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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?

#271

Post by attilathecoder »

westoncb wrote: post #139

I've maxed out a couple credit cards and spent all my severance pay etc. trying to finish building this '3D abstract visual debugger,' which I'm calling Lucidity [video]: http://symbolflux.com/projects/avd I started working on it in 2014 and it's been on my mind ever since. I applied to YC with it a long time ago (was not accepted, and I can see so much wrong with the application I sent now...) I was laid off in Nove…

Very slick. I see the value as a developer looking at my in memory data. Not sure on the best monetization route but nice work. A way to import JSON might be a nice feature where it could be used by non-developers to visualize data and navigating as well. Good luck with whatever path you take.

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

#272

Post by lampholder »

Timezones are annoying, and alas I often found myself needing to do timezone time translation across multiple locations simultaneously, so I built https://timezon.es (in jQuery - it was a while ago). An early version had ads, but with total earnings of ~$2 after multiple months of operation I never bothered re-adding them after a redesign :)

I guess doing any advertising at all might generate traffic, but it seems unlikely ad revenue would cover ad spend. For now I just appreciate its being there 'cause I find it useful :)

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

#273

Post by senorjazz »

westoncb wrote: post #238
albertgoeswoof wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get it in front of users now. You're probably wasting your time on a tonne of things that aren't relevant.

Haha yeah... You're probably right, but I feel like it's still not quite actually usable, and just around the corner it will be. Maybe that's just how the trap feels though ;)

not probably, they are right. I fall into this trap all the time, adding these complex amazing features, that, once launched nobody uses, nobody ever asks about. The 1-2 people who find out about them are amazed, the 99% don't give a damn.

Get something working and throw it out there. Then find out what actual paying customers want, then go from there.

Although that isn't cast iron advice as early take up customers tend to be less risk adverse (they are paying for an unknown software) and perhaps more technical than others, so you run the risk of making a very technical program based on their feedback, which then when you get popular alienates users because unless they were with you from the beginning, they have no idea what half the features do, because obviously you didn't document things well enough.

Or so has been my experience, but perhaps I am an odd case, still creating desktop applications and don't give trial versions. You pay the money you can have me contactable all day and get your features added. If you haven't paid any money, then I don't care. I'll take word of mouth sales every day of the week

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

#274

Post by georgeecollins »

jldugger wrote: post #194
georgeecollins wrote: post #147

I made an Android Wear game. I did not think my first game would make money, but I thought if I learned how to do it I could make other games that could generate revenue. In my opinion the install base is too small and the price point for games is too low for it to be a good business for me. I spent $300 on a watch, everything else was free. I learned a lot and it was fun, so I will continue to update the program. ht…

You're right that the install base is too small but also: virtually every Wear user has a competing game platform in their pocket connected to the watch.

Yeah - that too. I'm sure there will be use cases for wearable games. But there isn't much of an incentive to find that use case if there isn't yet much of a market.

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

#275

Post by xcubic »

jackschultz wrote: post #231

Might as well throw in Product Mentions ( http://www.productmentions.com ). Scraping reddit to figure out which Amazon links are mentioned, and displaying them on the site. I was going to add affiliate links, but didn't seem really correct. Still have the possibility of companies getting in contact about looking for mentions of their brands to make sure users aren't complaining. Obviously I'm sure there are other com…

What does your architecture for crawling looks like?

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

#276

Post by westoncb »

attilathecoder wrote: post #271
westoncb wrote: post #139

I've maxed out a couple credit cards and spent all my severance pay etc. trying to finish building this '3D abstract visual debugger,' which I'm calling Lucidity [video]: http://symbolflux.com/projects/avd I started working on it in 2014 and it's been on my mind ever since. I applied to YC with it a long time ago (was not accepted, and I can see so much wrong with the application I sent now...) I was laid off in Nove…

Very slick. I see the value as a developer looking at my in memory data. Not sure on the best monetization route but nice work. A way to import JSON might be a nice feature where it could be used by non-developers to visualize data and navigating as well. Good luck with whatever path you take.

Thanks Attila! That's reassuring to hear—I've mostly gotten responses that it's unclear how it could be useful, though that may be largely due to my unclear communication. (That also relates to my older video, since I haven't shown this one to many people yet.)

As for monetizing, I'd like to sell it as a cheap utility for programmers or CS teachers (those would be two different products). If I can make enough to visit the dentist regularly and maybe just supplement with part-time grocery store work, I'll consider it a success. Of course I think it has the potential for more than that if properly executed on...

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

#278

Post by tplick »

I made a site for playing turn-based board games ( https://new.amecy.com/ ). Sign-up is free; I was eventually going to charge a small fee for extra functionality, but I haven't gotten enough users to make it worthwhile.

One of my main problems is that the site is not too useful unless you sign up. You can see what's going on on the site at https://new.amecy.com/main/observe , but it's clearly not as much fun as playing the games yourself.

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

#279

Post by robotnoises »

westoncb wrote: post #139

I've maxed out a couple credit cards and spent all my severance pay etc. trying to finish building this '3D abstract visual debugger,' which I'm calling Lucidity [video]: http://symbolflux.com/projects/avd I started working on it in 2014 and it's been on my mind ever since. I applied to YC with it a long time ago (was not accepted, and I can see so much wrong with the application I sent now...) I was laid off in Nove…

Amazing job, man. You should be proud.

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

#280

Post by saimiam »

madamelic wrote: post #177
saimiam wrote: post #75

Back in 2007, I made neverplayalone.com to find activity partners. Within a few days of launch, someone pointed out three things - Meetup was gaining traction, URL sounded risqué, and never to use negative words like never in the URL. In 2010-11, I worked on lug-it.com to let people carry stuff in their luggage for others. It leveraged FB's social graph to engender trust. I just wasn't ready to market and grow the us…

>let people carry stuff in their luggage for others There is no possible way that could go wrong. Especially when TSA or Customs asks: "Are you carrying anything for someone else?" Then you go on to explain, "Oh yeah, I am, but I know them. They are paying me to do it."

Well, there's obviously that but since we built this on your FB graph, you'd be delivering stuff from either friends or friends of friends at worst. I feel Walmart is doing this and worse by asking neighbors to deliver your stuff.

In fact, I often carry stuff for my compatriot coworkers and friends to/from the home country. This was just a more regularized and systematized version of that.

All said and done, you're right - even my cofounder and I felt a little uncomfortable being mules for others even if the item being sent was totally innocent.

The one and only delivery we made successfully was from Toronto to London via New York for the then CIO of British Telecom. He loved the idea so much that he covered it here http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2009/12/02/hauling-bits-around... on his blog.

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