Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

551–560 of 600 posts

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

#551

Post by SirZimzim »

seanwilson wrote: post #498
bumbada wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is interesting because the same happened to me while trying the game. If something happens to almost everybody, why don't you change your game? When I design a complex system like a game or computer programs, once the system starts working on their own, it talks to me. I learn a lot from the interaction with it. This is specially important when you have millions of users. They communicate to you what the next step…

Yep, I'm up for making change based on player behaviour and ideally the game would have zero instructions. Proper nouns come up often in feedback too. Adding proper nouns has a few issues though: - Where would you get an accurate dictionary of proper nouns? This would need to include e.g. people names, places, brand names. If it wasn't constantly kept up to date it could lead to more frustrations than just disallowin…

Regarding size, I like to remind myself how much bandwidth it takes to watch just seconds worth of Netflix or YouTube.

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

#552

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

killtimeatwork wrote: post #39
koellewe wrote: post #4

I built a Tinder-like matchmaking app where users log in with their Facebook account and the app then auto-matches users by their FB likes. I thought taking the hassle out of swiping could give my app an edge over Tinder. It was working fine for a week or so before Facebook caught up and revoked my API keys (effectively killing the app). They didn't give any reason besides some vague recommendation to review their Te…

I've heard that it's a good rule of thumb to not develop something that is just an extra feature of an existing behemoth (e.g. Atlassian plugins etc., but also the thing you built). If you're failure, then you've wasted time and money and if you're a success, the behemoth will just reimplement your work as a part of their platform. Pretty much the only way to win it so make something that provides marginal revenue, w…

Marginal revenue is relative though. For the developer, if it makes $500k over the product's lifetime, it can be worthwhile. For Facebook, if it only makes $500k, it's a waste of resources.

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

#553

Post by seanwilson »

SirZimzim wrote: post #551
seanwilson wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I'm up for making change based on player behaviour and ideally the game would have zero instructions. Proper nouns come up often in feedback too. Adding proper nouns has a few issues though: - Where would you get an accurate dictionary of proper nouns? This would need to include e.g. people names, places, brand names. If it wasn't constantly kept up to date it could lead to more frustrations than just disallowin…

Regarding size, I like to remind myself how much bandwidth it takes to watch just seconds worth of Netflix or YouTube.

Not everyone has a fast connection though and you'll try the patience of new players by making them wait just a few seconds. I also like optimising so if I can make the transfer size x10 smaller I will. :)

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

#554

Post by ZguideZ »

sizzle wrote: post #321
qdot76367 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the other HN Buttplug Poster who is also having problems making money with their product, I salute you. (And yeah this is why I stay in software, manufacturing even on non-tech toys is still $$$$)

What niche does your butt plug serve?

We weren't sure if our main demographic would be 'straight' Republican congressmen or angry gay Democrats - this may have been an issue.

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

#555

Post by matt_the_bass »

mbostleman wrote: post #128

1990 Refilling toner cartridges for laser printers. I had someone else doing the refilling for me, so in terms of execution this was pretty much pure sales calls and I found that I wasn't good at that. 1992 A 1U rack mounted utility component for pro touring musicians that included a direct input (DI), tuner, metronome, front and rear rack lights, and surge protected outlets. NAMM attendees loved it. So did all the m…

I think your 1U rack unit would still be something a lot of gigging musicians would want. You could probably add in a few other things to that space too.

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

#556

Post by aik »

jmnicolas wrote: post #454
aik wrote: post #434

During the previous crypto craze a few years ago I built a .net service that continuously scanned 100s of sites for crypto news for specific keywords (configuration of sites and keywords stored in xml files) and texted me alerts when keywords hit, in an attempt to apply an event-based investment strategy to the crypto space. Given the immaturity of the market, small events often led to irrational spikes, and I made s…

Why didn't you use the Google service (sorry can't remember the name) that warns you when your keywords appear somewhere on the web?

I didn’t trust that it would be fast enough and don’t think it could send text alerts. Minutes counted in these cases. Also architected it to plug in any source, not just websites (tweets, discord, dark web, etc.).

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

#557

Post by aik »

bluebit wrote: post #443
aik wrote: post #434

During the previous crypto craze a few years ago I built a .net service that continuously scanned 100s of sites for crypto news for specific keywords (configuration of sites and keywords stored in xml files) and texted me alerts when keywords hit, in an attempt to apply an event-based investment strategy to the crypto space. Given the immaturity of the market, small events often led to irrational spikes, and I made s…

You do realize that the bull run is back again? Might be a good idea to look into this again.

Yeah thinking about it! It was time consuming. Also I’m thinking the market this time around will be more mature than last time but don’t know, watching it.

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

#558

Post by edsimpson »

CrackpotGonzo wrote: post #114

I built a really simple way to poll 50 random people in the US. It's called This or That and functionality is currently very simple. You submit a question along with two images via SMS and you get your answer back usually within the hour. I've had a few people use to test new logo ideas, to ask which of two TV shows to watch, or which outfit looks best. So far no one has paid for it, only a few hundred free users, bu…

Love this idea but are the surveys randomized or quality controlled at all? I have tried 4 surveys, all different and the results seem weirdly consistent. Option A always seems to win out with ~60% of the vote (60%, 64%, 60%, 57%). I even reversed the two images in one test and whatever was in position A won.

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

#559

Post by greazy »

semireg wrote: post #125

I am fascinated by hardware with poor software support so I built two highly unsuccessful native mac apps: MASS and LabelScope to work with weight scales and label printers. You can read their defunct websites at https://semireg.com/mass/ and https://semireg.com/labelscope/ Both worked in novel ways. MASS “floated” the current weight above all apps and when double-clicked would insert the current weight at the focuse…

Can you please please PLEASE support Brady printers? They're specialised label printers used in the laboratories. The software they use called LabelMark is no longer supported except lots of labs still have label stocks. So they're stuck used the pos software. To make matters worse its not supported on win10.

I'm happy to be your lab rat and customer for life because we are never going to stop using the printers. I've completed the survey on your site. Shoot me an email if you want any more details.

Btw every lab I've been in has used Brady printer

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

#560

Post by futurehero »

jmnicolas wrote: post #455
bobkrusty wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This like the case of Amazon antitrust current Tech giants are need to be replaced

> current Tech giants are need to be replaced There's no reason their replacement will be any more moral. They should be dismantled imho.

Should the tech giants really be punished for being too successful? I don't think so. They got to their size by being better. Nobody thought yahoo would ever be unseated. Yawho?
Post reply on HN