Hanging With The Hyenas: Lessons Learned From Delivering My First Side Project Using Python

If we turn the clock back a year, I would be busy packing up the minivan and starting our long slow trip down to southern Alabama through some pretty nasty storms. Later that evening, I’m going to write a small Python word game solver script that ultimately evolved into the code behind this site.

Like many developers, I’d had dreams of building “a product” of my own. I even had a couple of piles of code sitting around from various attempts over the years. Most of these were built around pretty solid concepts – the sort of ideas you could walk into a room and pitch to rational adults. Projects like games, a stock analyzer, and data tools. I’m imagining the “startup weekend” pitch for Hyenas:

“Team, we intend to become a market leader in the scrabble helper, hangman solver, and boggle cheat space. This site will offer illicit services to a large audience of low-revenue visitors and entertain them for hours on end.”

Keep your cell phone handy: the reaction footage from the MBA’s will be comedy gold.

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Why Content Marketers Should Get To Know Game Designers…

I’m going to share two little secrets.

The first is that I’m a huge Falling Skies fan. I don’t usually have much time to watch television between work, family, and various side projects (a word game solver and other experimental sites). But these guys managed to hook me during their first season. How is the interesting part…

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