refine. It's like pair programming with someone who never gets tired, never judges your rusty skills, and can type faster than thought.
The Two-Path Approach
Here's what I've learned about using AI tools for personal coding projects, and why I think every CTO should pay attention:
The Chat-and-Copy Method works when you want to maintain complete control. You're using tools like ChatGPT or Claude's standard interface as a reference library and coding assistant. You might ask:
"Show me how to implement haptic feedback in SwiftUI"
"What's the best pattern for managing audio playback state?"
"Debug this error message for me"
You get answers, explanations, code snippets. You're still the one doing the integration, making the decisions, owning every line. This method is perfect when you want to learn deeply, when you have time, when the journey matters as much as the destination.
The Claude Code Method works when you want to build something functional quickly while still understanding what's happening. You're describing features and reviewing implementations rather than writing every line. You might say:
"Add a feature that lets users create custom playlist shortcuts"
"Implement a widget that shows recently played albums"
"Refactor this view to use better state management"
Claude Code builds, you review and guide. This method is perfect when you want to focus on the product experience, when you want to prototype rapidly, when you need that quick win to keep motivation high.
The Unexpected Benefits
Three weeks into my music app project, something interesting happens. I'm in a sprint planning meeting with my team, and a developer is explaining why a particular feature will take three weeks to implement. The old CTO me would have nodded, trusted their estimate, moved on.
But the newly-coding me has a different perspective. I've just implemented something similar in my personal project. I know the actual technical challenges. I can ask better questions, suggest different approaches, understand the real blockers versus the assumed ones.
This isn't about micromanaging or second-guessing my team. It's about being a better leader because I'm back in touch with the reality of building. I can empathize with the frustration of unclear documentation because I just spent an hour fighting with MusicKit. I can appreciate the elegance of a well-architected solution because I just refactored my own messy code.
Breaking the Commercial Mindset
Here's the trap many CTOs fall into: we can only think about code in terms of business value. Every project needs a business case. Every hour of development needs to justify its ROI. We've been programmed to think this way by years of budget meetings and board presentations.
Personal projects with AI assistance break this pattern. My music app will never make money. It will never scale beyond one user —> me. It solves exactly one person's problem in exactly the way they want it solved. And that's the point.
When you build for yourself, you rediscover what made you fall in love with technology in the first place. The immediate feedback loop. The satisfaction of solving a problem. The delight of making something from nothing.
Claude Code and similar tools make this rediscovery accessible even when you've been away from coding for years. You don't need to remember every API or syntax pattern. You need to remember what problem you want to solve.
The Path Forward
If you're a CTO reading this, feeling that familiar itch to build again, here's my challenge to you:
This week, identify one personal frustration. Something small. Something that bothers you daily but isn't worth bringing to your team. Maybe it's how you track your reading list. Maybe it's how you manage your home automation. Maybe it's how you organize your kids' soccer schedules.
Next week, build a solution. Not a perfect solution. Not a scalable solution. Just a solution that works for you. Use Claude Code or your AI tool of choice. Don't overthink it. Don't architect it for millions of users. Just make something that makes your life a tiny bit better.
Share it with no one. This isn't for your portfolio. It's not for your team to see you "still got it." It's for you. The only user who matters.
The Return to Joy
It's been two months since that beer with Patrick. My music app is everything I wanted it to be. It's probably terrible by professional standards. The code would never pass a serious review. The UI breaks several design guidelines. And I absolutely love it.
Every morning, I open my app and get to my morning playlist in one tap. Every time, I feel a small surge of satisfaction. I built this. It solves my problem exactly the way I want it solved.
But more than that, I've rediscovered something I'd lost. The joy of building. The satisfaction of creating. The immediacy of solving problems with code.
In our roles as CTOs, we spend so much time thinking about scale, about architecture, about team dynamics and technical strategy. These things matter. But they're not the whole story. Sometimes, the most important code you can write is the code that solves your own problems, that brings you joy, that reminds you why you started this journey in the first place.
The tools are there. Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, and the next generation of AI assistants aren't just changing how professional developers work. They're creating a new opportunity for technical leaders to reconnect with the craft that brought us here.
So here's my question to you, the same one Patrick asked me over beers: When's the last time you built something just for you?
Maybe it's time.