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Ask HN: Side Project Turned Turned Obsession - Please Review My Site
Hi all,
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tl;dr
Launching a new ecommerce site builder/print catalogue builder after 2 years of tinkering away.
http://www.wizifi.com
a HN demo store:
http://www.wizifi.com/nexus_login
un: hn
pw: hn
The site is optimized for webkit - best performance in Chrome.
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just though i'd share a side project turned personal obsession with you.
2 Years ago my dad (a small business owner) planted a seed in my mind when he said something to the effect 'i wish there was a simpler way to update my website'. He doesn't ever remember saying that, but that comment started me down this misv path.
Later when I showed my old man the progress I had made he again made a throw-away comment along the lines of 'wouldn't it be great to be able to create brochures from this...' which again sent me off on another 8 month development tangent.
The final product is an ecommerce store builder with a print catalogue builder included. I'd really appreciate it if some of you could have a look at my project and give some of your feedback.
It was created in my spare time during nights and on week ends, since by day I'm a high school IT teacher :)
It became impossible to create a cross browser print designer so I decided to optimize for Webkit. The windows download is simply a Chromium build with flash bundled together. Not sure how having a download vs. web app will affect sales.
You can check out my site at:
http://www.wizifi.com
You can use the product without downloading the program as long as you're using a webkit based browser.
Cheers,
eli
- noodle 17y agoi actually really like the print catalog builder concept. i've not seen it on other (admittedly few) ecommerce solutions that i've looked at. i feel like if you were to develop this into a generic plugin for other ecommerce solutions, you might have something unique that people could purchase without having to make difficult decisions (i.e., switching ecommerce solutions).
- eli_s 17y agoThat's a great point noodle. I hadn't thought of the catalog builder as a plug-in before.
- noodle 17y agoi honestly like that idea better than building a fresh ecommerce solution. there are so many other options that are quite good and already command market share. in addition, as i kind of mentioned, pulling someone away from their established ecommerce solution is like pulling teeth. plus, if you could develop this into a multi-platform plugin, you could probably use that process to develop a framework for developing plugins for multiple platforms and build some more, since you seem to have good ideas. just a few thoughts. don't let me discourage you from running with what you have.
- awa 17y agoClickable: http://www.wizifi.com http://www.wizifi.com