Show HN: SWYM - Share what you make | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: SWYM - Share what you make

50 pointsrevorad27 comments

Hi guys, I launched a two-day app at a Hacker News London meetup last year.

It's called SWYM: Share What You Make. Check it out here - http://swym.me

The idea is simple and in a way inspired from Show HN posts. Every time someone posts something cool here, someone asks how did you make it? So Swym provides a simple way to share the tools and people you built your projects with.

I put it on the shelf after presenting it last year, but it's one of those things that kept coming back at me. So, I decided to bring it back to life. Here's the full back story - http://swym.me/story

If there's enough interest, I may also add a store component where you could sell what you make too.

Please share your stuff and tell me what you think. Thanks!

PS I put it on here yesterday; it went on to the homepage for a few minutes but disappeared soon. So I'm reposting it in case more people are interested.

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Clickable links - http://swym.me/

http://swym.me/story

It's a good little MVP and already seems to be gaining interest. There are other similar sites out there such as about.me, virtualrockstars.com, etc.

I'd love to see you take it "all the way": profile pics, markdown support, screenshots and embedded videos of the projects, etc.

Thanks for the encouragement. Sometimes I really get bogged down with self-doubt, so it's awesome to see people liking this.

Some simple things like profile pics, screenshots and videos are on my list to add. But at the same time, I want to find one simple aspect that people find really useful and focus on that. It might turn out to be discovery of apps, tools or people.

Do you think people would be interested in selling their apps or other projects on Swym?

That's a good point of figuring out the app's focus before adding features. If your short summary of a project could really be enticing, then swym would be awesome for just getting exposure to new stuff. I'd imagine something like a stream of projects with a very short description, one screenshot, and what it was made with. Then your ability to search projects by what they are made with would become super powerful.

Not sure about selling. I think that will be a good deal tougher to pull off. People would only want to sell stuff at swym if it had a ton of momentum, otherwise other outlets would take people's priority.

Yeah short summaries with good screenshots and videos could be very useful. There are lots of app directories out there, but I find them too cluttered and full of annoying ads.

> Do you think people would be interested in selling their apps or other projects on Swym?

I think this should work. Here is a quick-thought blue print of what I'd do:

1. Create a 'Marketplace' type section (with WTB/WTS tabs or something?)

2. Create a (separate) profile page for the apps for sale

3. Those who wish to sell can specify the sale-specific aspects (e.g. asking price, traffic/user base/revenue numbers etc.) which will be displayed on the marketplace profile (with crosslinks to/from the app and owner profile pages etc.)

HTH

Thanks for your suggestions!

I start typing in what I used to build it, then you didn't have "Stripe" yet. OK, no problem.

So I click "add a new one" and it takes me to a new page, deleting the stuff I've already entered.

Come one, man! New window at the very least.

Sorry, that's a terrible first user experience. I'll fix it.

Edit: Btw, BoxRowSeat looks awesome! You should probably make the tagline - "Sell your stub to your own hub". It rhymes better.

Edit 2: Fixed! The tools link now opens in a window. I'll soon add a way to add new tools in the input box itself.

The idea is great but I think there are a few things that you should look into.

1. What if there are so many entries in the main page, that eventually it becomes just noise?

2. There should be some way that I could follow/know more about one who shared his/her work, so that in future if he creates something new I am notified.

3. Wouldn't be better to give some kind of rating system and a search box.

Thanks, those are all great points!

This is now only a 3.5-day app. So yes, it doesn't do much yet :-)

The main page will probably end up being just the latest posts. I expect I'll add categories for easier exploring and navigation, but it seems premature now.

I might add following people/projects if enough people are interested.

I'm planning to send daily/weekly emails to share the latest projects and encourage people to keep working on their projects. I certainly lose momentum on things, so pushing each other to keep going will help.

I think this is a really cool idea. But I do think it needs a description field. I saw that some of the people put the description of the application in the name field. It is difficult to know what the app is about.

Really cool idea though... :D

You can add a description after adding a project. I just wanted to keep the first form as short as possible. But maybe I should make that clear.

Found it... :D Thanks.

Thanks a lot everyone for the comments and sharing your awesome projects!

For those of you who don't have anything to share right now, but are interested in following other cool new projects, you can now sign up to the mailing list on the homepage - http://swym.me. It might encourage you to share yours too at some point.

It is nice, and I'd wonder why I would use this instead of http://coderwall.com/ ?

I didn't know about coderwall. I haven't really thought of Swym as a reputation system for programmers so I can't compare it to other sites that do that.

Anyway you should use both because it gives you more exposure. Swym is going to be very much focused on output, not just skills, so it should be a good way to get users for your projects.

FYI have you checked out http://geekli.st?

It's funny I found out about geeklist much after I first made Swym. I think it's an awesome site, but I have a slightly different take. Firstly, although the initial seed of my users is programmers, I want to keep open to all sorts of creative people. In fact, that's very important to me. I explain why in this article - http://swym.me/story

Also, I want to focus on the simple tagged browsing approach because it's fun and enables serendipity.

Plus, there's no private beta! You can join now.

Clickable http://swym.me/story

I like the concept - but what's the big picture?

Glad you like it! The main idea is to share and learn how to make cool stuff.

If it gains momentum, it could be a great way to get new users for new projects (a bit like Show HN posts).

But I think if there's enough good stuff on it, then the data could power a simple but powerful recommendation engine. For example, if I know that 5 people used a 2-year old Thinkpad to make an amazing 3D game, then I would know it's good enough for my needs too.

The other simple idea is to allow people to sell their stuff too, especially things that start out as weekend projects. You can simply share the project when you first make it, but if it takes off, then just add a Buy button to get paying customers.

But that's all dreaming. For now, it's just what you see. So, please share your projects.

It's a cool idea—but I think it'd be even more awesome if you could post without having to sign up.

I'm not sure how that would work. People are a key part of this.

I'm working on adding Twitter, Github, Google, FB logins, so that should reduce the signup friction.

Looks great Hrishi. Nice work.

SWYD (Share what you do). My name is ___________, I am a ________, specialized in __, __, __. I worked at ____, ____, ____.

That's Linkedin, innit? :-) But I think Swym is a more fun way of saying the same things. The focus is on the process of making stuff.

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