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Ask HN: Did you build it, and they came?

15 points by a_lifters_life 10y ago

What did you build? To what extent?

chuhnk 10y ago
I built this https://github.com/micro/micro https://github.com/micro/micro. It's doing pretty well so far.
- a_lifters_life 10y ago
  Did you take any recommendations from anyone, or do customer dev. prior? What does 'doing well so far' mean?
  - chuhnk 10y ago
    I built based on past experience and an understanding of industry requirements. Doing well means 10+ companies in production. Recap of 2016 here https://medium.com/microhq/micro-past-present-and-future-1ab4e492998c https://medium.com/microhq/micro-past-present-and-future-1ab...
reolbox 10y ago
I have built a quiz web app that enables people to play a popular Belgian TV format at home with their family and friends and with their own questions. Without any marketing, they came :). I am at 5000 active users and counting. People seem to love playing popular tv-shows at home.
- a_lifters_life 10y ago
  Did you take any recommendations from anyone, or do customer dev. prior?
  - reolbox 10y ago
    I wanted to play the game myself and with my family. So I quickly built a prototype and once I saw my family's enthusiasm I decided to throw it online. Just a lucky guess I think
gschier 10y ago
I've been working on https://insomnia.rest https://insomnia.rest for about two years, and have had steady growth since the beginning. It used to be in the Chrome Web Store, which helped attract users initially. It's now at around 2500 daily active users.
- 19kuba22 10y ago
  I like your website. Good idea with the screenshots, especially the one on the first screen, immediately got me interested in learning more about your product. I will give it a try and see if it works for me better than Postman.
- seanwilson 10y ago
  Why did you move from the Chrome store? Was there an impact in conversions after the move?
19kuba22 10y ago
I built a betting platform for a niche esports game and had moderate success with it. Mostly word of mouth, but it was a small dying tight-knit community desperate to attract knew players so it wasn't hard to get everyone interested. EDIT: Working on a product for a community I was part of was definitely what helped me succeed. I worked on the problem I was familiar with, and I received a lot feedback and support from other people. It also helped me stay motivated. :)
stevekemp 10y ago
Yes. I wrote a trivial interface which allows parsing DNS records and writing them to Amazon's route53 infrastructure. I then wrapped that in git, and the end result is that you can write simple text files containing DNS records, run `git push`, and your DNS updates. I don't have hundreds of users, but I have enough to make the project a success. Even if we ignore the fact that I built it for myself.

What did you build? To what extent?

chuhnk 10y ago

I built this https://github.com/micro/micro https://github.com/micro/micro. It's doing pretty well so far.

a_lifters_life 10y ago
Did you take any recommendations from anyone, or do customer dev. prior? What does 'doing well so far' mean?
- chuhnk 10y ago
  I built based on past experience and an understanding of industry requirements. Doing well means 10+ companies in production. Recap of 2016 here https://medium.com/microhq/micro-past-present-and-future-1ab4e492998c https://medium.com/microhq/micro-past-present-and-future-1ab...

reolbox 10y ago

I have built a quiz web app that enables people to play a popular Belgian TV format at home with their family and friends and with their own questions. Without any marketing, they came :). I am at 5000 active users and counting. People seem to love playing popular tv-shows at home.

a_lifters_life 10y ago
Did you take any recommendations from anyone, or do customer dev. prior?
- reolbox 10y ago
  I wanted to play the game myself and with my family. So I quickly built a prototype and once I saw my family's enthusiasm I decided to throw it online. Just a lucky guess I think

gschier 10y ago

I've been working on https://insomnia.rest https://insomnia.rest for about two years, and have had steady growth since the beginning. It used to be in the Chrome Web Store, which helped attract users initially. It's now at around 2500 daily active users.

19kuba22 10y ago
I like your website. Good idea with the screenshots, especially the one on the first screen, immediately got me interested in learning more about your product. I will give it a try and see if it works for me better than Postman.
seanwilson 10y ago
Why did you move from the Chrome store? Was there an impact in conversions after the move?

19kuba22 10y ago

I built a betting platform for a niche esports game and had moderate success with it. Mostly word of mouth, but it was a small dying tight-knit community desperate to attract knew players so it wasn't hard to get everyone interested. EDIT: Working on a product for a community I was part of was definitely what helped me succeed. I worked on the problem I was familiar with, and I received a lot feedback and support from other people. It also helped me stay motivated. :)

stevekemp 10y ago

Yes. I wrote a trivial interface which allows parsing DNS records and writing them to Amazon's route53 infrastructure. I then wrapped that in git, and the end result is that you can write simple text files containing DNS records, run `git push`, and your DNS updates. I don't have hundreds of users, but I have enough to make the project a success. Even if we ignore the fact that I built it for myself.