Hacker News Reader

sfalboon Show HN: GIFpitch – your elevator pitch in an animated GIF

I'd be happy to hear any feedback you might have on this side project. My friend and I spent about a month developing it as a tool for entrepreneurs to help refine their pitch.

sfalboon Ask HN: Why are there so few law startups?

I think law startups is a vague term that can account for many points of view. Startups for people 'using' the law or startups for those 'practicing' the law.

For the past few years I've been making apps such as iJuror (http://www.ijurorapp.com) specifically for attorneys and law firms. Adoption has been pretty significant but the industry is a bit more conservative when it comes to technology. Other apps such as TrialPad and TranscriptPad have been successful as well.

ClearView Social (http://clearviewsocial.com) is another startup in the legal space that helps attorneys and law firms grow their presence on social media.

I think we'll see more startups in the space in the coming years too.

sfalboon Show HN: Draftalyzer – iOS Fantasy Football Draft app

Draftalyzer uses custom algorithms to determine the likelihood that a player will be drafted before your turn to draft. It takes into account team rosters, project points per player, and bye weeks.

I originally made this app because I was frustrated doing in person Yahoo drafts and not having the drafted players immediately disappear from the available players list (I wanted to save trees so I didn't print lists of players and cross them off as they were drafted).

It then turned into Draftalyzer as I added more features. Any feedback is appreciated!

sfalboon Show HN: iOS App Discovery Using Homescreen Screenshots and OCR

Hi, I just released Homescreen Genius and I'd be thankful for any feedback.

The app is pretty simple. You take a screenshot of your device's homescreen (or any other screen for that matter), upload it in the app, Homescreen Genius uses Tesseract OCR to get the app names, and then provides you suggestions based on apps that similar users have.

I created this because I found the Tesseract OCR package and wanted to put it to use in some fashion so Homescreen Genius was created.

Thanks in advance for any feedback - I really appreciate it.

sfalboon Ask HN: What to do if everything but the .com is available?

I would grab the .net and go with it or try to find a close variation on the .com.

With all of the ways of promoting & finding websites (SEO, ads, social channels, links, etc) I think the .com is less valuable than it used to be.

Good luck!

sfalboon Parse.com seems to be down – 4/28 20:30 Eastern

I've been getting frequent 502 errors from the service today.

The status page shows intermittent issues over the past day it seems.

sfalboon Ask HN: Do you have a side project you want to sell?

Hi the price on SideProjectors is a typo - I need to fix that. No wonder no one has jumped on it :)

The usage is really quite low - I never spent any time marketing it unfortunately. It was easier for me to use the site than manually create the collateral that I wanted so I built it.

If you'd like more details feel free to email me (address in my profile).

sfalboon Ask HN: Do you have a side project you want to sell?

I created a project called http://customlawyerapps.com. The site allows law firms and attorneys to create iPhone and Android apps for their business.

The project includes a Wordpress website to collect orders. The customers choose the features they would like from a 'menu' and then are given a price quote.

The project also includes 'base' iPhone and Android apps that are then customized to a customer's needs.

I haven't had the time to market the site very much but it would be a good opportunity for someone that has mobile app development background and the ability to market the site to the target market.

If you have any interest my contact info is in my profile.

sfalboon Ask HN: Do you have a side project you want to sell?

I created http://easypromocodes.com to generate business cards with promo codes for iOS apps.

The site was created with PHP, Moo.com API, the iTunes API, and the Google link shortener.

I needed this myself and never really marketed the site. I found it useful to create promo code give aways when attending trade shows for some of the other iOS apps I developed (the iJuror iPad app for attorneys is the example shown on the site).

sfalboon Ask HN: Screenshot Saturday

Here's the 3rd side project I've been working on with a friend that was just released (I've been busy!).

The iPhone app is called 'Run the World' and it lets you create goal based on running from one city to another (for example run from San Francisco to Dallas).

Here are some screenshots: http://a3.mzstatic.com/us/r30/Purple6/v4/50/ea/e5/50eae50f-7...

http://a5.mzstatic.com/us/r30/Purple6/v4/6e/5d/08/6e5d0849-3...

http://a1.mzstatic.com/us/r30/Purple/v4/f0/28/0f/f0280ff7-fa...

http://a1.mzstatic.com/us/r30/Purple6/v4/c2/7c/f7/c27cf75b-9...

http://a4.mzstatic.com/us/r30/Purple/v4/cc/dd/97/ccdd97cd-30...

Here is the App Store Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/run-the-world/id832500937?mt...

We both realize the benefits of running but find it hard to get motivated so we made this app as a way to get off the couch.

sfalboon Ask HN: Screenshot Saturday

Thanks for the tip. I picked up rentalrepair.net and rentalrepair.co today.

sfalboon Ask HN: Screenshot Saturday

The second project that I've been working on is RepairMyRentalPro.com which is a site to help connect landlords and contractors when work is needed on a rental property. The site is in beta but went 'live' a week ago.

Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/HKHPsqi.png

sfalboon Ask HN: Screenshot Saturday

I just finished a dice game for iOS called Tripps (also known as 3s). The point is to score less than your opponent and 3s count as zero points. My friends and I often played this at parties so I decided to turn it into an app.

Screenshots: http://a2.mzstatic.com/us/r30/Purple4/v4/56/ad/7c/56ad7c61-b...

http://a3.mzstatic.com/us/r30/Purple4/v4/e9/c4/a0/e9c4a0f8-a...

App Store Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tripps-dice-game/id856299408...

sfalboon Show HN: iOS Promo Code Printing Service

I created this EasyPromoCodes.com based on a question that I had asked on HN a few months ago (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4375707).

I was looking for a site that would let me turn my iOS app promo codes into business cards to hand out at trade shows or other industry events.

After unsuccessfully looking for a similar service for some time I decided to build this site.

The site is built using the Moo.com API, PHP, Bootstrap, a Bootswatch theme, and the Google URL shortener.

Any suggestions or feedback you have would be welcome. I hope that this is useful to some of the other iOS developers out there.

sfalboon My company's first SaaS app. Thoughts?

Great, thank you. Best of luck with this venture.

sfalboon My company's first SaaS app. Thoughts?

I like this concept. I tried to signup to give it a try with my iPad app iJuror but it looks like the App Search only looks for iPhone or Universal apps. Is there another way to go about adding an iPad only app?

sfalboon Ask HN: Charging for Training for an App?

Thanks for the response - your advice is greatly appreciated. Do you notice that customers are more inclined to choose the in person, webinar, or prerecord option? Or is it usually different on a case by case basis?

sfalboon Ask HN: iOS Promo Code Printing Service

Perhaps - thanks for the suggestion.

sfalboon Ask HN: iOS Promo Code Printing Service

I felt exactly the same way. If I don't find a service I may create one because I think many iOS devs would find this helpful.

sfalboon Show HN: Simplest way to engage with your mobile app users

I've been looking for a forum such as this to use in my own apps. I get a good deal of feature requests for my iJuror iPad app and this seems to be a good way to determine which feature requests are the most desired versus the current approach of listening to the loudest/most persistent voice.

I've always liked how Dropbox has their Votebox page and this is something I look forward to using in my apps. Well done.

sfalboon Ask HN: What has been your most profitable side/weekend project to date?

I made a juror selection app for the iPad that generates about $1K / month

http://www.front9technologies.com/ijuror.html

sfalboon Why 30 year old entrepreneurs are not over the hill

Longer commute? More time consuming 'fun'?

sfalboon Why 30 year old entrepreneurs are not over the hill

I'm just about to hit 30 and taking more entrepreneurial risks. I feel like the knowledge I've gained in the business world is immensely helpful.

In general, it seems that the older you get, the opportunity costs for risks increase. Not just monetarily speaking but also other things you may have to cut back on - family, friends, etc.

sfalboon Ask HN: Anyone making a living from just 1 app?

I'm still working my day job but my most recent iPad app, iJuror, has been doing almost as well for the last 3 months.

http://www.front9technologies.com/ijuror.html

sfalboon Ask HN: What do you waste too much time on as a developer?

Tracking down information from others...

sfalboon Ask HN: Good resources for learning+getting into Finance / Trading?

I agree - The Black Swan is great. It's a great read with an interesting viewpoint on the Finance world and investment strategies that are sometimes contrary to what the so-called experts say.

sfalboon Ask HN: Good resources for learning+getting into Finance / Trading?

Another good book I've read recently is Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis. I thought it was a good look into Wall Street and it's culture and how 'the system' is still susceptible to human judgment and misjudgment.

http://www.amazon.com/Liars-Poker-Rising-Through-Wreckage/dp...

sfalboon Google Translate for Animals

It looks like Google is already keeping up with their April Fool's Day tradition...

sfalboon My first app just got published to the app store Here's what I learned.

When I applied under a business name, it took about 3 weeks for Apple to finally contact me asking for business documents. In the interim, I applied as an individual and I was approved immediately.

I finally got first app approved and onto the app store this week. When I first submit, I was rejected exactly 7 days after submission. I fixed my error (wrong version in the Info.plist file) and resubmit the same day I received the rejection email. 5 days after the resubmission my app was approved for sale.

Once I got the email that the app was ready for sale, it appeared in the app store about 18 hours later.

sfalboon Ask YC: Have you built a good website that nobody visits?

http://MyHouseResearch.com

I quickly threw this site together for myself because I wanted a way to compare real estate that I was thinking about purchasing. It's nothing earth shattering but I found it useful in helping me organize my research when I was looking to buy a house.

I have some more ideas that will make it more useful - I've just never implemented them because I ended up buying a house! Do you think others would find this site useful?