Ask HN: Should I keep working on this project? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Should I keep working on this project?

11 pointsehnto6 comments

Hello! I have been working on a platform for displaying arbitrary API points from around the web on one dashboard. Despite very excited reception whenever I show it somewhere, pretty much no one uses it. I think people like the idea of it, but simply don't need it. I am trying to decide if I should keep working on promoting it or if I should move on to a new project.

HN is pretty much my target market or so I think, so I am looking for honest opinions on whether or not it seems like a good concept at its core. I have got a lovely backlog of really great features however if the core idea is not something people genuinely need and will pay for, then I would be best moving on.

https://apiblocks.com is the site, so if you would be so kind, let me know your thoughts!

For what it's worth I really do love the idea, and I am not just looking for validation in stopping. I just know that time is finite and not every idea is a winner (this is my third major side project)

I think you could get there. If I'm being frank, I think your data points are relatively boring to most people.

The point is to provide data that people want to know. And a lot of the appeal of data is in the visualization.

If you could "rice" it, to borrow a term from /r/unixporn, I could see it being a lot more appealing. And then get a dash that is really easily relevant to someone, like:

* Local Weather high/low/precipitation * Leading breaking news headlines * New blog post headlines for blogs I monitor * New craigslist hits on a given search * I don't know, you decide.

This is stuff that I probably wouldn't want flooding my email. I might check this in the morning for the weather, and during downtime to occupy a few minutes with some light reading. It might be my "home" page (which isn't nearly as relevant as it used to be, given chrome's 'new tab' interface).

I also very much like the idea of shareable dashboards, mentioned in another comment, though that would probably mostly depend on APIs that were less specific to individuals. But hey, maybe even then I could have an automated "city of xyz" type of dashboard and share that around.

Once you have enough data sources, you have a really interesting ability to tie things together and make templates.

People love cool dashboards, I think you just need to find the right combination of data and visualization, and you are lacking that currently.

I think you need to focus on your why? If you're building a portfolio piece, there's an amazing power that comes with "I built a finished product." If you're looking to start a business, there's no sense throwing good money after bad.

Try filling in the blanks here: This product helps ___(type of person)_____ achieve ____(desired result)______ by ____(what the software does)_____.

Here's my first thought: make dashboards shareable via URL, and then create specialized dashboards for people to view, share and bookmark.

Imagine that you made one specifically for surfers in San Diego. Surfers would tell all their friends that apiblocks.com/sandiego-surfing is the page to use to find out wave height, temperature, water quality, UV levels, jellyfish levels and everything else they need to know in order to decide whether or not to go surfing. If you want to make some money, add some ads - you'll have a geographically condensed, topic focused audience (that's like gold). Repeat for a bunch of other geographic areas, maybe do similar things for other interests and you might be a winner. As a bonus, much of the work could be accomplished by automated means (passing in different zip codes and other inputs).

Hmm...

While I personally don't see much use in the particular endpoints you have integrated with, what I do see the need for on a daily basis is API endpoint monitoring.

Modern applications depend on a huge quantity of APIs and this becomes even more true as everything moves to micro services. One endpoint/service going down can break a lot of things as a chain reaction.

There are website monitoring services such as Pingdom but I haven't seen anything dedicated to APIs. You can create a poor man's API monitor with Pingdom (if REST) but once you get inside a corporate network or you need specific authentication, these services don't work anymore.

I can maybe see repurposing what you have built into an API monitoring service which using a dashboards and alerting quickly spots API failure...perhaps?

I'd move on... a) people have a good, free way to get this type of information (from MacBook notifications or Google Now, for example) so it's not "wow" or a "must have"; b) your "setup cost" is too high; c) even if you solved these problems, there's no obvious path to revenue..

Consumer plays are hard - for someone to use your app, they'd have to give up their precious time... so unless it's a "WOW! I NEED THIS" and "I NEED TO TELL MY FRIENDS ABOUT THIS" it won't get scale...

I'd recommend reusing this code to make some "fully baked" ideas where users see content without doing anything.. something like techmeme.com for a niche area, amazon product watch, etc.

> HN is pretty much my target market or so I think

Can you think up any real-world use-cases? Definitely try to think outside of the HN crowd, dashboards and data points are very general. Who could this be useful for?

Ask around in different communities, find a few in this list for example; http://promotehour.com/free-list-of-places-to-promote-your-s...

Try to really ask the right questions, instead of asking "what do you think?", ask "would you use this?" and if not, "why?"

Perform market research, why would someone even want this?

I honestly love this and was thinking of doing the same exact thing. I wanted to make this because it was something I wanted for myself. After bringing it up with friends I found out that they were into it too. The difference with my idea is that you'd be able to 'subscribe' to the info you're interested in and receive an email at preset intervals. To answer taprun'so question, for me I can see this product helping busy/easily distracted people view their daily digest all in one place to save time and prevent link-tangents which waste time.

I always thought of it as a 'Playlist' of information you want to receive. hi/low temperatures for day/forecast, currency/crypto prices, Metro/traffic delays, stock prices, tweets, specific news titles/links, amazon/ebay item price, deal websites item of the day(like woot), today/upcoming holidays, airline price from x to y, job postings, FDA/CPSC warnings/recalls, horoscopes, etc.

As for monetization, you can present adds related to what they're searching for. If their looking up weather, present local ads, stock prices can correspond to trading software/newsletters/funds, deal of the days and flights could be affiliate links, for holidays you can offer affiliates for presents, etc

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