Ask HN: who started something in 2012 that didn't or won't become profitable? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 that didn't or won't become profitable?

#11

Post by garethsprice » Sun, Jun 10, 2012, 1:00 PM UTC

I built http://www.giftstrong.com/ that pulls the 100 top rated products from Amazon.

It was built over a weekend to experiment with the Yii PHP framework and because I wanted to see what the list looked like (wasn't disappointed, there's some surprising stuff on there - like how Braveheart on DVD is mankind's greatest accomplishment according to Amazon).

I was considering promoting it as a quick way to find gifts for people and use it for this purpose myself, but I have more profitable/enjoyable things to be doing.

Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 that didn't or won't become profitable?

#12

Post by iisbum » Sun, Jun 10, 2012, 1:04 PM UTC

I started tchvlly: http://tchvlly.com is a community site for the tech valley region of new york.

I don't expect it will ever make any money!

Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 that didn't or won't become profitable?

#13

Post by jontonsoup » Sun, Jun 10, 2012, 1:04 PM UTC

I built http://stalltalk.info/. Its a toilet based social network. The amount of fun I have had with this far outweighs the profitability.

Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 that didn't or won't become profitable?

#14

Post by benjlang » Sun, Jun 10, 2012, 1:06 PM UTC

I started http://blisscontrol.com and http://notificationcontrol.com which won't be profitable.

Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 that didn't or won't become profitable?

#15

Post by bearwithclaws » Sun, Jun 10, 2012, 1:09 PM UTC

Richerd and I built http://sinkorship.com/ about a month ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3899231. Got on the HN front page for 10+ hours, tons of attention, tweets, press etc.

Except nobody paid.

Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 that didn't or won't become profitable?

#16

Post by RBerenguel » Sun, Jun 10, 2012, 1:09 PM UTC

I wrote whatlanguageis.com (still early beta with just 7 languages and a less than decent identifier) as a test of django abilities. It was fun!

Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 that didn't or won't become profitable?

#17

Post by daveid » Sun, Jun 10, 2012, 1:14 PM UTC

I built http://artistsnclients.com - It was an idea I had back in 2011 but couldn't find time to do. Now I built it, but it doesn't seem to be viable. I had a few people test it and the profit is at about $4 right now.

At least I improved my skills a lot thanks to it, especially in regards to financial processing.

Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 that didn't or won't become profitable?

#18

Post by n_coats » Sun, Jun 10, 2012, 1:15 PM UTC

We've silently launched Photofable. It's a social site aimed at promoting global culture exchange through photography and descriptions. Can be used as a travel tool as well. The focus is for each photos description to be informative or educational about the place it was taken.

http://www.photofable.com/destinations.php

Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 that didn't or won't become profitable?

#19

Post by ComNik » Sun, Jun 10, 2012, 1:18 PM UTC

I started Rankique - http://www.rankique.com/ - basically a price tracking app.

Made about ~20$ so far, so it's "profitable", but you get the point..

Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 that didn't or won't become profitable?

#20

Post by pre » Sun, Jun 10, 2012, 1:20 PM UTC

I built an AWS image for launching a bunch of machines and using them as a Blender Render farm. It'd need work to make it secure enough for public use, and I have too many other things on to get around to that. It does what I need though, and I like the feeling of power of clicking a button and knowing so many large computers start calculating for me :)