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Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?

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Re: Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?

#251

Post by oblib »

I made an ultralight tent made with SOL Emergency Blankets that will warm up inside to over 80° in below freezing weather with a small campfire burning in front of it.

I had a lot of fun testing the concept with quick and dirty prototypes and then making one that I could use on my backpacking trips. It's by far the best tent I've ever used for backpacking. And it also provide a cool place to sit when it's sunny and hot because it can be configured to reflect the sun and radiant heat as well.

I never marketed it because there are way too many people who really shouldn't ever start campfires and I didn't want to expose myself to lawsuits.

https://youtu.be/FdekfNtx65c

Re: Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?

#252

Post by ezl »

jfim wrote: post #227
ezl wrote: post #138

https://www.lost-item.com I lose stuff a lot. It started as a URL ( https://www.lost-item.com/eric/ ) that I can put on a sticker on my stuff so that when people find my phone, wallet, credit card, keys they can contact me. I preferred that over my phone number or email address because I didn't want to put anything that identifies me on the items, so a form on the internet acts as a barrier. In general, I find that p…

> Yes, I am forgetful. If I were smarter, I would just not lose stuff. It's really not about being smart, some people are just more forgetful and distracted than others. What I found helps is to do a regular check that you have your stuff with you. Whenever I leave somewhere I check that I have my keys, wallet, and phone.

Yeah, I'm just a careless person in some dimensions to be honest.

Last summer I lost my wallet on a golf course, and twice at bars. I do a "wallet , keys, phone, airpods" check when I leave the house, but it wouldn't have caught those events for me.

This solution isn't failsafe, but for a few hours of work and almost no ongoing costs, it makes it POSSIBLE for people to get things back to me (and significantly increases the odds)

Re: Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?

#253

Post by ezl »

rolfvandekrol wrote: post #201
tasuki wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> https://www.lost-item.com/eric/ The page shows for me: > Oh my... > It looks like this page has been lost I tried to use your page to tell you that the page has been lost, but that didn't work!

The trailing slash seems to be a typing error.

oops! Yeah, to be honest, i rarely type my own url... should obviously make the trailing slash optional...

Re: Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?

#254

Post by ezl »

stavros wrote: post #162
ezl wrote: post #138

https://www.lost-item.com I lose stuff a lot. It started as a URL ( https://www.lost-item.com/eric/ ) that I can put on a sticker on my stuff so that when people find my phone, wallet, credit card, keys they can contact me. I preferred that over my phone number or email address because I didn't want to put anything that identifies me on the items, so a form on the internet acts as a barrier. In general, I find that p…

This seems great for my RC planes and other things! It would be nice if the site could generate a nice sticker-looking thing with a QR code, though.

yeah! Could definitely do that.

I built this years ago, before the pandemic. While QR codes existed, pre-pandemic, it didn't really feel like something that was ever going to get mass adoption.

Maybe just in my circles.

Now, it seems weird to imagine that people wouldn't know. :)

Re: Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?

#256

Post by pschuegr »

I built a mobile app for musicians to capture ideas and iterate on them, while getting feedback from a small group. It's kind of the shared recorder/playback experience I wish I had when I was in a band. I got it to a fully functional state but TBH I have no idea if there's much demand for something like that, theoretically Soundcloud could be used to do the same thing. But it was a fun little project.

Re: Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?

#257

Post by neya »

bdlowery wrote: post #173
neya wrote: post #48

I spent 7 years building my own static site generator CMS. I added drag and drop, Wordpress-like UI and lot of complex functionality based on studying extensively the existing systems like Jekyll, Hugo, etc. Originally, I started with a Wordpress theme I designed myself. It was great until it wasn't - I tried to add E-Commerce to it and it was the most pathetic architecture for a CMS I've ever worked with. Although I…

This is pretty cool. How much are you thinking of charging monthly for it?

I was thinking of tiered pricing, someone who just has a personal blog, probably 10 bucks a month. Others would cost more.

Re: Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?

#258

Post by ashtonmeuser »

I created a platform[1] to more conveniently write and share bookmarklets. I’ve only ever mentioned it when I see bookmarklets shared as raw code with nasty URL encoding obfuscating things. Costs me a buck or two per year so I’ve kept it around. Seems the only folks who use it are some Twitch streamers from SK. No idea how they may have heard of my little site.

[1] https://bookmarkl.ink

Re: Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?

#259

Post by kimchidude »

I built a ‘phone book’ of sorts for QR codes, where people could upload any QR code they wanted and tack on a Google friendly description. My main motivator was to allow for more transparency and cross connectivity among WeChat groups, but the only one that was enthusiastic about the project was me. The URL is wodeqr.com (Chinese for ‘my QR’), but I think today the domain is some spammy nest of filth. I don’t even want to type it into my browser.

Re: Ask HN: What is something you built but never marketed?

#260

Post by quickthrower2 »

Stretch timer - https://stretchtimer.netlify.app/timer.html

Built it when I needed to do some physio exercises. Could also be used for other workouts.

Built using Elm. Will put the Github link in my bio for a bit.

P.S. sticking stuff on Netlify is my go to for projects I can mentally abandon, without them going off line. This has been online for 3 years :-)

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