My site http://www.mortalchess.com allows you to solve chess puzzles in a mortal combat style game. You get health with each correct move, and lose health if you spend too long thinking. Over 160 levels! I've made $0 dollars :)
Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?
421–430 of 476 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?
#422I recently launched http://mistykx.com . My app allows one, to create their own photo style and make it available for free or charge a small premium for it . I have people downloading it but no has created a style yet. Still not sure if the idea might work !
I spent 5 months creating and refining the app . This involved the app, as well as the backend infrastructure on AWS . I spent a month on polishing the app and advertising the app on fb, App Store , Google
I think I need to learn to advertise better. May be add more stickiness & virality to the app
Re: Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?
#423http://clickrouter.com I built it because of a need and it's worked fabulously. It's hands down doubled my monthly affiliate revenue (i.e. to be clear, that's in the 4 figures). I think where it failed however is that it's really hard to explain and I sure haven't cracked it. I get a few signups a day, few use it at all. It's not for everyone - but it definitely works for me and it would work for anyone in the same b…
I think a lot of it could come down to trust, part of the great thing about multiple affiliate networks is your eggs aren't all in one basket. By using your product all of their income relies upon your service working. That's what'd put me off anyway.
Re: Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?
#424To own a firearm in Canada you have to pass a certain test. I made a simple quiz app ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ca2.testprojec... ) that would help people prepare for that test. My main goal was to learn how to make apps. It did generate revenue in the beginning but it was enough to buy coffee a few times a week. Then the government updated the firearm regulations and now everyone has to take a m…
For confused non-Canadians: To "write the test” is to take it.
Even knowing that tidbit I forgot on my first read and so thought YOU as the author of the application now needed to take a course.
Re: Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?
#425Earlier quoted context omitted.
For those checking out the ineptech site, please don't miss the poetry compiler joke! It's the bit I'm the most proud of. It's in an unlinkable modal so actually I'll just paste it here: Upon a stack of bits, about so tall, // Boolean[] isprime = new Boolean[n]; just think, O traveller, what we could do // Arrays.fill(isprime, true); if every other bit was set to false // for (int i = 4; i (You may have figured out t…
Very creative, congrats. The fact that you made it a poem, reminds me of some extempore poems that I made up as a kid - inspired by reading a book that my uncle bought me as a gift - The Golden Book of Fun and Nonsense [2]. It had a lot of funny poems, limericks, etc. in it. Here are two I made up at the time: Poem 1: Mr. Jolly had a brolly [1] Its handle was made of silver, and its body was made of gold. And Mr. Jol…
>https://www.google.com/searchq=the+golden+book+of+fun+and+no...
Sorry, typo in that URL. There should be a "?" between the "search" and the "q":
https://www.google.com/search?q=the+golden+book+of+fun+and+n...
Re: Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?
#426I've build complex app for managing vineyards and wineries. It has tons of features: time tracking, input tracking, harvest and production features, mapping, tons of budget/cost analysis. It turned out, it is hard to convince farmers to ditch their trusty excel sheets and notepads and start typing all those info into computer program. I managed to find few customers, but they haven't stick for longer than one year. I…
This is a common mistake: building a product based on assumptions, and not on the market's demand. I've learned not to add a feature before I have someone who paid an advance. Secondly: your product might be to overwhelming and doing to much; experience has thought me that complicated products are a though sell. Try to reduce it to it's most basic use-case, and sell that (a simple app that doesn't require any explana…
>This is a common mistake: building a product based on assumptions, and not on the market's demand. I've learned not to add a feature before I have someone who paid an advance.
I first came across this sort of advice here:
The Montana Mogul: RightNow CEO Greg Gianforte (Part 1)
http://www.sramanamitra.com/2008/07/31/the-montana-mogul-rig...
Interesting story. RightNow was later sold to Oracle, IIRC, for a good amount.
Greg used a similar technique to what you advise.
Re: Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?
#427I built DocsApp ( https://www.docsapp.io/ ) two years ago and launched around 8 months ago. So far no revenue because I focus on building features. While DocsApp already launched 8 months ago, I still don`t see any growth in term of active users. So far only one active user with two sites and few users sign up to test then abandon completely, possibly go to competitor site with much expensive pricing. Here is what I…
Wow, this is really cool! If I ever finish a project that doesn't belong on this thread, I will definitely consider using DocsApp
Re: Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?
#428Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am routinely told it cannot be done for my condition, the health of the "health and wellness" industry not withstanding. And you are, ironically, proving my point that a lot of attention ends up on me, and not in a good way, rather than on my work. My life is a case of "fact is stranger than fiction." I am confident that trying to lie about it in order to make it more palatable would only compound the problem. I am…
"And you are, ironically, proving my point that a lot of attention ends up on me, and not in a good way, rather than on my work." Your two comments here have talked about you and not about your work. You might be able to get attention focused on your work by linking to it and talking about it more specifically? All the other top level comments I read on this post included details about the project and often a link/na…
http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2017/06/announcing-w...
It is an announcement of a couple of Reddits I have started. It is probably the least worst thing I can link to, given how terribly it tends to go to link to my health projects.
I have had several health sites and kept killing them because they weren't accomplishing much and it was a constant shit show for me. I tend to dislike linking to my health sites on HN because there are a lot of people who will just be incredibly ugly about it and other people tend to not call them on it.
An inherent problem is that I am getting myself well, so talking about me is kind of unavoidable. I do have a son who has the same condition who is also getting well. Out of respect for his privacy, I tend to talk somewhat less about him. There are no large scale studies of what I am doing.
I still don't know how to monetize it effectively. I have a tip jar and there are a few affiliate links on at least one of my health sites, but I have not put Google AdSense on it because of the sorts of ads it would likely attract. Most likely, it would attract ads for "miracle cures," just buy my supplement. It wouldn't be responsible to allow that on the site.
I am unwilling to become a "consultant." I have known others in the alternative med space who have gone that route. I am convinced that is the same model that causes an inherent conflict of interest for doctors. Doctors prescribe medication to get short term results with long term costs. Although there is always a handout included with a long list of side effects, they take credit for the short term benefits and blame the long term costs on your underlying medical condition, not on the fact that you have been taking their drugs for years.
I have been getting well doing the opposite: I trade short term costs for long terms gains. It is a hard ask to tell people to put themselves through hell for long term gains. It needs to be voluntary and the locus of control needs to be with them, not with some outsider. Providing a mental model, detailed information on specific things that help with certain issues and an example to follow is the best answer I have.
I still wrestle with how much to just talk about what I do and how much to back it up with links to research. My typical process when I run into a problem is to discuss it with my son, ask him to look up info related to a particular organ or bodily process or whatever and when we feel we have identified a pertinent issue, look up what nutrients are involved. Then research which foods have those nutrients.
It is possible this will never catch on. I have been working on getting well for about 16+ years and I have had blogs on various topics and been an active participant on various forums for a lot of years as well. I get told I am being irresponsible for trying to talk about what has been helpful to me. Meanwhile, people are dying and the doctors don't have answers. I get stuck between a choice of being accused of being irresponsible while I attempt to help or covering my ass, saying "not my problem" and letting people die who don't have a real solution. So far, I keep erring on the side of trying to find a way to effectively and safely communicate what I know in hopes of helping people in an essentially hopeless situation.
Re: Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?
#429Re: Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?
#430Last year, on college, I started working on a bot to consistently win money in daily fantasy basketball. I think I went negative before I paused working on it.
Sounds interesting! Can you explain how your bot worked from a technical perspective? And/or what did you learn from the whole experience
Pulled data from nba stats API using a Python library, created features in Python, then fed the data into pretty basic machine learning models. Only achieved slight gains over just assuming a player's performance was going to be his average over the past year.
But a big part that was pretty effective and not even predictive related was using a modified knapsack algorithm to fit the best predicted value into one day's roster.
I never proved the algorithm, though...