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

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

#341

Post by byoung2 » Sat, Jul 08, 2017, 5:47 AM UTC

OJFord wrote: post #295

byoung2 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you had the stomach for it, it would be interesting to just make it a map service for adult content. There are ad networks and billing providers that specialize in this sort of thing, and AWS allows porn (legal, that is).

> (legal, that is) Is any major platform more restrictive than the regional law?

When I checked cloud providers' terms to see if we could build a crawling infrastrucutre for my last company, I noticed Rackspace did not allow adult content of any kind, but thst may have changed since 2011.

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

#342

Post by spencerflem » Sat, Jul 08, 2017, 5:51 AM UTC

dejawu wrote: post #332

I got fed up with Evernote Web and built my own: https://nanote.co It used to have a payment form but I felt like it wasn't polished enough, so now it just says to email me for a (free) account. I still use it every day for my own notes, so I suppose it was a success in that regard. I've also got a few friends on it too.

I absolutely love the example text you used :)

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

#343

Post by RikNieu » Sat, Jul 08, 2017, 5:54 AM UTC

ianleeclark wrote: post #4

I have a project which may never generate revenue, despite the fact I spent 2 months after hours working on it. I did a dumb thing and dove directly into the project without first finding a fit or customer base for it. More or less, it's a scheduling application that allows a user to set when they're open and allow anyone to book that time for however much the original scheduler valued that slot of their schedule. It…

I wanted to do something similar a while back, but stopped because I was still too new to coding.

I think it's an excellent idea, you just need to narrow down your market and update the design accordingly. Doctors, hairdressers, physios... lots of people are looking for something like this.

Make an embeddable plugin version for WordPress and physically go shop it around to potential customers. Show them and get feedback.

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

#344

Post by rhizome » Sat, Jul 08, 2017, 6:25 AM UTC

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #254

Probably doesn't count, but I'll post anyways... I've written the beginnings for two games, but didn't flesh out and complete the game mechanics because I haven't wanted to deal with the legal expenses involved in establishing an LLC and trademarking my assets, so I haven't been motivated to complete and release them. I don't want to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on legal protections and then only make…

You have copyright no matter what, deal with trademark and LLC later!

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

#345

Post by rhizome » Sat, Jul 08, 2017, 6:27 AM UTC

jjharr wrote: post #6

I spent a few thousand building a very detailed database of seed-funding entities that included all the staff and their backgrounds, detailed areas of interest and past investment, and more. I planned to turn it into an actually-useful seed funding search service. But I got distracted with another project needed to pay my bills. Time and persistence are the greatest obstacles to side projects IMO.

Like a seed-only Crunchbase?

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

#346

Post by jakobegger » Sat, Jul 08, 2017, 6:36 AM UTC

bb88 wrote: post #10

ianleeclark wrote: post #4

I have a project which may never generate revenue, despite the fact I spent 2 months after hours working on it. I did a dumb thing and dove directly into the project without first finding a fit or customer base for it. More or less, it's a scheduling application that allows a user to set when they're open and allow anyone to book that time for however much the original scheduler valued that slot of their schedule. It…

It looks good, it's a great idea. I really think you have a bad name for it. It seems hard to spell, and the name seems more related to diary entries than billing time. I think there's a lot of professional services that could use it, say photographers, psychologists, etc. That said, I could see a service where experts (think node.js and others) could put a badge on their blog site and answer questions for an hour wh…

This sounds like clarity.fm

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

#347

Post by timthelion » Sat, Jul 08, 2017, 6:42 AM UTC

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…

I bet you could make money on this now, today, by creating a code consulting service, where people would come to you with "that one bug they could never fix". They would send you their code, you would go through the debugging with them, and provide them with a video of your application showing how the data moved around and explaining to them the bug. Like debugging as a service. This wouldn't scale, unless you brought on a team of consultants who were all able to use your buggy debugger, but it would be lucrative.

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

#348

Post by wheresvic1 » Sat, Jul 08, 2017, 6:44 AM UTC

jblok wrote: post #255

wheresvic1 wrote: post #132

I'm building https://ewolo.fitness/ - it's a no-frills workout tracker that's built from the ground-up to be mobile friendly. I decided to do it after seeing a total lack of decent workout trackers that work well on mobile and provide a web interface. It's made using React, Redux and I don't expect it to make any money :)

Hey, I'm just getting into weightlifting. I think this might be a really cool tool! Going to use it for a bit and see if it's helpful.

Oh wow great to hear. It's really an alpha version. Some more things that are really required for beta are allowing editing workouts and lots more progress charts!!!

However, I think that for data entry it is good to go. There will be some improvements there as well like for e.g. better superset indication and allowing copying workouts.

I'm also very happy to get feedback so don't feel shy.

Cheers!

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

#349

Post by jakobegger » Sat, Jul 08, 2017, 6:44 AM UTC

neofrommatrix wrote: post #266

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…

"because my cofounder decided that he was going to be the "vision" guy and I was going to do all the work." :-) This happens more often than not. All the success and visibility, but none of the work.

Yes, it does happen, but I‘ve never heard of such a startup taking off. If one of the founders doesn‘t pull their weight, I can‘t imagine there will be a lot of success and visibility...

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

#350

Post by neoterics » Sat, Jul 08, 2017, 6:49 AM UTC

throwaway2016a wrote: post #9

Not answering the question directly but one issue is that as a developer you can often make a product for almost free (and it might even be a really good product) but marketing is almost never free. Sure you can market with sweat equity. Forums, Show HN, Product Hunt, etc but to get real money you often have to advertise. And advertising is not cheap. I do actually have a product in this category but I don't want to…

I wish there was a better way to connect entrepreneurs of varying skills together. I am in a similar boat as you, but on the other end.

I am a marketer and at times I have ideas (for websites or apps) that I would like to get built, but since I have to pay for that and since not all ideas are going to be winners it can become an expensive proposition.

Although threads like this can be valuable since I can reach out to developers who have created a product that I see addressing a real need in the market and reach out to them to see if there is any scope to work together, but these are few and far between.