40 Comments

Are you working on any Side Project?

by Pankaj Singh

I’m planning to build a platform to buy, sell and showcase your side projects for free. Share your thoughts please.

What other features you want to suggest as solo entrepreneur?

Pankaj Singh

posted to

Ideas and Validation

on March 16, 2023

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4
- Id be interested if it was tech stack driven. What is missing for me here IH, is transparency around tech stacks. That is what drives my decision making. Ability to search by SDK. What SDKs are being used, in what ways? What SDKs are not being utilised. Would save me time in discoverability. I am hoping an AI app platform using AI provides that transparency (https://topai.tools/ai-assist#). It doesnt yet.
- Id be interested if the discoverability was void of marketing guff (noise) and false claims (riding the chatgpt surge). It has to be a trusted platforms before real small to medium businesses will use it. If the platform role modelled radical transparency that be a differentiator.
catalystNewbie

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3 years ago
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1. 2
  Thank you so many ch for the detailed feedback.
  Yes, the listing will have:
  
  tech stack details
  
  financial details with proof
  
  platform will provide end-to-end payment security for both parties like escrow.
  pankajsingh
  
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  3 years ago
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  Let's say a site existed like the one Pankaj is making, or for instance a different site called indietechstack.com. Suppose it was super easy to add a project/product, and list its tech components (lots of auto-complete and so on to make it fast). Suppose it even offered the option to automatically make an architecture diagram for your solution based on the tech items you've listed. And say it was searchable by lots of fields, such as "python" or "no-code", or other keywords like "AWS", "severless", "Chat-GPT", "medical", and so on. Furthermore, suppose there was a way for the creator to state the one-time or monthly spend on the technologies, and say how many users are being supported by that cost. Furthermore, suppose that it was easy for the creator to add annotations about individual technologies, for instance, "this was absolutely key", "this is okay but it's not really worth the price", and so on. And suppose there were ways for viewers to add short comments, such as a recommendation for a better or cheaper tool, or ask for details about the creator's experience with a technology.
  
  I can imagine that lots of indie hackers would be interested in this if there were lots of data. The user could search for a product more or less similar to what they want to build, and see how much it costs to run, how much coding experience is necessary, and so on.
  
  But what motivates someone to add a page enumerating their technology? Here are some potential reasons, but I don't know if any of them seem realistic. Let me know what you think:
  
  (1) You just love sharing and supporting the indie hacker community.
  
  (2) Similar to the last: You are building in public, so this tool is a convenient way to share the technical side of your project.
  
  (3) You want feedback on your tech stack. Perhaps people know better tools you should be using.
  
  (4) You are the creator of a certain tool and you want to show off a project using the tool to make people aware of what it can do.
  
  (5) You think the automatic architecture diagram function sounds cool and you want to see it make a diagram of your architecture.
  
  Any others?
  
  Overall do you think there would be enough people adding project pages to this site to make it a valuable source for wannabe indie hackers? I was working on indietechstack.com but I stopped because I didn't believe if I built it they would come.
  
  MichaelKatz
  
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  3 years ago
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    Hi @MichaelKatz
    Thanks for sharing your experience and feedback about the project in detail.
    
    I agree with your some points but that’s not only the solution I’m building. It’s not just a another stack site.
    Let me add some additional points to make it clear:
    
    The platform will smart enough to collect your complete tech stack data by submitting the url only (off course you can edit it) so you don’t need to fill it manually. something like wappalyzer.
    
    Sharing projects for exposure is only one thing, buying-selling side projects without paying any upfront cost is the second most valuable feature.
    
    Third, I’m in talk with some Angle investors who will be participating in “$100k Booster🚀” program. This will be a monthly contests where founders can apply for their projects and 1 monthly winner will $100k funding with some exchange of equity.
    
    fourth, founders can access 1000+ resources like pitch deck templates, lead magnets, tools, e-books and more for free.
    
    I hope these features are adding enough value to attract founders to join the platform and submit their projects.
    
    Share your thoughts 💭
    
    pankajsingh
    
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    3 years ago
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    1. 1
      
      Well, it may be that a lot of founders want to put their site up for sale, or at least find out how much it's worth. But I'm not sure I see the connection between wanting to list your site for sale and wanting to share your stack. If anything I'd expect sellers to be more secretive than less.
      
      I agree the automatic wappalyzer starter text is helpful, but I'm more concerned that people wouldn't be motivated to post stacks at all, even if it was fairly easy to do so.
      
      MichaelKatz
      
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      3 years ago
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  I second this. I really feel the need for some sort of Side Project Tech Stack Influencer or community lol
  
  rmolines
  
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  3 years ago
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That would be great for solo entrepreneurs. I am working on a side project for 1 year. it's too hard to get the attention by the audience.

ttharanga

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3 years ago
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  True!
  
  pankajsingh
  
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  3 years ago
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I like it.
Do you have a landing page I can sign up for notifications?

I started r/SellMyMVP on reddit a while back for a similar reason. More for side projects that don't make any money yet. As a way to see if anyone else sees any value in the infrastructure for their own project. Or might want to partner with you on your stalled idea. Or any other creative outcome that isn't well served by the traditional sites like flippa and microaquire.

MrKelly

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3 years ago
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  Well said!
  This is one of the biggest pain point.
  The sites or products who making at least hundreds of dollars can pay their fee but what about the projects who didn’t started any income.
  
  pankajsingh
  
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  3 years ago
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These sound like two different products IMO. And for that reason that is exactly what exists. People who're looking to gain traction/showcase their product are looking for just that - Product Hunt.

People who's looking to sell, aren't really looking for feedback or traction really.

The audience is also completely different - a buyer isn't interested in discovering products for consumption, etc.

Now, from your own perspective, you're taking on the task to promote your platform to two completely different audiences as well - both on the supply side and on the demand side. Quite a tall order for a startup, IMO.

chriswalker

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3 years ago
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  Hi and welcome @chriswalker on IH.
  Also thanks for your comment.
  
  Yes, that’s true. it’s a combination of two different portal and I think this can be a positive thing for us. You don’t need 2 different platforms to showcase and sell your side projects.
  
  Looking for more comments on this debate. 🙏
  
  pankajsingh
  
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  3 years ago
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Maybe implement a payment gateway, review system, newsletter and a blog.

OffshoreCompanies

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3 years ago
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  Thanks @OffshoreCompanies
  Definitely these features will be there. 🙂
  
  pankajsingh
  
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  3 years ago
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I would be happy to add mine: https://github.com/mcapodici/firestarter. A basic SaaS template you can quickly extend to your needs.

mcapodici

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3 years ago
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Go for it!

rabeet

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3 years ago
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yes,I am working on lexingtonthemes.com!

Michael_Andreuzza

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3 years ago
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My first thought is, if you want to make this sustainable, it should either run on autopilot, or make a bit of money somehow. What's your plan for that?

ihaveajob

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3 years ago
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  Thanks for your comment.
  Yes, will try to make it as possible as on autopilot mode.
  
  And secondly, I hate ads popping out everywhere on the site. It’s very frustrating and difficult to find actual content. So, for sure I’m not going to place any ads on my site.
  
  Currently we are focusing everything for free and only 5% platform fee on each successful transaction.
  
  pankajsingh
  
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  3 years ago
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great

Swapnilbelkar

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3 years ago
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Nice Post

tempinst5

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3 years ago
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This is a great idea. The free part is the killer feature. I hate having my pocket picked even before I'm out the door.

quasimotoca

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3 years ago
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  Thanks! Yes, this is the whole concept of the project.
  
  pankajsingh
  
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  3 years ago
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    Let's do it!
    
    quasimotoca
    
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    3 years ago
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Cool one. Working on building something similar for AI Bots/prompts.

purnasatyap

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3 years ago
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I am currently working on newsletter - https://thelondonweekend.com. Each week I research and send an email with 5 cool things that people based in London can do on the weekend. It's a very simple format and I am currently sitting at around 2k subscribers. It's quite fun! :)

Victoryhacker

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3 years ago
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  Nice service! How did you get 2000 people?
  
  yuta
  
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  3 years ago
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    Thanks! Mainly through being active on the London subreddit.
    
    Victoryhacker
    
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    3 years ago
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Wow that's so cool! I think a platform like that would be very helpfyl for indie makers :)

4lien_dev

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3 years ago
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  Yeah, that is my vision. It’s very difficult to sell newly develop side projects by paying $99 to $199 fee or 20 to 30% commission.
  
  pankajsingh
  
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  3 years ago
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Generatedcode

3 years ago

1

I'm interested in being one of the first users to showcase my project, interaxai.com, a no-code white-label platform that offers monetizable and embeddable AI widgets.

stephenasuncion

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3 years ago
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1. 1
  
  Useful project, good look 👍
  
  pankajsingh
  
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  3 years ago
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What profit for you? How are you going to promote your project?

Alexn08

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3 years ago
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  Hi @Alexn08
  Thanks for your valid questions.
  
  I’m not thinking to making profits at this stage as I’m earning well from from my other side projects 🙂
  But yes, later I’ve plan to charge 5% platform fee on successful deals + add LTD features on premium tech tools.
  
  I’m a performance marketer with 8 years of experience so I have a decent ideas 💡 and budget to promote this platform. Don’t want to reveal it now.
  pankajsingh
  
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  3 years ago
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    So you’re not a developer? You are going to find somebody or already have to develop the project?
    
    Alexn08
    
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    3 years ago
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      No I’m not a developer. I’ll hire some developers to work on this project.
      
      pankajsingh
      
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      3 years ago
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Think that's an excellent idea!

Currently working on Evoke

Hosting open source AI models on the cloud via API for devs and businesses building AI apps

Would love to have it showcased!

RichardGao

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3 years ago
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Like acquire.com?

olschafer

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3 years ago
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  Nope!
  
  Acquire do not allow to showcase projects for free
  
  They are paid, I think $199/yr
  pankajsingh
  
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  3 years ago
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