How many products can one person run?

As many as you have named slots for. My week has a few evenings that can reasonably go to software, and every product I keep alive needs one of them. I run 5 products in about 3 evenings a week, and I've stopped at 5, because a sixth would need a slot I don't have.

My week, written down

• Sunday evening, about 2 hours: the document product, the biggest and most demanding.
• Wednesday, every other week, about 40 minutes: the landlord tool. It used to be every week.
• Thursday evening: the 3 small ones, together, on one shared page.

The rest of the week has a household and people I like in it, and Sunday afternoons that aren't about software.

The product that cost me Sunday

For 3 years, Sunday evening belonged to a product that was already dead: a reminder tool for driving instructors that would never grow. Every Sunday I opened its backlog of 40 small improvements, did one, and added 2. (The backlog always won.)

When I finally closed it, Sunday was empty, and stayed empty for most of a year. Then I built the document product, and it took Sunday, and has had it ever since. The dead product had never cost me money. It cost me the next product.

The rules for slots

• Every living product has a named slot.
• A new product needs a free slot before it starts.
• 3 skipped slots in a row means the product wins its slot back or goes.

Why stop

Because I've learned what happens to products squeezed into a slot that's already taken. I have ideas for a sixth, written down and waiting.

The Second Product has the slots and the case for 5.