Dead and Back-burnered projects: Post your neglected projects
Let's format them like this:
Product name or website
What it does or was suposed to do
Why you abandoned/gave up/put it aside
What your plans are for it in the future
Let's format them like this:
Product name or website
What it does or was suposed to do
Why you abandoned/gave up/put it aside
What your plans are for it in the future
No name (working title "The Quiz") - About four years ago I started working on a web-scavenger hunt type of game (think Cicada 3301) and it's been on my server(s) in a semi-finalized state. During this time I've even forgot the solution to some of the steps myself. Someday I might finish it. Last commit: not even in version control.
https://trivia.ju.io - A live trivia game where every player tries to get the correct answer first, same function as IRC based trivia games but with more interaction possibilities. I'm in the process of rewriting it with Elixir and Phoenix as a learning exercise but it's slow. The current state is Python and works great. I'd love to hear feedback to get motivated to work on it more! Last non-bugfix commit: 2015-05-02
Saltchan - An anonymous image board with near-zero knowledge. Every post could be encrypted and only decoded by your selected recipients. Even got an in-image encryption working that would still produce a valid PNG image (that just looks like noise). The TweetNaCl.js library has matured a lot and I can see deploying this again some day. Last commit: 2015-02-08
https://SurprisePackage.me - A subscription box bot that orders random packages for you. I personally love receiving packages and ship them to my office, I've been getting a lot of comments about the number of packages I receive from our secretaries! This was/is also a personal first in integrating a payment service (Stripe) on a production site. Previously I only ever used PayPal or only testing environments.
This is currently live but not getting a lot of traffic, I suck at marketing and SEO. Once the last customer cancels I will probably stop operations.
I like number 4 a lot, did you get much traction on it?
Unfortunately not! I don't assign any real budget to it and apart from an initial post on ProductHunt traffic has been real slow. Less than 50 sessions/week. I tried submitting it to some subscription box listings to no avail.
Semi dead: https://www.python-private-package-index.com
Has been going about 6 months and has 2 paying users. My first attempt at a start-up, and built/deployed entirely from the bus to/from my regular job, but probably too niche to be worthwhile. I'm planning to shut it down when my AWS free tier expires at 12 months unless I get more users
I like it! Just a few weeks ago I was looking for something like that.
However, I did not find your site! Better work on that SEO and marketing.
We ended up deploying a docker container with pypiserver on an internal server.
https://pypi.org/project/pypiserver/
Thanks! Driving traffic to the site was always my biggest problem. I always struggled to find potential sources of users for it, and found that a very high number of signups never actually used the app, so I'm thinking the landing page isn't describing it's purpose particularly well.
At the moment I'm spending all the free time on my new start-up, https://www.backendlab.app, which is doing far better so far, although I haven't yet started charging anybody for it. But if I do find some free time then I might try and refresh it
I have a lot of them, some completely dead, some half dead and some dying. Here is a sampling with 3 of each:
Completely dead:
askvini.com (a price comparison engine)
simpleos.org (mobile device operating system)
foodaus.com (restaurant guide)
Half Dead:
https://taglioecolore.it (Italian hair salon guide)
https://fictionpad.com (fanfiction site - sold it about a year ago)
https://shitet.net (Albanian real estate site)
Dying:
https://foodpages.ca (Canadian restaurant guide )
https://dinehere.us (US based restaurant guide and gift card marketplace)
https://foodplaces.co.uk (same for the UK)
Luckily, I have many more projects that are alive and well.
Can I ask what the thought process was with all the different country specific products?
I've been moving around a lot in the last 10 years. So, while in a particular country I think of an app that would be useful to me and build it. In the case of shitet.net for example, I built it so I can sell my old house in Albania (which is still listed btw, unsold, listing #1 https://shitet.net/1 )
The mobile operating system was also built in Albania, while a student of mine and I were experimenting with Openmoko (an also half-dead open mobile device hardware platform )
Considered selling the other projects like you did fictionpad?
Still considering selling some.. but it takes quite the effort to do so.
How do you decide to enter a new market?
Also, how was your experience entering foreign markets? Did you work with a local, or handled it entirely yourself?
I'm familiar with all the markets in question, having lived there and/or having familiarity with the place/language.
As for the process, I handled them entirely by myself.
Thank @eruci you for the clarifications. I wish I had some of your insights, your work looks definitely impressive!
Best of luck for your current and next endeavours!
Paperback Writer
It was a rails app that let you write novels and export them into perfectly valid and formatted ePubs for submission to Amazon or the iBookstore. Why? Because most authors struggle to get their Word-formatted novels into an appropriate ePub file.
I abandoned it because it garnered zero interest outside of family and friends. Also, other similar products came out along the way with more advanced features that seemed to match what people actually wanted. (I naively thought everyone would want as few features as possible, like me.)
I have no plans in the future.
Is this still up? I'd like to check it out. I'm in the process of formatting a book now
It's not, unfortunately. I neglected and forgot about it to the point that I not only lost the domain and hosting, but also my source code. #fail
Thanks for the interest though :-)
aaaaaargh! I have been there before, no fun!
www.estackk.com
It was supposed to build a service(hardware or API) so that paper receipts could be digitised
Almost dying as I am not able to gather a motivational team...
Faffer (https://goo.gl/xgeH8a) - Sarahah for chatting.
Launched ~4 months ago.
The app is built on ReactNative and Firebase and available in working condition for Android on play store.
It never went out of my family and friends circle.
If someone wants to pick it up from growth front (mainly getting the initial set of users and growing from product virality from there), ill be happy to collaborate and see if it can go somewhere!
https://www.jamilslist.com
A list of the best streaming Netflix movies to save people time searching every night.
A combination of trying to keep up with a large amount of competition (movie reviews, who knew :) ) and inability to monetize the project. I couldn't keep up with writing blogs and couldn't make any money off of it.
I still run the site and try to help people find movies. I'm just less motivated by not being able to make any money for my efforts because it takes time to watch movies and find good ones. I want to start blogging again, just hard to stay motivated when you don't know if a project will ever be successful with such a large amount of competition.
I'm definitely neglecting my journalling app, Done. It's a list of things I've done (reversed to-do list). I know there are similar things out there but none made me happy.
It's not abandoned. I still use it regularly but I didn't yet find the time to polish it a little bit and turn it into a product that could be used by others. I haven't worked on it in a while. I own doneapp.co.uk and itsdone.app for it. I'm definitely going to release it when a limited amount of new features are finished and I figure out a pricing model.
https://asciiprints.com
Colorful ASCII art posters
Original founders got distracted with other projects
I recently partnered with them to try to resurrect the business. I took on all expenses and have been slowly testing out some marketing strategies.
Adcaster
https://adcaster.co
It allows podcast owners to create landing pages that showcase upcoming episodes and allows them to sell sponsorships for those episodes.
I haven’t given up on it. I have just put it on the back burner for now because I have started another project that aligns more with an audience I’m more familiar with.
I will either finish the project completely (about 98% complete already) or attempt to sell it to someone who wants to take it over.
Were you ever able to sell ads? Or rather, get podcasts on deck?
I have so many lol. A few off the top of my head:
https://randompickers.com
https://shouldiplaythelottery.com (first site I ever deployed to the public)
Terrariumjs: DEAD
a programming game that allows you to write the AI of a carnivore or an herbivore. Your critters can reproduce and invade the terrarium.
Some critters are sent to other players terrariums to give them a chance to invade other terrariums.
CoachFire: DEAD
A tool to help coaches coach in between sessions.
OngoingFeedback: DEAD
A mastermind group software for entrepreneurs. You invite people to your "inner circle of trust" and get feedback on challenges you have.
TaskArmy: SOLD
An outsourcing marketplace for well defined tasks.
The AI game sounds awesome, kind of like this old PC game I played maybe it was "Sim evolution" or something? Shame that that croaked
I have written several apps for my personal use that I am still planning to launch some time, when I figure out a good business model / market fit formula.
Some of these:
1- An app to manage what I eat
It's a big menu where I can pick what I want to cook.
It recommends me what I didn't eat for a long time, shows me a little dietary overview of what I am about to eat, and automatically fills my shopping list app (iOS Reminders) with what I need to purchase.
2- A planning system for complex projects / endeavours
It's a big graph representing dependencies between tasks, that looks like a tech tree if you played RTS games before.
It allows me to lay down what needs to be done to reach a given goal, to connect the intermediate tasks with their dependencies, and to find out the critical path to reach a given milestone, or final goal.
It also can estimate how much time is needed to reach any given task in a project, based on its dependencies.
3- Consumption tracking app
A mobile app that allows me to track how much I'm consuming of anything, tells me my rate of consumption and allows me to order currently about 25% of my regular purchases through Amazon Subscribe-and-Save (this rate -and my savings- will go up as I'm accumulating more data)
4- A custom automation platform
Similar to Zapier, but Turing-complete, it allows me to visually connect any of my web services, my mac apps (through AppleScript), and write custom code in a low-code visual environment.
Some of the services I design and run on it:
Synchronization between all my Project Management systems (Asana and JIRA from work, others for personal use) into Reminders.app
Collect statistics about my music listening habits, and sending me a digest containing my recent discoveries, my most preferred artists and genres.
Watch topics from various news outlets and archive them in a searchable database
Collect metrics from my email, including who emails me the most, which companies are the most spammy, in what languages do I receive emails most of the time ..
5- All of these are running on a self made semi-autonomous infrastructure hosted in the cloud, that automates most of deployment work for me (SSL included). This might become a product at one point as well.
Happy to provide more insights if someone is interested.
I'd love to see #3 - Could use for anything from toilet paper to motor oil! And integrate it with Amazon Dash?
Oh yeah, spot on, I actually do use it for toilet paper among other things :-)
Amazon Dash is an interesting thought as well, potentially the app could be conceived (and made) as an automated Amazon Dash from a certain perspective (It knows when you run out, so it can reorder things (semi) automatically for you).
I would be happy to share with you the app, especially if you could provide feedback (how to make it more useful).
Do you have an iOS device? I could invite you to hockeyapp.
I do not own an iOS device. I've sold my only (iPad 1st Gen) a year ago :^)
But feel free to send me an email, it's in my profile!
Should be fine, I have an Android version in the works.
I've just wrote you!
Why did you abandon #4?
I haven’t abandoned any of these, especially not #4. I use them regularly.
I just do not have the vision and the endurance to launch as a product.
Also to validate the market, iterate on PMF.. Using them myself is so much simpler :-)
Also: Hall Monitor
It was going to be an API for AI-driven content moderation. You would be able to send in any data you like (initially text, but plan was to eventually support images and video), and it would spit back a content rating, with which you could do what you want. (I.e. if the rating was bad, block the content. Or mark it as NSFW. Etc.)
I abandoned it for two main reasons: 1) I couldn't quite crack a scalable business model. It seemed too niche a product for the kind of work that would be needed. 2) Investors seemed to like the idea, but the main feedback I kept getting was that I needed a co-founded with a degree in machine learning if I wanted to be taken seriously.
No plans in the future.
I could see the text based bit being a really nice plug and play SDK solution for any kids apps
Absolutely! I still think it's a good idea for the right person (i.e. someone who has the skillset to implement it with minimal financial investment OR as a spin-off product for a startup that's creating something similar already... there are many of them.)
https://highlight.app
Aggregator of conference videos
Abandoned because we as a team couldn't stay excited about it
No plans really, still think someone could crack the space but it won't be me!
I have a ton of projects like these ranging from group funding apps to high frequency crypto traders. I took most of them down since the server costs were getting to be more than they were worth.
Is there a place I could sell the source code? Is it worth it?
You can sell as a whole site (not just the source code) on sites like sideprojectors.com, bidhype.com and transferslot.com
I've tried selling on Flippa before, but it seems like everyone there doesn't really understand anything more technical than a wordpress blog...
There has to be a market place for neglected sideprojects out there. Or maybe even offer is as a give away? through like sumoking or something
I have always wondered if CodeCanyon is a good place to sell this stuff. Does anyone have experience doing it there to tell?
You could probably build the trading bot out into a udemy course or something like that. A "how to build a high frequency crypto trading bot" class would sell well.
Site:
TryHotcakes.com
What it does:
It's a web app that let's youtuber's do mass updates to the descriptions of their videos. I thought it would be cool for bands/brands so they could easily let people watching their old content know about their new offerings.
Why put it aside:
I gave it up because after building it I got kind of bored with it, and put more attention on products with better engagement and feedback.
In the Future:
I'd like to sell it off, or maybe find someone who would like to market it for me. But probably just hold onto it for now.
This seems super useful for YouTubers with a ton of videos. Did you ever get any paying customers?
Not a single one, but that makes sense because I did no outreach at all. Might be worth dusting off one of these days but lower on my priority list right now sadly