Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

switowski.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 441 posts

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#271

Post by zupa-hu »

joshuaturner wrote: post #98

Before Reddit changed API access I built an iOS app called Pager ( https://pager.app ) that allowed users to set up alerts for content posted on Reddit. It had a lot of success but the issues you highlighted here kept me from monitizing the project. Users became so demanding and I felt like if I began to take money from them it would only get worse. Looking back on it I'm not sure it was the best choice, but at least…

Hey, thank you so much for Pager! It helped me a lot (in supporting my own free users on Reddit)! I was often wondering how long it will remain free. Well, forever.

<3

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#272

Post by detourdog »

fragmede wrote: post #184
detourdog wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In old world Egypt they kept the creative class in a seperate village. I believe this was needed to keep group harmony and focus.

was the separate village to keep the creatives in by themselves, or to keep them away from everybody else.

They had a god of "Art & Design" Ptah.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptah

I imagine that the creative class was revered and feared. Potters had very low status making a commodity product that everyone needed. Hard to say what was going on.

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#273

Post by crtified »

danenania wrote: post #78
anticorporate wrote: post #38

Some advice: If you're going to monetize a side project, and you do it in a way where you're providing direct support, be sure the customer base it targets are people you actually want to deal with. Whatever the niche, imagine the worst people you've encountered on it, and be sure you want to use your spare time talking to them. Otherwise, the juice is likely not worth the squeeze.

That's good advice. Unfortunately though I think the nature of support is that on average it selects for the more difficult people in your customer base, for the same reason that doctors spend a lot of their time with hypochondriacs (despite hypochondriacs making up a small percentage of the population). Something that helps to offset this psychologically, and is also a good thing to do anyway, is to proactively reac…

I guess the old 80/20 Rule or Pareto Principle somewhat applies to the support distribution for many products. That is, 80% of the support resources are taken up by 20% of the clients. (incredibly-vaguely-speaking, naturally)

The variable is "20% of what type of client?". 20% of Taylor Swift concert attendees, or 20% of assembly coders? Each comes with its own unique challenges!

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#275

Post by xnyan »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #230
tda wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me: This very specific thing is broken in general for your product when I do a and b. Just like users x,y and z report on . (Siemens) Support: Before I can help you, please find the serial number via , and the exact version of subsystems . Me: Here you go, though I fail to see how my specific setup is relevant as the problem has been reported on forums for years, and it is easily reproducible Support: Please update t…

I wonder how flows like that happen. Is Support just completely disconnected from Engineering? Do they not have a way to report issues and indicate that many customers are having a specific issue? Does the company believe that giving a customer a runaround will make them less upset than saying "Sorry, this is a known issue. We're working on it but do not have a timeline"? Certainly at some point, some support person…

> Is Support just completely disconnected from Engineering?

Support is almost always tiered because $$$. In an ideal situation (hello GitLab!) tier 1 they are friendly and competent triage artists that can redirect lost customers and handle the common basic cases. Tier two is essentially an experienced and skilled tier 1. It's not until you get to tier 3 that you reach an engineer, usually one dedicated to support. That engineer is the one who reaches out to the operational engineering team if needed.

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#276

Post by Alupis »

beefnugs wrote: post #155
rodrigodlu wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure it's because they're not paying full attention, even worse, sometimes already building an intense narrative with only few items internalized inside their brains. I also feel that this is happening more and more, since there's more rewards for giving very small pieces of attention and energy to a bigger pool of people, instead giving extra energy or attention to a smaller pool of people seeking for one…

That actually sounds like a good idea for a technical support app: The only interaction possible is they can tell you the problem, then you can give them a list of things to try, and they can do nothing but give feedback on each step, in order, and you arent bothered until they at least respond something for each step

This sounds like a recipe to get a lot of `asdfalsfasfsd` responses...

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#277

Post by xnyan »

hermitcrab wrote: post #244
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how flows like that happen. Is Support just completely disconnected from Engineering? Do they not have a way to report issues and indicate that many customers are having a specific issue? Does the company believe that giving a customer a runaround will make them less upset than saying "Sorry, this is a known issue. We're working on it but do not have a timeline"? Certainly at some point, some support person…

I think sometimes the company doesn't know what to do or doesn't care. But they have to make some response. So they just ask you to do a load of busywork, to keep you out of their hair for a while.

The other side of the coin is that support gets an ocean of lazy/unrelated/confused support requests that the engineer cannot help with, and responding and explaining that eats up a huge amount of time. I don't know that I agree with putting up barriers to reach support, but they are trying to address a real problem and I get where they are coming from

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#278

Post by philsnow »

eps wrote: post #250
philsnow wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You need to develop a polite but curt tone of voice for customer support If this makes you uneasy, it can be easier if you sign initial support replies under another name. Hey, this is John, I'll be happy to help you with that. Let me know if that helps. --John

- Hey, this is John, I'll be happy to help you with that. + Hello Xxx, No need to fake being happy (or sorry). Just provide an actual answer.

It’s not necessarily fake. I do like helping people.

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#280

Post by yourad_io »

neutronicus wrote: post #149
wruza wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m observing this for many years and it feels like there are two types of people. Those who perceive lists as a whole and those who list.shuffle().pop(). Try asking your colleagues/etc three semi-related questions in one message and you’ll get only a partial answer in a significant number of cases. When confronted (constructively, much later) they usually get evasive and can’t explain. I could theorize it’s a learne…

> list.shuffle().pop() Oh, no. It's not a shuffle. They unerringly identify the least important possible action item. Sometimes just a single clause of a single sentence in a list item. You have to scour your communication of anything that can possibly be interpreted as an easy request. It has to be a curt, imperative, isolated, request to do something hard or it will be ignored.

1. Reboot

2. Wait

3. Update your XYZ

User: I tried the second option but nothing happened

Post reply on HN