I'm a 16-Year-Old Self-Taught Developer – Built 700 Projects

3 RajGuruYadav 2 7/9/2025, 4:43:00 AM
Hi HN,

I’m Raj Guru Yadav, a 16-year-old self-taught programmer from India .

Over the past 3 years, I’ve built over 700+ projects — mostly small to mid-level apps, tools, games, AI bots, voice assistants, logic experiments, and UI systems.

I never attended a course or bootcamp — I learned everything from YouTube, documentation, and experimenting on my own. I use:

Languages: Python, JavaScript, C++, Java, HTML/CSS, Ruby

Tools: Firebase, GitHub, ChatGPT, Replit, VS Code

Recently, I developed something called Blob AI – a glowing, voice-reactive digital assistant with smart responses and visual effects (I’ll share it soon in a Show HN post).

Why I’m Here I’ve been silently reading Hacker News for a while, and now I want to:

Join the dev/startup conversation

Learn from experienced builders

Get feedback on my journey and ideas

Ask questions and maybe help others too

If you're a dev, founder, educator, or just curious – I’d love to connect. Ask me anything: about learning to code young, building fast, staying consistent, or how I come up with ideas.

Thanks for reading. — Raj Guru Yadav GitHub: coming soon @rajguruyadav_official

Comments (2)

herbst · 10h ago
700? Not bad. How many of them saw kind of success and are still running?
RajGuruYadav · 33m ago
Thanks for asking! Out of the 700+ projects I’ve built (mostly for learning, experimenting, and exploring new ideas):

About 4–5 projects are still live, mostly on CodePen, and I also upload my work regularly on GitHub. Around 10–12 projects got real user engagement — through local communities, developer groups, or niche forums. A few tools (like my AI Blob app and some Firebase-based student tools) are still used by friends and classmates. Most of the projects were quick experiments — 1–2 day builds that helped me understand and master new technologies. The goal wasn’t to make each project viral — it was to build, learn, and improve with every iteration.

Right now, I’m shifting focus toward quality and scalability, refining the best ideas into open-source tools that can actually help others.