Things you made that could be valuable to other people if they used it, but which you abandoned because you enjoyed making the thing more than you would have enjoyed marketing it.
Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?
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Re: Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?
#2I built a managed Kubernetes platform because it was what I knew how to build. Pretty quickly I realized selling it was actually going to be pretty similar to my day job which is what I was seeking a change from.
So I took a left turn and started making a VR game instead. The marketing path for that is much more interesting.
Re: Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?
#3Recently I wrote a small search engine for NYC menus: https://c.bitlet.org/ff.html
The data is small enough that you can keep it all in memory. It was a nice toy and it let me play with a few data retrieval techniques I had heard talking about but never actually implemented.
Re: Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?
#4I have built an iOS and Android app called Boomerang to send email to myself in one tap. It’s been around for 5 years and has started as a side project for learning Ionic. I have maintained it so far and users (5K+ MAU) love it so far and want to give me money for it. I am planning to monetize it though as its started to cost me some money.
Re: Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?
#5Recently I wrote a small search engine for NYC menus: https://c.bitlet.org/ff.html The data is small enough that you can keep it all in memory. It was a nice toy and it let me play with a few data retrieval techniques I had heard talking about but never actually implemented.
Interesting. Did you scrape the restaurants websites?
Re: Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?
#6I'm building a tool to help people not give up on marketing (something I've struggled with in the past). If you're interested in trying it out please email me. Email on my profile.
Re: Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?
#7I built my own GeForce Now / Google Stadia clone for up to 8 gamepads to connect to the same instance. It's GPU-accelerated, UDP-based and all C++.
It works well and I still use it with friends and family to play games together. I even designed a logo, registered it for an EU trademark, and made t-shirts.
But when Steam Remote Play Together was announced, I decided that there wasn't a market for it anymore, so instead I switched to building real-time AI tools in C++.
My next idea, funny Webcam filters for desktop, was then pre-empted by Snap Camera coming to desktop. With so many FAANG-scale companies releasing free tools, it has become really tricky to find financially viable niches.
Re: Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?
#8A day-pass VPN with a single server, with SMS capabilities (with your GSM SIM card). Sort of like a VPN vending machine.
Tech-stack: OpenVPN + MySQL + some Python scripts as glue + PayPal integration.
Use case: If you need a Venezuelan IP address [0]. you'd just access the VPN front site, pay for a day-pass, and use the VPN [1]. Also banks use SMS-based 2FA, so having the SIM card in the server helps [2].
Turns out there are cheaper VPNs that do have Venezuelan IP addresses, though my offered benefit is to offer home random IP addresses, which makes it more stealth. Also the economics didn't help, and the upstream bandwidth isn't great as well.
I took down the site and just left the VPN for myself and some trusted friends. Also, if someone did something sketchy with it, it'd by tied to my home address.
Maybe someday I'll create a blog post about it.
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[0]: Something very niche, banks here don't allow people foreign IP addresses to do bank transfers, etc., they could also block your bank account entirely.
[1]: It'd issue short lived certificates for the amount of time purchased.
[2]: With a ZTE MF667 USB modem.
Re: Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?
#9Re: Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?
#10I built https://www.quikk.co.uk which gives users a better audit trail and backup of their Xero accounting data. I’ve never really marketed it, but MRR-wise it’s doing ok. Promising volumes so far. I keep meaning to put effort into getting it into the hands of those who would benefit most from it but always get sidetracked with my other projects.
Throwing this out there, why not… if anyone would like to help me, let me know!