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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?

#321

Post by sizzle »

qdot76367 wrote: post #271
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…

As the other HN Buttplug Poster who is also having problems making money with their product, I salute you. (And yeah this is why I stay in software, manufacturing even on non-tech toys is still $$$$)

What niche does your butt plug serve?

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

#322

Post by AdamGibbins »

optymizer wrote: post #202
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.

It says on their site they are using Mechanical Turk:

> To do this, we take your question and use Amazon's Mechanical Turk platform to survey 50 random people.

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

#323

Post by seanwilson »

pengaru wrote: post #281
seanwilson wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Argh, I'll look into it because it shouldn't do that. It's using DOM + simple hardware accelerated animations intentionally (over something like canvas) and no polling to keep CPU usage down. Runs fine on Chrome on Mac.

Yeah well, in unaccelerated scenarios like mine that translates into software rendering on the CPU, which there seems to be a whole heck of a lot of happening despite nothing really changing on-screen.

Thanks, I'll need to check some more because the Chrome performance tab is saying 95% idle when nothing is being selected as expected for me.

Either way, I'd be keen to add a battery saver mode because it's not the kind of game I'd want to devour battery on a mobile.

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

#324

Post by kyleShropshire »

rsync wrote: post #60

"Oh By"[1] I built this in 2016 and, in fact, it has made some money ... a handful of people have, indeed, purchased custom Oh By Codes. But very few. I remain convinced that there is a collection of interesting, compelling use-cases for Oh By Codes but I, and others, have not come up with them yet ... [1] https://0x.co

https://0x.co/TRKFVR

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

#325

Post by tobyhinloopen »

dejv wrote: post #107

I must have finished like 15 projects that was meant to be generating money and was technically capable to do that. Biggest failure was SAAS for organizing wineries and generating reports for carious government bodies. There are various old software from 90s that do that or you can use paper books (depending on country you are not allowed to use excel). I've spent around 3 years of fulltime work but it turned out far…

We also made software for farmers and we have an awe-inspiring 1 (one) user!

Same as your experience: farmers don’t care about software or computers in general

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

#326

Post by tobyhinloopen »

TheNewAndy wrote: post #168

I built this for a bit more than just "making money" (wanted some experience), and it is still early days. But I made an iOS game: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/two-birds-one-stone/id15396463... So far, my main win has been to qualify for the apple small business program, so I will qualify for the reduced apple commission next year. http://ideationapps.com/ (has gameplay video and other stuff for the curious).

App not available in my country (the Netherlands).

Sad. We have money too, you know

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

#327

Post by j3th9n »

jtwaleson wrote: post #79

My wife has a side project selling antique maps. I built her a shopify site about 1 year ago that costs €30 p/m but it's hardly generating any revenue. I spent maybe 10 hours on it and she has spent about € 2000 on inventory. https://utrechtaandemuur.nl

Why not switch to WooCommerce and I host it for you for €49/year. ;-)

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

#328

Post by tobyhinloopen »

neltnerb wrote: post #136

I have built and continue to build extremely sophisticated LED lights. But there's no market for fancy anymore. I maybe made back my expenses, though I have a bunch of lights at home to show for it I guess.

Are you sure? Twinkly is doing fine I guess. Maybe focus on xmas lights.

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

#329

Post by AdamGibbins »

ganashaw wrote: post #62

I spent about 6 months building Itinee ( https://itinee.com ) which is a trip planning app focused on being budget conscious. I built it because my wife and I love to travel but my assortment of spreadsheets was a little intimidating to her. I wanted a platform that let us both participate in the planning process. Unfortunately, due to COVID, people aren't traveling so I haven't really put any money into marketing it…

> To save your changes, purchase a trip slot for as low as $10

Yet the price directly to the right of that says "Trip Slot $5".

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

#330

Post by ganashaw »

AdamGibbins wrote: post #329
ganashaw wrote: post #62

I spent about 6 months building Itinee ( https://itinee.com ) which is a trip planning app focused on being budget conscious. I built it because my wife and I love to travel but my assortment of spreadsheets was a little intimidating to her. I wanted a platform that let us both participate in the planning process. Unfortunately, due to COVID, people aren't traveling so I haven't really put any money into marketing it…

> To save your changes, purchase a trip slot for as low as $10 Yet the price directly to the right of that says "Trip Slot $5".

Thanks for the catch! I updated the language to "...purchase a trip slot and editing access for as low as $10"

Your comment makes me wonder if it would be clearer to present things as "Trip slot + first month of editing access = $10" and "Each additional month of editing access = $5" or similar.

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