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How's your project going and why did you start it?

Mines pophurdle.com, a privacy-based popup blocker that's nearly run on 1 million pages!

I wanted to check in with my fellow peeps and see how your endeavors are going!

I just released the newest update a couple of weeks ago. While it's a little buggy when you enable the autoblocking feature, I'm making sure to patch things up! It will be out as soon as I'm done with my college app. 😋

If you install it, you just made my whole week! 🙌

  1. 3

    i started YEN on a whim with my brother who was working in the #defi and blockchain space 3+ years ago. since then, we've been up and down like crazy... 2 major pivots... raised > $4.1M in venture capital... i've been through > 25 staff members... ugh.

    but, i'm more committed now than i ever have been. it fucking gives me life!

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    Still working on it, but researching the GPT-3 to see what fun stuff can be made! Its been slow because of the day job but weekends are really when I get to dig in!

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      OpenAI prices might get crazy for the API so watch out if you're doing lots of stuff with it.

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    I started Virtual Mojito because it's fun :)

    Now I'm learning a lot from this side project i.e. copywriting, blogging and newsletter.

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    I recently published a new update to my first Saas, Designtack. I added a quick mode to create social media content in seconds, literally. Also, did some design based tweaks to the website.

    I was on the verge to close the business but i am giving it another shot after coming to realise that there exist a thing called "the long slow saas of death" and 2 months is too early to judge.

  5. 2

    Our team launched a Copy Analyzer recently. It basically gives you a personalized copy report to help you optimize your SaaS landing pages. The report recommendations are based on our machine learning model and the copy insights that came from evaluating +34K landing pages!

    It was initially developed as a customer-facing tool, but lots of folks got value out of it so we created a version of it for prospects. (Turns out a lot of people are interested in learning more about conversion-focused copy!)

    Right now we have SaaS and Ecommerce versions, however our team's hoping to expand it to other industries.

  6. 2

    I started my newsletter, The Slice back in May. As of today, I'm at 820 subscribers, and last weeks issue, #014, was the issue where I started accepting paying sponsors for the first time.

    I can't explain the feeling when your side project makes its first amount of revenue! Literally feels like I've just discovered who Santa Clause is!

    I started it because I wanted to share all the new and emerging SaaS i kept coming across, that nobody knew about, so that's why I created my newsletter.

    1. 1

      Very cool! Just subscribed to your newsletter. :)

  7. 2

    @adawg4 Congrats to your latest pophurdle release :)
    Is the college app another side-project of yours?

    For my project, getmage.io, we finalized the current version a few weeks ago, and we are now preparing our ProductHunt launch :)

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      Thanks and nope, it's me applying to college! 😅

      Hope the launch goes great!

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        Oh god... application... sorry for my stupid misunderstanding :D

        And thanks!

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    Thanks for sharing about your journey, Aidan!

    I started One Word Domains 3 months ago because I was struggling to find a brandable domain name for another side project that I was working on at the time. It eventually became my main project this summer after getting to #2 on Product Hunt and the front page of Hacker News. In total, I've had over 35K visitors who bought 650+ domains that are worth $25K in total.

  9. 2

    I'm working on an expense/receipt management app because I logged into Expensify one day and all of my previously uploaded receipts and expense reports were gone.

    Their AI tech support service was of zero help so I decide to make my own expensing/receipt management app.

    It's called Spenser and I had a really good review with a contact who works as a controller at a small company. Solid feedback. Targeting to do a beta test in a month with more people.

  10. 2

    I started working on PLUMA back in March and I'm not even half way there. I'd like to launch the first version mid 2021.

    I'm moving slower than I thought but I had to learn most of my stack and architecture almost from scratch. I also had to figure out a number of things and try different approaches. Sure, I wish I had stumbled on the right solutions right from the start, but on retrospective I think I made the right decisions and a slow start is totally expected under these circumstances.

    I also decided to take on a couple of freelance writing projects and that slowed me down even more. These projects had certain benefits though, so this was a conscious decision. I'm 80% done so I will be able to focus on my project and not break my momentum in a couple of weeks.

    I do get frustrated from time to time and I have thoughts of giving up, but in general I'm doing OK emotionally. When I start to feel burnout I take the weekend off and force me to play videogames or watch TV to disconnect. I'm playing the long game and I knew this would be a long marathon way before I even started.

    Thankfully for now I don't have to worry about supporting myself economically so I can take as much time I need to make it right (within reason).

  11. 2

    It's hard, but its going forward. Bit chaotic, lot of things to decide and work to do. Automatio recently got some new features like native Google Sheet integration, and currently we are working on 3 more long waited, very powerful features which will give to Automatio new dimension.

  12. 2

    I started my project, boostlane.com, to solve the problems that my e-commerce clients were having.

    Their main challenges are automating their operations and growing their business. I came up with a concept that could solve both set of problems: software services that support business operations and help build social networks where demand meets supply without friction. Those networks will live on pages like this one:
    https://boostlane.com/hashtag/apple/

    So far the content is curated and organized by software services that try to make sense of it - not so well, but they are still very young and will be upgraded soon. Humans will be welcome to contribute original content very soon and at some point in the future software will also contribute original content.

    The last important part left to implement is an interactive service that shows people more of what they like, less of what they don't like and helps them find what they want.

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    Hey Aidan, nice tool! I think made founders are missing out on creating platform-specific extensions. My guess is that 70%+ of your installs come from the Chrome webstore directly (correct me if I'm wrong).

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      Close, its around 65% right now!

      If you're looking into extensions and getting users, Toggl.com has an amazing blog about their work with SEO with their extension too.

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        I'm making an extension, you have any more tips, or things you would have liked to have known earlier in your journey?

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          Here's the link to one of toggl's blog posts that helped alot!
          https://toggl.com/blog/toggl-chrome-growth-hacking

          Using keywords and solving a frequent problem is very important. Also the feedback you get on uninstall surveys can be awkward to read sometimes. Do make sure to get their email so you can follow up and drill down on why they uninstalled it and what you can do better in the next iteration.

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            That's great thanks.

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    I was collecting accounts on twitter that I could follow and learn from.

    Then I tweeted about it.

    What followed was a bit strange - the tweet got 30+ likes in the next few hours. For someone who had just about 580 or so followers, this was weird.

    Upon digging, I found that lots of people want to discover and follow great accounts. So I shared my list, and am adding more to it

    https://happinomy.com/twitter-university

    It is a little side experiment. Maybe people will find value.

    It's not very diverse right now, but I am working it out (h/t @rosiesherry for the lightbulb moment :-))

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    Sorry Aidan, I have a problem with apps like yours. So you don't want paywalls and still complement adblockers. Journalists and online media outlets are supposed to make a living how exactly? Genuine question by the way. It used to be if people don't want to see ads, they subscribe to a payment plan. With Pophurdle, those people can't even do that. So now what? Journalists should toil to bring free content?

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      Journalists shouldn't have to give it away for free, Pophurdle's actually going to try to give back to the publishers eventually. I won't get into the specifics but it's going to be rolled out to local publishers first. The paywall dilemma is a dangerous feedback loop that's a big issue in the world right now.

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        Sounds like trying to be a middleman like how adblockplus says they block ads but if a publisher pays some money their site will be whitelisted so that the publisher's ads are not blocked. I don't get it but maybe you will crack it. All the best.

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    This comment has been voted down. Click to show.

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      You're not switching, they compliment each other as it isn't taking out any ads. Only popups.

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