Ask HN: What are you working on? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What are you working on?

#281

Post by roadrunnerfreak » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 5:31 PM UTC

Problem: Customer support still depends on age-old channels like email and phone while the world is moving fast ahead. People want instant replies to queries and all the brands have an online/phone presence. But none of them are leveraging these channels for effective customer support.

Solution: Chatwoot.

It's an app for multi-channel customer support. You can connect your brand's Facebook Page or your Telegram bot. You will get all the messages on Chatwoot, and from here you can reply, assign conversations to agents and get reports on how your agents are performing.

I will be launching beta soon with Facebook Pages as a channel. Soon to be followed with WeChat, Line, Telegram and possibly Whatsapp as soon as they release their business API.

For the technically inclined: Built on RoR + Vuejs. Completely on AWS.

Would love to know your thoughts.

Re: Ask HN: What are you working on?

#282

Post by secfirstmd » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 5:32 PM UTC

Umbrella App:

Open source, Android App to help high-risk travellers, journalists and activists manage physical and digital security on the move. Take lessons to learn about security, checklists to implement and keep up to date with feeds from places like the Centres for Disease Control.

https://secfirst.org/

Re: Ask HN: What are you working on?

#283

Post by aswerty » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 5:33 PM UTC

dharness wrote: post #110

aswerty wrote: post #32

I, along with my co-founder, are working on a shopping platform for furniture and decor seen on the set of movies and TV shows: https://www.seenonset.com Startups definitely like to deck out their offices with some of the nicer high-end designs. Even Y Combinator's home page image carousel has the likes of the Bertoia Diamond Chair and the Nelson Saucer Pendant Lamp on show! Though a lot of startups go for the replic…

This is beautifully thorough. I can't say I'd purchase items based on their appearance in TV shows. But, the idea of a catalogue of the items and the time it must take to create this is beautiful in an artistic way to me.

Thank for the kind words. We actually also try and cater for folks who are doing a more typical approach to online shopping (e.g. a desk lamp). The set design is a nice way of showcasing the product in use.

Re: Ask HN: What are you working on?

#284

Post by RoboTeddy » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 5:33 PM UTC

A mobile app for grassroots groups that are resisting Trump: https://getamplify.org

Currently spread thin between building features for group admins and improving the end user experience--- get in touch if you want to lend your skills to the country :)

Re: Ask HN: What are you working on?

#285

Post by dannyr » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 5:34 PM UTC

https://usmnt360.com

I'm a big fan of USMNT and just wanted to building something for it.

There's also an Android app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.usmnt360.a...

Re: Ask HN: What are you working on?

#286

Post by ptaffs » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 5:34 PM UTC

Music player not database. Browse visually by spines just like a CD shelf or record crate. Curate albums and playlists as m3u. https://twitter.com/ptaffs/status/849313415810121733

Re: Ask HN: What are you working on?

#287

Post by throwanem » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 5:34 PM UTC

scottbez1 wrote: post #180

durkie wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is super cool! The clackety-clack is soo satisfying. I'm working with someone on developing electronic noses (arrays of gas sensors to identify compounds, do process automation), and he too is concerned on keeping the boards easily-built: DIP ICs, through-hole components, etc. I always wonder what the actual demand is for this. Open-source hardware is great, but how many people are ordering bare PCBs, sourcing e…

Thanks! Yeah that's a tradeoff that I've been struggling with. I still think there's a lot of additional learning potential with through-hole components you can breadboard, though you do sacrifice board space, availability of components, and sometimes cost by sticking to through-hole parts. Since the electronics for this project are simple enough I've ended up leaning towards a through-hole board to pair with an Ardu…

To just throw out a counterexample, this is exactly the kind of project I'd prefer to build with through-hole components, rather than buying a preassembled PCB with SMT parts. On the one hand, I actually enjoy soldering, which I freely concede is bizarre; on the other, through-hole parts can actually be worked with by hand, so that if, for example, I want to replace a resistor with a trimpot or a digital pot in order to play around with flip speed or the like, I can totally do that.

If I were going to turn this into a product-shaped product, I'd probably turn it into three: a bare PCB with a BOM for the buyer to fill, a prestuffed SMT PCB for people who just want to assemble the display and run it, and in between a PCB with a bag full of parts, for those who want what I guess would be a reasonably high-end-beginner-to-low-end-intermediate assembly project without a lot of hassle.

But that's just me! Opinions vary, and mine's worth exactly what you paid for it. This is a super neat project, though, however it ends up!

Re: Ask HN: What are you working on?

#288

Post by 7ero » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 5:34 PM UTC

Project: Building a custom email service allowing users to send emails from their own domains, looking into eventually reinventing the modern modern email UI.

I wanted to originally create my own private email server, but realize I had the option to allow others to use this. I also got really frustrated with the current way email UI worked so I'm working on revamping the UI to something more modern.

https://quantummail.io

Re: Ask HN: What are you working on?

#289

Post by ollerac » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 5:34 PM UTC

I'm building Artisfy, a marketplace where anyone can hire digital illustrators for any project:

https://artisfy.com/

I'm a solo founder using the Meteor.js stack.

Re: Ask HN: What are you working on?

#290

Post by agentultra » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 5:36 PM UTC

A couple...

1. Record one album a month. An album must consist of no less than four songs. At least one song must be an original. I can only record on a 4-track cassette recorder.

Problem: I'm getting older and find myself nostalgic for the days when I was running my record label and playing in bands. A small, manageable project with no expectations or demands to scratch that itch and get me away from computers for a few hours a week is nice.

2. http://postgra.ph -- Almost ready... just a landing page to test an idea: A GraphQL Backend as a Service powered by PostgreSQL. I just have to add the SSL certs tonight when I get home.

The MVP is based on ideas from PostgREST/PostGraphQL -- generating the API from the public schema of the database. It'd be the bare-bones service that I could throw together in a couple of weeks.

If it takes off then I'd look into integrations, adding PipelineDB support, auto-scaling, etc.

Problem: I just wanted an API-as-a-Service that would give me full control of the data schema but didn't require me to write yet-another-web-service-in-dynamic-language-framework-foo. There are nice solutions out there for different folks but I'm a big postgres fan and wanted something that didn't require me to learn a new framework, interface, etc.