I keep a spreadsheet of ideas i get from podcasts and reading books.
Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?
21–30 of 130 posts
Re: Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?
#22I solved a problem that I had at work. I needed a tool to make interacting with HTTP APIs easier, and didn't like any of the existing ones, so I created Insomnia [ https://insomnia.rest/ ]. It took a weekend to build a proof of concept, then I released it to the public. As I improved it, the user base grew slowly. Then, a year later, I was able to quit my job to pursue it full-time. If you're curious, I have an Inter…
Wow, nice work. Just downloaded and tested it out, I'll definitely be using this.
Re: Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?
#23For us, the idea came from working at a startup doing something completely different. We were developing a software to leverage the Cloud as primary storage. At the time I joined, I wanted to understand the space better and how our competitors were positioning themselves. I looked for tools that can show top performing content across blogs and social media networks, I wanted to see what type of messaging was resonating with people and driving the most traffic and engagement. I found a few but they lacked the simplicity and ease of use that I had in mind. Most would return the results in an excel/table format or just give you a link with some stats and force you to manually visit each link to see the actual content and what people were saying. After I left the company, I decided to pursue this idea and build a social media management platform that can solve this problem (among others). In a nutshell, the idea came from a problem I encountered in the past. Our platform is going live in a couple of weeks https://socialweaver.com.
Re: Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?
#24You don't find it, it finds you. You first have a problem or see a problem that annoys you, later you discover how to solve that issue and make a world little better place. Finally you get hands on and create a side project with the idea that solves the problem.
Or simple you like to do something by passion and spend time on it.
Re: Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?
#25My side projects tend to be libraries for other programmers. I usually get ideas by using existing libraries but being unhappy with the interface / api they offer. I love designing good apis that express the underlying concepts well, while hiding implementation details, and while many niche libraries have a good solution for their problem domain, many are lacking in api / UX.
Do you have any revenue coming from these projects? From what sources?
Re: Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?
#26I missed turntable.fm and I found the current alternatives lacking so I built a better one: https://www.jqbx.fm if you're interested.
IMO there's no shame in working on your own derivation of an existing idea (take FB as one example). Sometimes a tweak here or there can be the difference between a good idea and game-changing one. Also it gives you the chance to 'edit' an existing product which is both a fun and thought provoking experience that can really hone your skills.
Re: Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?
#27Back in 2014, I had a number of side projects on the go and I ran out of money to pay my email marketing bill. I created https://emailoctopus.com to save some money, and that's ended up being my most successful side project to date!
Re: Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?
#28I solved a problem that I had at work. I needed a tool to make interacting with HTTP APIs easier, and didn't like any of the existing ones, so I created Insomnia [ https://insomnia.rest/ ]. It took a weekend to build a proof of concept, then I released it to the public. As I improved it, the user base grew slowly. Then, a year later, I was able to quit my job to pursue it full-time. If you're curious, I have an Inter…
I use Insomnia everyday. Thank you for making it! I shared it with my coworkers and described it as the REST client I would make if I were to make a REST client. Happy to hear it's working out for you :)
Re: Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?
#29My side projects ideas usually revolve around a problem or just plain curiosity. Some stick while others don't. Most of them, however, are tools that help with work stuff. My last side project that i still use almost every day since 2013 is pgweb - https://github.com/sosedoff/pgweb
Re: Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?
#30I solved a problem that I had at work. I needed a tool to make interacting with HTTP APIs easier, and didn't like any of the existing ones, so I created Insomnia [ https://insomnia.rest/ ]. It took a weekend to build a proof of concept, then I released it to the public. As I improved it, the user base grew slowly. Then, a year later, I was able to quit my job to pursue it full-time. If you're curious, I have an Inter…
I would be tempted to try it if you could name a few reasons it would be better than Postman.
I know the "if it works for you, stick with it" saying, but I would really like to give it a go if it would have better features I may not be aware about!
Congrats on the app and being able to work on it full-time! That's a big achievement!