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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?

#201

Post by jrm415 »

stevage wrote: post #167
benibela wrote: post #58

My German library app to track books borrowed from a library: http://www.videlibri.de/ It was doomed from the start, because basically no one goes to public libraries anymore. But you cannot go to a library without it. Like this week I saw a post of someone getting a 150€ late fee bill from the library while having no idea why, that would never happen with my app. That should have been well monetarizable, pay for my…

Do people really not use libraries in Germany any more? In the US, they are more popular than ever.

> Do people really not use libraries in Germany any more?

I am really chuckling at the double meaning here.

> And I really should not have written my own HTML parser for it

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

#202

Post by optymizer »

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…

Hm.. I worked on a piece of software with similar needs of polling random people for their opinion. Have you considered using Amazon Mechanical Turk?

I imagine some bias would be there, but probably manageable. In return you'd get the ability to poll way more than 50 people for a very reasonable price.

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

#203

Post by dmje »

ZguideZ wrote: post #144

In 2004 my brother and I developed a buttplug shaped like George W. Bush - we called it the Bushplug. Manufacturing was more expensive than we had expected but we sold about 100 of them - presumably as novelty gifts. Our price point was too high for a novelty gift and the nose was a little too pointy to be an enjoyable sex toy. We made our money back and had some fun with being featured on BoingBoing and Fleshbot. So…

Almost uncontrollable LOL here

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

#204

Post by rattray »

jstummbillig wrote: post #157
rattray wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)?

Yes, a very clear answer! The problem we were solving was that apparel firms have really long lead times: they design their lines for a season 9-12mo before the customer buys it. That means they can't iterate on their designs; DecisionCandy would let them do so in a lightweight way, by showing their sketches/previews of pieces to their customers, and doing a "which do you like more" survey to score the items.

The problem here is that it takes 9-12mo to find out whether the app does any good, and YC is a 3mo program! We were only just about to sign a pilot deal at the time, so the timing wouldn't have made sense.

And indeed, that long of a feedback loop is realistically too slow for a VC startup. We closed up and I "pivoted" to something totally different a few months later.

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

#205

Post by godmode2019 »

Build this video-sauce.com so normal people could use make use of youtube-dl to archive videos.

Sites like this were nuked off search for 'reverse cypher violation' Very small traffic mainly used by youtubers to download their own videos or to make clips. No revenue.

I added subtitle generation (unreleased), which adds the punctuation. All for fun, which was indeed fun.

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

#206

Post by jason_zig »

I built http://hopscotch.global back in like 2014 as a side hustle with high hopes. The idea was to get people to put together lists of activities and then share/review them. I still think it's a decent idea but I was young and expecting a "if you build it they will come" sort of scenario. So once it was "finished" I didn't know what to do next so I moved on to the next thing.

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

#207

Post by dave84 »

rangelreale wrote: post #103

In 2006/2007 I built HTMLButcher, a C++ desktop application to slice PSD/image website designs made by designers to HTML. In these years sites where made with tables, so for slicing a design I had to cut the images and fit then into borderless HTML tables. I took 2 years to build it, and in this timeframe people started building sematic websites with CSS, and abandoning table-based designs. I managed to sell 100 copi…

That’s cool. Everything about the design fills me with nostalgia and takes me to the good old days of the Micro ISV, the Joel on Software forums, and my own, now unsuccessful, plans for world domination.

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

#208

Post by mariushn »

pc86 wrote: post #98
mariushn wrote: post #89

I built a hotel PMS system in 9 months without trying to sell it first to hoteliers (no industry experience, talked only to 1 hotel owner). Found out it's hard to sell it, even if almost/fully free. https://hoteliera.com/

Great design!

Thanks :)

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

#209

Post by rattray »

CrackpotGonzo wrote: post #148
rattray wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Super interesting. Any other ideas from your testing, or feedback from the YC interview on where there could be traction here? If you're willing to share, of course :)

Hmm certainly willing to, but I don't have much. Mostly just that professional graphic designers didn't seem like the right audience since they already have networks of peers who can give better feedback. Oh, and the apparel-industry-specific stuff from below.

But something like an engineer asking a colleague which web design they just hacked up looks better would be a much better fit.

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

#210

Post by fzil »

hermitcrab wrote: post #200
scyclow wrote: post #156

I 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

Sorry, but those animations are BAAAAD. Arguably worse than https://www.lingscars.com/ .

that's an amazing website! Thanks for sharing.
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