Are independent educational projects the way to go?

Over the past couple of years, I became increasingly curious about how we make decisions — as individuals, groups, and societies. The more I learned about cognitive biases and reasoning errors, the more I felt that this knowledge isn’t just interesting but super useful, and important for the world.

So I decided to try and share it with others.

I’ve been working on a small, independent educational project that helps people learn about cognitive biases in a more interactive way. Instead of just reading about heuristics and biases, users can experience them through short simulations, guided roleplays, and simple practice games. It’s free and open, built in spare hours, and still evolving.

What I’ve found is that creating something alone, without institutional support or a clear roadmap, although it is incredibly rewarding, is also hard in ways I didn’t expect. So I began to wonder if this is even an effective way of altruism, and if so, how do I make it work?

So I wanted to ask:

• What helped you most when building your own educational tool or project?
• How did you gather useful feedback early on?
• How did you handle the tension between wanting to do good and not knowing if your work had an impact?
• Do you see this kind of work as effective altruism, even if such projects are often small and their impact is hard to measure?

I’d love to hear any advice, experiences, or thoughts. And I’d be especially grateful for honest feedback.

Thanks for reading this.