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My side projects always come from personal needs, in each case I built it to solve my own problem before turning it in to a full product (summaries below). If y
by simonbarker87 10y ago
My side projects always come from personal needs, in each case I built it to solve my own problem before turning it in to a full product (summaries below). If you are going in with the sole intention of making money then make sure you know that there is a need for what you want to make and that you can get your project in front of people.
You don't need to use the latest and greatest tech, in fact, I would urge you don't. For front end you can stick to simple JQuery interactions, bootstrap theme and you'll be fine, depending on the market sector you go for they may not even care about the design, so long as it's functional.
Summary of my project and where they came from:
http://www.oneqstn.com http://www.oneqstn.com, before launching our company's product I put the question "Where would you expect to buy the Radfan?" on the shop page and then 5 options. I expanded this on its own dedicated domain and 5 years later it's still ticking along. Very popular in the middle east for some reason.
http://www.stockcontrollerapp.com http://www.stockcontrollerapp.com, I manage in-house production of my company's hardware product and after moving from an Excel spreadsheet to a Python script I decided to make a stock management app for small factories. Has made my work life much easier and is more appropriate for me than Unleashed.
http://www.taptimerapp.com http://www.taptimerapp.com, I didn't like any of the timer apps that I had tried so made my own mainly for use in the gym. All the others had too small touch targets, hard to see at a distance/without glasses on, or stopped music playing when the timer finished so I made an app that addressed these.
- simonbarker87 10y agoThanks to the person who highlighted a typo on taptimer.com and sent in the contact form about it - no email address supplied so I'm thanking them here.
- danielsamuels 10y agoNot sure if it was the "Beautifull", but it doesn't need two 'L's
- simonbarker87 10y agoSadly it was another, I've fixed that one as well now though thanks
- danielsamuels 10y agoNo problem!
- katamaritaco 10y agoFound another one: Gestures Galour -> Galore
- simonbarker87 10y agoThanks, I should probably be embarrassed but it's great they've been found so ...
- dreem 10y agoThe stock controller app states "Running our of component stock" which is probably supposed to be "Running out of component stock" in the component monitoring section.
- simonbarker87 10y agoChanged. Thank you - there was me thinking I'd not got any on that site :-)
- tixocloud 10y agoThe Radfan looks pretty ingenious and actually I could see a lot of use for it at my alma mater's dorms as they are all using radiators. Great idea.. Let me know if you need help pushing/promoting it in Canada.
- simonbarker87 10y agoThanks, once we've got Europe sorted we'll branch out to the last remaining countries that use steel panel radiators (turns out most countries don't pump hot water around their houses!).
- danielsamuels 10y ago> (turns out most countries don't pump hot water around their houses!) At the risk of sounding ignorant, what's the alternative that other countries use? Simply electricity?
- simonbarker87 10y agoBasically, yep. Straight up electric heaters are very popular in some places (eg: Scandinavia, New Zealand), some kind of forced air heating or ventilation either on a room by room basis or from a central heat source (essentially air con that can heat and cool) or under floor heating (either electric or water based). New technologies such as Passivhaus, ground source and air source heat pumps are also changing the heat landscape quite a bit (if on a small scale at the moment).
- danielsamuels 10y agoVery interesting, thank you for sharing your knowledge!
- OJFord 10y agoCentral heating seems seriously overdue some innovation. Radiator's are so ugly, but what can you do? I've never known anyone have underfloor heating upstairs, though I'm not sure if there are technical reasons preventing that. It astounds me that new developments still get white steel atrocities strapped to the walls, among other things like white plastic UX-disaster thermostats.
- billmalarky 10y agoyou look mad friendly dude! http://www.stockcontrollerapp.com/img/simon.png http://www.stockcontrollerapp.com/img/simon.png
- simonbarker87 10y agoThanks, it's the best photo of me by about 1000 times.