Ask HN: I built it, "they" didn't come...

I've been doing small self-generated projects with 1-2 partners for years. One of them is gaining traction and about to take off in a big way (I hope). I never would have got to this stage on my own.

Note that having a partner isn't the same as selling out, or developing a project with an overmanaged 12-person team, etc. It's pretty much the same as going it alone but with a friend to bounce shit off of.

one i'm lately struggling with is visitrs.com, i've posted it a few times before, did not get much response, ones i get was helpful though.It has started as a pluggible chat system which allowed visitors of any website to chat with eachother. It would provide interaction between visitors, would create a community around the website, would help people discuss or suggest products, articles on the website boosting content awareness of the website. for example on ebay, one could have easily ask opinions of other visitors about a product to be bought.. anyway did not gain attention, so i changed it into a stumbleupon+delicious+live chat system. still truggling with it.

one was a real time sql multiplier proxy. problems with production servers back then 2006-2008 was - and most probably still is- backups, cloning on the fly, active-active clustering etc. one would have to stop the working system to backup or clone the datas in sql servers, and active-active clustering were painful or too expensive. I made a working demo based on postgresql + spread real time mesaging toolkit, which was acting like a proxy between sql servers and web applications. when a web application made a query, it was multiplied and sent to all servers in exact same order, which would allow real time cloning + backing up + active-active clustering in once. Though demo was sufficient for simple ops, it needed transaction system implemented, which was really not a big deal. Couldn't sell it. the companies that were paying zillons to big players, or spending thousands of man/day operations did not get what i was solving.

another one that is still on production line is a job listing system, which will get rid of "send cv - wait for response" and "read zillions of cvs, call hundreds of persons just to hire 1" problems. it's a social marketplace for job seekers and hirers simply. i'm not over it yet, but the feedbacks about it is not giving happines yet. addres is test.cbslab.com if anyone interested.

there are many more in the attic, maybe they'll help me when there'll be enough amount of abondoned ones to give up my carreer and become a farmer :)

People come to "BBS's" for the content of the discussions. The software needs to extend that content or enhance the community. For many purposes, off the shelf packages are probably sufficient. If your users want phpbb features, then using phpbb is the way to go.

what i mean by wtf is, these people can do and interact with applications that i can not keep up with, and still find my applications, or the applications that i find interesting "to be complicated".

I've realized that I can bravely bet against at least some of the trends. Based on my built things and their failures I started to find out the things which are overrated. In my opinion webapps are overrated, internet consumer market is overrated (or at least too risky for small startups), mobile apps are overrated (kind of a 'trash market' a bit), Javascript is overrated, importance of graphical design is overrated, simplicity and usability is overrated (I mean if you are talented, you can get it right quite easily, but you will never be able to create a business just because of simplicity, usability, etc...)

What things are not overrated?

- 'Build what people pay a lot for'

- At least partially solve really-really painful, fustrating, important problems of not only natural persons but also (mostly) companies.

- The enterprise market is very very important. Big companies are not sexy, but they pay a lot for software if they need software.

- Jack of all trade-ness is overrated. I try to gain experience in at least one or two really hard topics, which few people know.

I will see how it turns out. I never say never though. I try to be flexible; and act upon opportunities. Felxibility is not overrated.