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

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

#121

Post by ttamslam »

microLED5nano wrote: post #56

Read 25 years computer news, summarized OLED touchscreens since 2018. Amazon "Google Phone News September 2020 micro LED TV, 5 nano meter chips" published after edited (by price, some alphabetical) chapters like cheap, solid state battery. I paid for a little advertising but those already in industry more interested than business people. LibreOffice needs Android update.

Interesting that this comment is the account's first comment. I hope NLP researches don't start using HN as a proving ground for their models.

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

#122

Post by yosefjaved1 »

jtwaleson wrote: post #79

My wife has a side project selling antique maps. I built her a shopify site about 1 year ago that costs €30 p/m but it's hardly generating any revenue. I spent maybe 10 hours on it and she has spent about € 2000 on inventory. https://utrechtaandemuur.nl

This looks good! There are some minor UX tweaks that you should do for a better starting point to the site. I'm assuming:

1. The initial site hasn't changed since launch.

2. If it has, then its been due to intuition vs data.

From my quick glance, this has potential and she should be able to sell her entire inventory €2000. It would be good to know what the digital marketing strategy has been to build awareness and drive sales from her target audience as well as a better understanding of her customer and industry.

In any case, she has something and I hope she doesn't give up.

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

#123

Post by ufmace »

rsync wrote: post #60

"Oh By"[1] I built this in 2016 and, in fact, it has made some money ... a handful of people have, indeed, purchased custom Oh By Codes. But very few. I remain convinced that there is a collection of interesting, compelling use-cases for Oh By Codes but I, and others, have not come up with them yet ... [1] https://0x.co

It's cool, but I don't think it would work like you think until it got like 1000x more popular.

It's pretty much common knowledge now that if you see a QR code, you scan it with a phone app, and it takes you to a webpage or something. It's maybe a little inconvenient to have to scan it with a phone at visible range, but you don't have to remember a bunch of funny codes, and if you get one wrong, it breaks entirely with no indication of where the mistake is.

Meanwhile, nobody knows that if they see 0xABCDEF, that means they should go to the URL https://0x.co/ABCDEF with the closest web browser.

It might be handier if it could generate a printable webpage or PDF or something that had the QR code for the URL and also the full URL with the short code. Now you have a solution for easily putting messages in QR codes that also has a fallback for users who don't have a phone, don't have a phone app, don't want to mess with their phone that minute, etc.

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

#125

Post by semireg »

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 focused cursor point via keyboard accessibility APIs.

LabelScope printed to label printers but wasn’t a design app or a driver. Instead, like MASS it floated above other apps as a “scope” which would real-time capture and dither the image inside the virtual label. Double-click would send the dithered image directly to the printer using the printer’s native commands via USB (no driver).

Fast forward a few years and I started on ANOTHER label printer app based on Electron. I’m happy to report it’s a healthy business and growing! Learn more at https://label.live

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

#127

Post by rattray »

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…

Heh, I built something similar years ago. Even got a YC interview. It was called decisioncandy. Originally targeted logos but switched to apparel...

I think the Slack idea is brilliant though, and I could totally see that taking off for a wide variety of things.

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

#128

Post by mbostleman »

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 musician's that I worked with on the road at the time. But it turns out there's a lot to building physical products, especially ones that include custom electronics. We got a PO for 25 units from Guitar Center, but didn't have the chops to get it together and deliver. In the end it came down to capital and we had none left.

2000 A SaaS solution (then known as an ASP) for project management for commercial construction. Not sure what went wrong here. Probably lack of sales competency. A peer and competitor at the time, eBuilder, just sold for $500 million 2 years ago. That was a long ride. We shut down in 2008.

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

#130

Post by fierarul »

ldx1024 wrote: post #120
fierarul wrote: post #96

I've spent a whole bunch of time on CoolBeans (now OpenBeans http://www.openbeans.org ), a "distribution" of NetBeans. I assumed it would be possible to do a lifestyle business out of catering to a subset of the over 1M NetBeans users. Turns out it is not so easy. I spend some money for a Windows machine to digitally sign builds, the macOS dev certificate and hosting. But the bulk of the cost was the time it all took…

Why didn't you get a .com address? Reminds me of this oldie: http://www.paulgraham.com/name.html

Seems obvious in retrospect. I didn't believe the name is so important, CoolBeans was nice enough and .xyz was being promoted as the new .com :)
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