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Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?

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Re: Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?

#51

Post by tixocloud »

gschier wrote: post #8

I solved a problem that I had at work. I needed a tool to make interacting with HTTP APIs easier, and didn't like any of the existing ones, so I created Insomnia [ https://insomnia.rest/ ]. It took a weekend to build a proof of concept, then I released it to the public. As I improved it, the user base grew slowly. Then, a year later, I was able to quit my job to pursue it full-time. If you're curious, I have an Inter…

What a great story. Thanks for sharing and congratulations on your early success - best of luck for more success to come!

Re: Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?

#52

Post by tixocloud »

jmduke wrote: post #43

This is a cliché but honest answer — I was using a similar tool and thought to myself “man, I could make something better than this.” I have this impulse a lot, and usually I stop myself from actually following through (there is always so much complication hiding below the surface!) but I kept coming back to it. Eventually, I set a deadline for myself; I said if, six months later, I couldn’t scratch the itch to make…

Thanks for sharing. I'm going to try it out as I do need a quick way to get a newsletter going.

Re: Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?

#53

Post by Bilters »

evanspa wrote: post #48

I couldn't find a workout app that I liked. The ones I tried just didn't fit the flow-of-use I wanted. I just wanted something to track my weight lifting, and wanted it to be super simple. So, scratched the itch with Riker. https://www.rikerapp.com

I like the simplicity of your app, however I think it lacks some design. Looks like it's pulled straight from a bootstrap kinda thingy, without putting your own 'Riker' sauce over it.

Re: Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?

#54

Post by tixocloud »

Like many, I also took the advice of solving my own problem. I have a hard time remembering all the details of everyone I talk to. When I realized that the key to startup success is to develop relationships with folks and the way to do this is to actually remember them, I built Orchestra [http://orchestrahq.com].

Re: Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?

#55

Post by dguo »

I was fortunate enough (as a philosophy major) to land a software developer job (CS minor) coming out of college. I made way more money than I needed, so I started investigating charities to donate to. I found the whole process of getting involved in philanthropy kind of frustrating. That led to me creating Sublime Fund[1] with some friends. It's pretty bare bones right now, but it's something that feels meaningful to me, and I'm happy to invest time into making it better.

[1] https://sublimefund.org

Re: Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?

#56

Post by evanspa »

Bilters wrote: post #53
evanspa wrote: post #48

I couldn't find a workout app that I liked. The ones I tried just didn't fit the flow-of-use I wanted. I just wanted something to track my weight lifting, and wanted it to be super simple. So, scratched the itch with Riker. https://www.rikerapp.com

I like the simplicity of your app, however I think it lacks some design. Looks like it's pulled straight from a bootstrap kinda thingy, without putting your own 'Riker' sauce over it.

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah - it's definitely a bootstrap design. The website is functional, but it's the mobile app that is best to use (has Apple Watch integration and offline mode).

Re: Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?

#57

Post by BlackjackCF »

jqbx_jason wrote: post #26

I missed turntable.fm and I found the current alternatives lacking so I built a better one: https://www.jqbx.fm if you're interested. IMO there's no shame in working on your own derivation of an existing idea (take FB as one example). Sometimes a tweak here or there can be the difference between a good idea and game-changing one. Also it gives you the chance to 'edit' an existing product which is both a fun and thoug…

Couldn't properly log in via Spotify :(

Re: Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?

#58

Post by jqbx_jason »

BlackjackCF wrote: post #57
jqbx_jason wrote: post #26

I missed turntable.fm and I found the current alternatives lacking so I built a better one: https://www.jqbx.fm if you're interested. IMO there's no shame in working on your own derivation of an existing idea (take FB as one example). Sometimes a tweak here or there can be the difference between a good idea and game-changing one. Also it gives you the chance to 'edit' an existing product which is both a fun and thoug…

Couldn't properly log in via Spotify :(

You need to have a premium account- was that the issue or is it something else I should look into?

You can also try the 'click here to retry' button which should do the trick if you do in fact have Spotify premium.

Re: Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?

#60

Post by pan69 »

I was working for a start up some years ago where we were sending a lot of transactional messages over email, sms and mobile push to our customers. There were lots of great solutions around that solved the infrastructure problem (i.e, the problem of sending and email, sms or mobile push) but nothing that helped us with the content part of the message, rather then having transactional email templates in Mailchimp or something.

So I built Postways [1]. In a nutshell, it's basically a message management system with a unified API for sending email, sms and mobile push were you have to bring your own AWS account or SMTP server.

[1] https://www.postways.com/

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