Solution

Side Project Tracker

Your side projects live in scattered notes, abandoned Trello boards, and forgotten GitHub repos. You have no single place that tracks what you're building, what you've shipped, and what you've killed.

FoundStep is a purpose-built tracker for side projects. Every project has a clear status, locked scope, and lifecycle that moves it from idea to launch.

Beyond task tracking

Most developers "track" their side projects in one of these ways:

  • A Notion page they haven't opened in months
  • A Trello board with 3 columns and 40 stale cards
  • A GitHub repo with the last commit from 6 months ago
  • A note in their phone that says "app idea - fix later"

None of these tell you: Is this project alive or dead? What's the next step? How much scope has changed since you started?

What a real side project tracker needs

Task trackers answer "what do I need to do?" FoundStep answers the questions that actually matter for side projects:

Should I be working on this?

Every project has a validated verdict. You know exactly why you decided to build (or wait, or kill) each idea. No more questioning whether your current project is worth your time.

How much has the scope changed?

Scope Locking and Shame History show you exactly how much your project has grown since planning. If your "quick weekend project" has had 8 scope unlocks, that's a signal.

Am I actually making progress?

Lifecycle stages (Validating → Decided → Building → Ready to Ship → Shipped) give you a clear progress indicator that's more meaningful than a percentage.

What's next?

AI Next Action guidance watches your project's state - deadline proximity, todo completion percentage, lock state - and suggests what to do next. No decision fatigue.

One place for everything

FoundStep's Harbor gives you a dashboard of all your projects. At a glance, you can see which projects are actively being built, which are validated and waiting, which have shipped, and which were killed. It's the single source of truth for your solo development portfolio.

How It Works

Step by step.

01
Capture every idea

Every project starts as a workspace. Ideas are captured with context, not scattered across notes apps.

02
See all projects at a glance

Harbor gives you a bird's-eye view of all your projects - their status, progress, and lifecycle stage.

03
Track progress automatically

As you complete todos and advance through the lifecycle, progress is tracked automatically. No manual status updates.

04
Ship and iterate

When all todos are done, the project auto-advances to 'Ready to Ship.' After shipping, start v1.1 and keep going.

Comparison

Without vs. with FoundStep.

Aspect
Without
FoundStep
Project status
Unclear - is it active? Paused? Dead?
Explicit lifecycle stage: Validating, Building, Shipped, Killed
Progress tracking
Manual updates you forget to make
Automatic based on todo completion and lifecycle
Organization
Scattered across Notion, GitHub, notes, bookmarks
One place for all projects with Harbor overview
History
No record of killed ideas or shipping decisions
Full history of every decision, scope change, and verdict
FAQ

Common questions.

Task trackers track tasks. FoundStep tracks the entire project lifecycle - from idea validation through shipping. It doesn't just list what you need to do; it enforces the order you do it in and prevents scope creep along the way.
Harbor is FoundStep's workspace organization feature. It gives you a bird's-eye view of all your projects, their lifecycle stages, and progress - so you can see at a glance what's in progress, what's shipped, and what's been killed.
Yes. Killed projects stay in your history with their verdict and reasoning. This is valuable - you can see patterns in what you kill and why, and avoid repeating mistakes.
FoundStep is currently a standalone tool focused on project lifecycle management. It's designed to complement your development workflow, not replace your code editor or version control.
The Starter plan supports up to 10 active workspaces. The Builder plan offers unlimited workspaces for developers running multiple projects simultaneously.
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Side Project Tracker for Developers - Track Ideas to Launch | FoundStep | FoundStep