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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?

#231

Post by troymc »

ZguideZ wrote: post #164

Recent startup failure was ZguideZ - an app that allowed locals to create their own digital tours, charge what they want, and then collect the majority of the profit on tours sold. It failed because it was a far bigger project than I was able to manage as a solo founder - though I tried. It was beyond my ability to code it and I didn't have funding to recruit quality developers. I hired a budget team and we cut corne…

AirBnB has something like that called "Experiences." I'm not saying that to be critical; if anything it should be affirmation that you were onto something, i.e. there really is a market for such things.

https://www.airbnb.ca/host/experiences

During the pandemic, AirBnB has also been helping people organize online experiences.

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

#234

Post by geocrasher »

I bought lacktivity.com with the hopes of building something that would make fun of people for being inactive so much. Then I looked into what it takes to build a mobile app and gave up. I'm not a dev. But it was going to feature such gems as

"Congrats, you've been inactive for 4hrs 32m: A new record!"

"Lacktivity has crashed due to sheer boredom."

"Wow, 100 steps in an hour! Next time, try taking the longer route to the fridge."

"Putting the fitness tracker on your dog and then playing fetch in the house is no way to go through life."

It was a fun idea, but I totally lack execution.

Domain for sale if anyone wants to pick up the idea.

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

#236

Post by high_priest »

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…

Can you share the name of the Digitalsignage company? I am in market for such a solution

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

#237

Post by troymc »

semireg wrote: post #125

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 focuse…

Could you say more about why you think the original mac apps "failed?" Small market? Lack of promotion? Cost too high? What?

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

#238

Post by rusticpenn »

mrhackernews wrote: post #184
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

with all due respect (and it's due - ecommerce is hard work), lose the animations... As soon as I landed on your page, I wasn't thinking "I wanna buy t-shirts and masks!" I was thinking, "Boy, I've got motion sickness and I hope I don't puke." Let me just say... I'm not a "motion sickness" type. But looking at your page still gave it to me.

You weren't kidding. I underestimated the effect the site would have on me.

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

#239

Post by steviedotboston »

CallMeMarc wrote: post #217
steviedotboston wrote: post #133

http://eruvstat.us - a website for Jewish communities to use to send notifications about the status of their eruv. I have a couple cities using it for free at the moment, but would like to get more signed up to at least break even on hosting costs. It's a pretty niche service, and so far it seems like there isn't much interest...

This reminds me of a video from "Half as interesting", is this also an eruv? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPYp3lOOOrg

Yep! As that video shows, eruvs are built with lots of poles and wires, which can come down due to construction or bad weather. It's important for observant jews to confirm that the eruv is "up" before they rely on it to carry on Shabbat

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

#240

Post by borepop »

For a couple of years I wrote a blog called Drug Law Blog, back in the days when medical marijuana was getting going in California. It became pretty popular, but I felt uncomfortable about monetizing it bc my interest in drug regulation really is mostly intellectual/libertarian and as a parent I didn't really want to take money from the marijuana industry. I eventually shut the blog down prior to legalization of marijuana. (I had thought the blog would help me build my practice as an appellate attorney, but that part did not pan out.) I think if I had had different values I could have made a tremendous amount of money, but it just wasn't for me.
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