How I built a web app in six days for only Rs. 350 ($8.75) | Hacker News Reader

How I built a web app in six days for only Rs. 350 ($8.75)

paraschopra.com

40 pointsparaschopra22 comments

That post is partially in response to TechCrunch featured 'How To Build A Web App in Four Days For $10,000 (Say Hello To Matt)' (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/03/how-to-build-a-web-app-...) and partially to document my process of building a web app.

Critical comments and candid feedback appreciated.

You spelled CodeIgniter wrong twice in your blog. I thought that was kind of funny since you decided to choose that framework out of the three possibilities you mentioned.

Umm.. Thanks for pointing out! Fixed that on my post. :)

Very nice, but bare in mind they didn't really make it for $10,000, thats what the salaries for 9 people for 4 days of work would be. (and even then, they only had 3 real people doing the work on the site, the other 6 people were doing PR, which obviously worked!!)

I don't know where you live and how much a salary and living costs are, but I'm sure if you had to charge for this it would cost more than $8.75...in fact I would estimate it would be equivalent to $1000 doing it alone, maybe?

I think the interesting unit is the man days used. So it is 36 vs 6.

Yes, aptly put. But I recently graduated from college and having holidays before I join a firm. So just did that for fun. Salary-wise, maybe I would put in additional Rs. 10,000 ($250) for six days. But that is still extremely bootstrappable.

Nice!

But the point you mentioned: market research

I would go around trying to find out what people in my surrounding are really craving for in the internet and then try to create that.

But paraschopra, the name matters too. The name should be 'remember-able' or 'recall-able'.

jugaad is slang for 'work' or 'effort'. So while myjugaad.in might not be the best name for a slide show website it's a pretty nice name - esp for a site that showcases a person's projects/websites.

Yes, I agree with you. I just chose a domain name I already was owning for a different project. I agree that for serious things name should be recallable.

That article is misleading in many ways and essentially it was only built by 2-3 people.

Also, market and user research is important if you want to make a product, but not if you are doing such things primarily for learning & fun.

I like it, can you make an option to bust out the current page from the slideshow? This would be helpful if I want to add it to delicious or send a specific page to a friend.

Nevermind, I figured out how to do it :)

I thought the name of your new app (MyJuaad.in) was a play on mujahideen (Afghan religious fighters from the '80s) when I first read it.

Actually that is very good progress for both the timeframe and cost.

Actually, I tried the website, typed in Ferrari, and was able to surf easily through 10 interesting articles linked from Google news.

I like it. I think it's really nicely done.

Nice application. It's a really good start and a good guide to how people can make a nice application.

But I've noticed something. All the new webaps seem to have the same (slick) design. I like it, but I can't replicate it. Is there a template or guide you all follow?

I gave the link on my blog. Anyhow, here is the link again (with a few additional links) 1. http://www.solucija.com/home/css-templates/ 2. http://www.freecsstemplates.org/ 3. http://www.free-css-templates.com/ 4. Just google 'free css templates' or 'free web app templates'

Nice.

Some thoughts:

* Allow the creation of slide shows without signing/up, as 280slides allows. * If a page requires JavaScript to work, have a notice on the page for people like me who surf with NoScript on to tell them to turn on scripting.

ping: cannot resolve www.paraschopra.com: Unknown host

"pay for what you get?" :-p

he he :)

it is some stuff with DNS. Facing a lot of trouble on that front. Any solution?

This junk crashed my firefox.

Which version of firefox, what is your connection speed and which slideshow were you trying to watch?

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