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Comment by darkest_ruby | Hacker News Reader

Interesting that this made to HN top, last week i posted as about my open source wealth tracker http://github.com/venil7/assets with all the same features, including self hosting and it barely got any traction

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Not super related, but have you considered getting a proper licence? Your project is not so much 'open source' as much as it is 'source-available'. Might be a good read: https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/9805/can-i-li...

So I don't want to be rude, and am saying this purely as feedback since you asked and I detect a bit frustation - the wealthfolio site linked in the post presents a lot better than your one linked in your github.

Nominally they appear to be very similar like you say (open source, locally hosted etc), but the presentation does make a big difference for at-a-glance engagement. The wealthfolio is just... very pleasant to look at. The site largely focuses on what the value to the reader is, versus 'how do I get it running'.

Just my thoughts. I know it's incredibly frustrating when you see a copy/version of something you've made, but it gets more attention. But honestly could also just be the mood of the day. There may just be nothing to read into here.

+1, very polite way of saying it. of course there's a difference between the two posts. open source is interesting but not enough with a financial app, since it's all about trust + usefulness.

landing page needs to look good and communicate the value prop super effectively. If it doesn't look good you'll lose people's interest in about 2 seconds.

This is nice of you. I just want to say to the GP it's mostly random IMHO. Survivorship bias is hard. You hear about only what you hear about, not all the great stuff. It's a matter of big numbers, don't give up, play the long game.

It's marketing and empathising with your market. A github page doesn't give the impression of a polished product and doesn't inspire confidence. It looks more like a draft. When I go to your page the first thing I see is a list of code files but I don't care about that I want to know what it can do for _me_ and my finances.

Sometimes, its just luck or timing. But I usually upvote open source projects with an actual website and not just a repo. Thats me of course. Also, the UI screenshots from your github didn't look that appealing. Hope this feedback is helpful.

UI polish and this has a nice lander with a better sell than a Github readmw

Why does this app have a nice landing page? Who paid for that? Why? Nobody makes a landing page to wcratch their own itch. In some situations I'd rather have a readme.

> Nobody makes a landing page to wcratch their own itch.

Just because you don't, doesn't mean nobody else does. Lots of people have a design itch to scratch.

Making a landing page is generally free. Pick a static site generator, template, toss it on netlify for free, and you can be done in ~30 minutes.

I don’t think you need to have a financial notification to make a nice webpage for your project that you are proud of.

I didn't see your previous post, but my feedback would be that your readme doesn't really list all the features? It has some screenshots, but maybe a short list of major features/what you can do with it would be helpful for people just driving by to look at it?

I don't think you need a fancy landing page for every oss project, but I have no way of telling what is different about your project without actually trying it out.

I am going to add it to my watch list on GitHub as it looks interesting. However, as the other post said, it needs an elevator pitch and do not be afraid to include more pictures.

I have a hard time finding the features of the program from the repository alone. For me personally, I do not have time to do a deep dive into the code (or even the api spec) of potentially interesting software to figure out what is going on. Especially in your case where it seems to use a pure functional approach in typescript, which creates additional overhead :) Best of luck with the project.

I at least would absolutely invite you to share in this thread some of the differences between your offering and this one! I didn't see your post.

No landing page, UI seems bland?

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