

Ask HN: Side Project Turned Turned Obsession - Please Review My Site - eli_s

Hi all,<p>---------------------------<p>tl;dr
Launching a new ecommerce site builder/print catalogue builder after 2 years of tinkering away.<p>http://www.wizifi.com<p>a HN demo store:
http://www.wizifi.com/nexus_login<p>un: hn<p>pw: hn<p>The site is optimized for webkit - best performance in Chrome.<p>---------------------------<p>just though i'd share a side project turned personal obsession with you.<p>2 Years ago my dad (a small business owner) planted a seed in my mind when he said something to the effect 'i wish there was a simpler way to update my website'. He doesn't ever remember saying that, but that comment started me down this misv path.<p>Later when I showed my old man the progress I had made he again made a throw-away comment along the lines of 'wouldn't it be great to be able to create brochures from this...' which again sent me off on another 8 month development tangent.<p>The final product is an ecommerce store builder with a print catalogue builder included. I'd really appreciate it if some of you could have a look at my project and give some of your feedback.<p>It was created in my spare time during nights and on week ends, since by day I'm a high school IT teacher :)<p>It became impossible to create a cross browser print designer so I decided to optimize for Webkit. The windows download is simply a Chromium build with flash bundled together. Not sure how having a download vs. web app will affect sales.<p>You can check out my site at:
http://www.wizifi.com<p>You can use the product without downloading the program as long as you're using a webkit based browser.<p>Cheers,
eli
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noodle
i actually really like the print catalog builder concept. i've not seen it on
other (admittedly few) ecommerce solutions that i've looked at. i feel like if
you were to develop this into a generic plugin for other ecommerce solutions,
you might have something unique that people could purchase without having to
make difficult decisions (i.e., switching ecommerce solutions).

~~~
eli_s
That's a great point noodle. I hadn't thought of the catalog builder as a
plug-in before.

~~~
noodle
i honestly like that idea better than building a fresh ecommerce solution.
there are so many other options that are quite good and already command market
share. in addition, as i kind of mentioned, pulling someone away from their
established ecommerce solution is like pulling teeth.

plus, if you could develop this into a multi-platform plugin, you could
probably use that process to develop a framework for developing plugins for
multiple platforms and build some more, since you seem to have good ideas.

just a few thoughts. don't let me discourage you from running with what you
have.

------
awa
Clickable: <http://www.wizifi.com>

