Just prior to smartphones, I founded a startup called Puhrump that allowed people to call into a call center and have the operators google anything for them. It was a way to solve bar bets and find things out before the internet was in everyone's pocket. Unfortunately, the internet appeared in everyone's pockets before we had completed our seed round of funding. Great idea but a couple of years too late.
Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?
151–160 of 600 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?
#152I build in person services. I think online only will become counterculture. I’ve made a few thousand from everything I’ve tried. All construction.
"I think online only will become counterculture."
Interesting opinion, would be interested in knowing the rationale. Is it related to either a progression of the technology or a regression (like nuclear war taking out the infrastructure)? I couldn't help but think about the Homer Simpson quote ("The internet? Is that thing still around?")
Re: Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?
#153https://engineerdeck.com
I tried to make a job board in the UK for Civil, Mechanical and Electrical engineers (and other "real life" engineering) because I'm in the field.
Really, I did it to have a list of jobs to apply to. I'm not even sure I can make money from it though. Learning a lot about the internet and websites, so not all a failure.
Maybe next year, I'll start charging.
Re: Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?
#154I created nextmobi.net (domain has not been renewed for a long time). It was gsmarena competitor. It mostly helped with my programming skills in teen years but did not generate much money but I earned quite a bit in early mobile days (before apps took over) with mostly warez sites. I also had my own torrent tracker. Those were much simpler times...
Re: Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?
#155I 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…
This like the case of Amazon antitrust current Tech giants are need to be replaced
5/10 troll
Re: Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?
#156I made a face mask and t shirt website filled with items I designed. Let's just say that I haven't quite met my quarterly sales goals... https://ronamerch.co
Re: Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?
#157I 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.
Did your YC feedback yield hints as to why you were rejected (I am presuming)?
Re: Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
This business sounds like it would lend itself well to an ISA model.
I Googled ISA model but it didn't make sense to me in the context of monetizing this site. May you expound on this?
Income Sharing Agreement. I think they are mostly used by coding boot camps. The idea is to pay a percentage of the salary for a fixed time/amount. It probably depends on the price of the sessions if this makes sense
Re: Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?
#159I 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…
Interesting. How do you incentivise the opinion givers to actually consider the options instead of just efficiently (randomly) selecting an answer?
Re: Ask HN: What's a side project you built to make money that hasn't?
#160https://99remotejobs.com a job board focused on remote jobs. I have promoted it on both LiHunt (software dev audience) and SaaSHub; however that didn’t help. Not a single sale :) As a result, I’ve decided to make it FREE and open source the code. Hopefully in a few months.
https://weworkremotely.com/ is a pretty big remote job board that is likely siphoning away most traffic