The Side-Project Project
sachagreif.com
sachagreif.com
I just don't see how you can create a full, well designed, functional website based off an original idea in under 10 hours.
For those that have side projects that you made in under 10 hours, could you share them?
Of course, if you have more than 10 hours available then go for it, but a lot of people never start precisely because it seems like too big a task. So I thought the 10-hour rule could be a good way to get past that.
- http://patternify.com – A pixel pattern generator that produces CSS Base64 code (made with jQuery)
- http://thetoolbox.cc – A directory of useful web apps and tools (made with WordPress)
- http://scribblingspree.com/ - A simple drawing game. The main reason I wrote this was to practice Wicket and Canvas. The initial version took less than 10 hours.
- http://davidtanzer.net/wicketsc - A screen cast series about Apache Wicket.
http://www.runfatboy.net - A workout plan for beginners.
http://www.jimasks.me - Morally divisive questions answered by the community.
Easily create digests of emails using forwarding rules: http://emaildigest.me/
These two don't really do anything, they're just ideas with Wufoo forms:
Find out where you rank in terms of salary for your industry and location: http://pimpmysalary.com/
Get a Chinese Business Name for $500: http://www.chinesebusinessname.com/
http://mappedinisrael.com/ - Israeli startup map
http://notificationcontrol.com/ - Email notifications can be a pain! Unsubscribe in one shot
http://relationbook.me/ - Facebook relationship management dashboard
http://falafelday.com/ - Join in with the rest of the world on June 12th as we all celebrate by eating Falafel.
http://www.efficientthings.com - social product ranking for the Eco / Green market (12 hours)
Thanks!
http://lebonmail.com - get classifieds in your inbox from leboncoin.fr, dinkos.com.au and segundamano.es as none of them provide that functionality
* http://hackernewsletter.com - best articles from HN each week hand-picked by me
* http://waybackletter.com - a look back at the last five years of HN
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.appidio.ra...
http://www.visamapper.com A world map of visa requirements based on your citizenship
I know that monetizing them is far more difficult compared to web ones due to default advantage of distribution on the web.
But what are your successful projects which are non-web?
(Quite an adventure, if not a profitable one; it's a not-for-profit association and we all volunteer our time outside of regular work.)
I toy with Arduino and electronics a bit, but my circuits knowledge is sufficiently lacking that it's mostly learning/exploration and not very practical. I can build anything that comes as a kit, but designing anything from scratch is more difficult.
I had performance issues with my last host that resolved completely when jumping to rimuhosting.
I've got two main apps hosted there (one large, one small), with a number of other random sites that don't do much.
It's costing me about $US40 a month for hosting, which is a reasonable chunk of cash to put down for a hobby/side project every month, but once this amount is offset against ad income it's not really a problem.
I'm rewriting an old, limited BASIC (!) application. So my "customer" knows quite well what he needs (he needs the same, but better). So requirements are rather easy to grasp. I also demonstrate progress every now and then so that he can get a good feeling of what I do. Now, the code has become good enough that I can give it to him to test it (and he'll behave as the usual customer : he will not test enough :-) ). Moreover, I have access to its current database => i've got a lot of data to validate the business rules side of the program.
Concerning the big bang now... The program is quite a "whole" so it's pretty hard to release a part of it. I basiacally made two parts : the classical ERP stuff and the time reporting (machines/humans). Also, working for a small, privately owned company, to replace an existing software is different than a brand new "super idea" web site. That is, the room for error is super small. And since it's a side project, I cannot provide on site support within 8 hours. Therefore, I think the big bang is the only option (well, for both parts of the program). As said, I'm working on a stable requirements basis => I'm confident I can manage the application development and code quality with standard testing...
In retrospect, I think the project is nice but a bit too big. 2 years, day in day out, is quite an endeavour. And although I like it, I feel it has to finish now...
In case you wonder : I didn't use an existing ERP solution because after some tests by my brother-in-law-customer, it appeared that they are either too expensive, too complicated/slow or they impose too much of an administrative burden (eg. ned to declare every single stocks before being able to actually write some production orders...) Hopefully, what we're doing will prove more efficient for our case (and, let's dream, there might be other people interested, I mean, rich people :-)))
stF