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Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?

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Re: Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?

#151

Post by Xamayon »

I created https://SauceNAO.com, a primarily anime focused reverse image search engine in 2008. While it's purpose has never really been to make money per se, it's been extremely expensive to operate.

It's been pretty successful usage wise, but paying users are another matter entirely. Donations and account upgrades keep the lights on, barely covering the hosting costs of the main collocated front-end server, but lack of funds is a constant struggle. I've spent tens of thousands over the years on hardware and hosting costs, and expenses keep going up as coverage expands. As for why, I guess there's just not enough of a reason to upgrade at the moment. Free is hard to beat, I'm my own best competitor.

The site's current design is basic to say the least, and the account creation page does not leave users feeling especially comfortable about the site. Everything about everything needs polish.

Related to that, I'm almost finished with a redesigned and much nicer looking front-end, but that probably won't magically solve all my problems. ;)

Re: Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?

#152

Post by codazoda »

scottLobster wrote: post #130
codazoda wrote: post #36

Oh, boy, lots of them!!! I'm good at "releasing". I'm not good at deciding what to build (demand) and I'm not good at the marketing side. My latest project helps you get more followers and increase user engagement on Instagram. It's a Google Chrome extension called Magis. It's currently bringing in $30 per month with $25 per month in fee's for the payment solution. Yay $5 profit; if you don't count my time. https://c…

Yeah I can see fauxbuy losing customers. I'm not going put a "buy" button on a product page that doesn't actually allow people to buy said product... what would I tell them? "Smile you're on candid webpage"? "Thanks for your interest, we look forward to giving you this product in several months!"? If the product is ready to ship, then ship/market it and see how it does. If it's not ready to ship, then do what researc…

Yeah, I understand the anger part. The thing is, I've read this in at least a couple of books. I think Tim Ferris suggested it in The 4-Hour Work Week and I also think it's mentioned in The Lean Startup. Oh well; I like building stuff.

Re: Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?

#153

Post by ryandrake »

Maybe this doesn't count because I wasn't really serious about making money with it. Long time ago, I wrote an unofficial iPhone app that you could use to log into your Vonage account and listen to your voicemails, rather than using their (then) not-mobile-friendly web site. Vonage did not publish an API, so I scraped their online portal's HTML and figured out what GET calls were needed, and just mimicked them from the app.

Of course it was totally vulnerable to 1. Vonage deciding to change their backend or internal API and 2. Vonage deciding to legally destroy it, neither of which happened. At the end of the day I didn't put any marketing into it and decided it was too niche to continue supporting so dropped it from the app store. Took a few months of weekend work to do the first release and then a couple of days a month to maintain it.

Re: Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?

#154

Post by KingMob »

kennycarruthers wrote: post #65

Fileloupe for Mac ( https://www.fileloupe.com ) Videoloupe for Mac ( https://www.videoloupe.com ) These are both macOS applications that have yet to reach enough in sales to be sustainable. However, I work on them full-time in hopes of reaching sustainability in the near future. "Why do you think it hasn't been as successful as you thought it would be..." Exposure and importance. Getting exposure for a macOS applicat…

I can see how the issue of importance would be relevant. Is there some feature you can add, and then advertise, that would solve a burning pain for your target audience?

Re: Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?

#155

Post by logfromblammo »

I wrote, edited, and published-as-EPUB an entire fiction novel. It made about $22, before taxes. I then decided not to bother publishing it in print, due to obvious lack of demand.

It didn't really cost me anything but my leisure time, though. I'm still working on a second one (but I don't feel quite so motivated to finish it in a timely fashion).

If I cared at all about making money off of it, I'd have to hire someone to market it, and then maybe also hire a second person, so that I never have to interact with a marketing/advertising person directly. Making things is fun. Selling things is horrible torture. I pity those startup founders that have to do both, even if only for a short time.

Re: Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?

#156

Post by wusatiuk »

Jack000 wrote: post #81
wusatiuk wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want me to have a look and get so thoughts out of seo perspective, let me know.

cool, it's http://colormind.io here's what my search console looks like right now: http://imgur.com/a/kWkUJ

you got mail. ;) cheers

Re: Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?

#158

Post by hahajk »

dejv wrote: post #116
ZenoArrow wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a web app or a desktop app?

web app and unfinished mobile app (native iOS)

I do some beer homebrewing and (fairly or not) my first thought was of the BeerBug digital hydrometer, which was a temperature/density meter that wirelessly synced to an online service. The problem was that the website was the only way to read the data. And then the website went down for months :-/ . I didn't buy it but the whole debacle made me suspicious of depending on online services for brewing.

Re: Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?

#159

Post by jmcgough »

calafrax wrote: post #19

I have done a handful of side projects that have lost money and lots of side projects with time spent on something that has not be productized. I don't really thing you should do a side project with the anticipation of making money. My focus on side projects is doing R&D and building skills or tools that will pay off in my paid work. From that perspective I don't really consider anything I have done to be a "loss." I…

Would one need to create an LLC or something to claim R&D credits?

Re: Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?

#160

Post by nitramm »

My idea was simple: When you are at some party/pub, there is always some friend which wants to go home and everybody is trying to convince them, that they should have one more drink. So, I have created http://morebeer.today and http://morewine.today. It's easy reaction time test where it's very easy to pass. They never got popular enough to be worth adding some ads there.
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