mark (he/him) is a software engineer, photographer, runner, and other things too sometimes.
Building just because (a.k.a. The Khakis.zip Origin Story)
I've been building software professionally for over 10 years now. I started when I was young, maybe 13 or something. I'm 32 now so I've been writing code in some form or another for most of my life. When I was a kid it was fun and creative. I just made whatever websites I felt like, eventually making websites for Counter Strike clans or World of Warcraft guilds.
None of that was really for profit and didn't "provide business value" which is what software engineers do in this biz. But building stuff is fun. Starting new projects is fun. Not caring about priorities or KPIs or OKRs is fun. So now I'm going back to my roots and building shit just because it's fun to build shit.
That is where khakis.zip comes in.
Khakis.zip started last week because I wanted to buy a .zip domain. .zip reminded me of "zippers" like on a pair of pants. I thought pants.zip would be funny but it was like $300. Then I thought shorts.zip would be funny but it was $150ish. Too expensive for a dumb bit. Then I thought of khakis.zip which was available for the low low price of just $13. Plus khakis.zip is way funnier. They say K is the funniest sounding letter and the word "khakis" has it twice. You just can't beat that value.
Next I had to figure out what to do with khakis.zip. At first I thought I might just move my blog to it, but ultimately decided that I like my blog domain being the same as my Twitter/GitHub handles. So the obvious next idea was to embark on a journey to slowly create a full featured Instagram clone specifically for khakis.
So far, Khakis has 10 users including myself and fake account I made for Gap (who I personally think should invest).
We are building a small weird community of khaki enthusiasts. It would be very funny to me if it sticks and grows into literally anything at all, but even if it's just me on there I'm going to keep building it because it's fun to build stupid shit.
Join us over at Khakis.zip. All shapes, sizes, and colors of khakis welcome.