Anybody working not-for-money?
I have seen that the measure of success is how much money can you make in a month. I was wondering if there is anybody working on projects not seeking particularly a monetary gain? For instance, people working on Open Source projects on the side, developing tools for communities, etc.?
I think my project falls under this umbrella: https://theymadethat.com
I've built an IMDB for everything, so you can figure out who made stuff like the 747 instead of just which actors starred in which movies.
This is very cool! How many people do you have working on it? I mean generating information? Or do you have any sort of automated data gathering tool?
Thanks! - It's just me. Both programming and data seeding. I do it to test the UX, because how would I know what was wrong with the UX if I didn't use it. I'll probably build a wikipedia crawler one of these days to expand the data a lot more. That said, this app still doesn't have product market fit. I'm guessing either my presentation UI/UX is really off or people just don't care about how we have all this cool stuff and who made it. I'd like to think the problem is the former.
I wanted to get experience in an internet startup, couldn't find a job in anything meaningful, and so I did an unpaid internship with https://www.ideaswatch.com/
From this, I got to know the founder, who became cofounder and CTO of what I do now, https://ritekit.com
I’ve been working on HackSource, a site to help people find coding resources. I have ads on the site so I make some money but it’s primarily just a passion project to help people. It also give me the opportunity to learn some new tech.
I do free software development and devops work for a few non-profits. These tasks tend to get a low priority compared to work related to my day job or side project. But every couple of months I focus on them and crank out a deliverable.
I've experimented with a few small open source projects - "Privacy-Respecting Sharing Buttons" was a recent one:
https://github.com/QuadrupleA/private-secure-sharing-buttons
Would be fun to do more. It's interesting that their popularity seems to depend as much on creating value, marketing, promotion, etc. as a for-profit business.
Yes, I agree. Any project needs attention, and this won't magically happen, even if you are releasing it for free/open source. However, if your solution addresses a niche and you are involved in that community, you should be noticed quickly I imagine.
BTW, nice package you have made! Very important to have around!
Definitely Aquiles and I've come to realize that the separation between the two types should be clearly defined as you're developing your projects to make sure your expectations are correctly set.
Some open-source and not-for-profit side-projects I've been working on include:
Airpass (https://github.com/alvesjtiago/airpass) - a status bar Mac app to overcome time constrained WiFi networks.
Communities List (http://communitieslist.com/) - a searchable and curated list of the best online and offline communities.
VueToolbox (http://www.vuetoolbox.com/) - a collection of the best Vue.js libraries.
These are probably better measured by the impact they have and the new personal bonds you create with the people that use them. At least that's how I tend to evaluate 😊
It would be great to know what you've been working on as well and what kind of measure of success do you use.
Nice projects! I guess to idea of changing the MAC address would work on any OS, not just on Mac, right?
Really liked the Vue toolbox. I'm not a frontend guy (yet), but Vue is my to-learn list, so I am bookmarking your website!
Thank you Aquiles. That's right, the script only works on Mac for the moment but can be quickly adapted to other platforms.
Hope VueToolbox is useful when you start learning Vue.js 😊
@aqui_c you are making money by not paying for that WiFi :)
JK, good stuff.
Haha I should start tracking how many times Airpass is used and estimate how much it has saved people wordwide 💸
I think that’s good for at least a tax write off
Built https://cheff.cuadranteweb.com/ a food calorie counter + macros calculator + meal planner. It is tightly coupled to the Kinobody.com program so it's very niche. I did it mainly for myself but put it online to share with others.
Hi. I built this out of own needs: https://lalalaa.xyz/
It's a radio for the office. Where one plays the music on his computer and all the others can add songs to that same playlist.
I just hope some else finds it useful to.
Have not generated any revenue (and probably won’t) since i’m giving away the illustrations for free:D https://pastelpad.com
I don't have a current need for these, but I really like the style! I could imagine someone seeing your site and paying for one-off designs. Mostly just wanted to say some of those look nice, and it's cool that you're releasing them free (without attribution reqs, too)!
Yes. Most the work I've done over the past three years has been for free. IH (and life) have shifted me somewhat towards monetization, but if I just wanted maximize earnings, I'd just work full time for a huge tech company.
Yep, I think it's a nice break from the commercial-business thinking my main product needs. So, last weekend I hacked Startup Costs together. It will be a nice collection of the running costs of open startups.
I can have fun with style, copy and don't necessarily need to think about monetisation (for now, at least).
I also regularly “mentor” others on business and help friends with their overall product-design.
I don’t work for free. On that note, I measure success by how much impact I’ve had a company or people.