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Ask HN: I have some side-project ideas. What do you think I should work on?
I've just finished working on a little iPhone game. It was a great learning experience, but otherwise mostly a failure. I can't say I'm surprised though, since it's not that good, and I didn't put in a huge amount of effort (less than one month). It was still very fun to work on, and I had fun writing the app store description. [1]
Right now I'm looking for a new side project idea, and I don't think I'm very good at working on the right thing. I tend to gravitate towards stupid jokes [2], or things that are very easy and quick to build. Or affiliate sites [3] (and they wouldn't approve my Amazon affiliate ID).
* [1] http://boopsboopsswoops.com
* [2] http://whattypeofanimalareyou.com/
* [3] http://youshouldbuythese.herokuapp.com/
I've written down a few of my ideas over the last few months, and it would be great if I could get some of your feedback so that I can figure out what to work on.
Here's a short summary of some ideas. This HN post is already too long, so I've put all the details in a Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jE9YBu66gozEkAIEmmPVYVdH1lNYVJbQD8P4i95t9qQ/edit?usp=sharing
1) A service that is a very high-level boilerplate/kickstarter for side-projects and startup infrastructure.
2) A gallery for web and mobile screenshots that are generated during your CI test runs.
3) A mobile racing game (silly/comedy).
4) A Virtual Reality dining experience.
5) Procedurally generating the entire population and history of a small town.
6) A mobile app that encourages people to do small amounts of fun exercise throughout the day.
I would love to hear any of your thoughts, including: "all your ideas are bad and you should feel bad."
- jacalata 10y agoWhich one do you have users for?
- nathan_f77 10y agoI don't really have any users yet. I haven't even started working on most of these ideas. This iPhone game that I just made has about 300 installs, but those are just spikes from some Reddit posts. I don't think it's going to get anywhere by itself. I've also been working on an iPhone app for skateboarding, which hovers around 20 daily active users, and 120 monthly active users.
- jacalata 10y agoI mean "do you know a specific person who would use any of these"
- nathan_f77 10y agoOh right, no I don't personally know anyone who might use one of these services. That's the main reason why I'm posting here, so that I don't waste my time building something that no-one wants.
- seekingcharlie 10y agoYou have your answer. Find some users :)
- jventura 10y agoYesterday I found this link here on HN: http://www.pretotyping.org/resources.html http://www.pretotyping.org/resources.html If you have 2/3 hours available, check the free ebook, as it talks a bit about testing ideas, etc..