
Ask HN: What should we do with 5+ year side-project? - giis
Little background: In 2009&#x2F;10, we(2 of us) thought it would be nice to practice bash commands from Windows using browser. www.webminal.org launched sometime in 2011. Never made serious attempts to market it.  Based on user requests, later, we added partial superuser commands with help of openvz&#x2F;docker. Last year (April-2015) we added paid account for VM Access.<p>Last 6-months or so, our motivation on this project is going down.  Last few weeks, we became very selective in responding to user chat queries&#x2F;email because our FAQ has answers for them. 
Earlier, at-least I used to reply&amp; remind the FAQ section.<p>Should we just freeze the project (add no feature simply because few user asked for it?) or  simply shutdown  &amp;  be glad at-least we helped few users or try something different as last attempt? thanks!<p>some stats:
Apr-2015:  our user base like 18000+
May-2016:  We have like 35000+ users.  (thats like 583&#x2F;month from 2011.)<p>Our total revenue from this project in the range $300-$500 so far.  (yes,that&#x27;s for 5+ years!!) And monthly expense is like $50.
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kevinsimper
It sounds like you should shut it down as it drags you down more than it
motivates you. Sometimes you just have to move on! Much has also happend with
bash and windows since 2009, but you should keep your users email and let them
know about your new adventures, this way you already have people that know you
can deliver! :)

Maybe it would motivate you to develop this in the public? Like having all
issues and pullrequests open?

Also your website does not mention your names at all, which makes it very non-
personal. If you show the people behind, users can often relatet more on a
personal level and know that is a small but healthy side project.

~~~
giis
thanks for the great suggestions. Couple of times we thought about adding our
names and didn't do it. Let me add them first.

Shutdown the project is a hard decision, considering the time-effort went into
this project (may be personally attached to it?) but on the positive side, it
gives lot of time for new projects too. Moving to Github and having PR/issues
will provide motivation.

~~~
kevinsimper
But what are you looking for in this project? It is not really clear what your
goals are, the project seems very broad. If the project is for everybody, then
it is for nobody! I learned that the hard way myself.

If you for example chose education specifically, then you can reach out to
professors, because it doesn't sound like you're talking to your users. That
will make it a lot easier!

~~~
giis
Its started as simple educational project (commandline/bash) but the project
scope got expanded as we tried new things (mysql,programming & admin!). I'll
cut-down unnecessary features & make it narrow. thanks

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Avalaxy
Read Seth Godin's "The Dip".

It recommends you to quit often, and focus on those things that you _are_
dedicated to. The rest is just a distraction. Your project sounds like his
description of a _cul de sac_ , or a dead end. It's taking away your time and
mental capacity to work on other stuff that you care about.

~~~
giis
thanks for the book suggestion, will read it.

Even I felt project is near its dead-end :( and preventing me from other
stuffs.

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emilburzo
No helpful suggestions, I just wanted to let you know there are others still
keeping side projects going for a long time, even if at a financial loss.

Trying to offset that you only hear about the success stories.

~~~
giis
Taking financial loss is fine. Only the reason i'm worried is like not
responding to users (mails/queries). I think moving to public and let the
users help themselves with the issue can be one option. It takes burden of me
responding to all queries.

~~~
SyneRyder
My concern with "letting the users help themselves" is that you'll probably
find you still get support requests anyway. I have pages of support documents
on my website (eg how to install the program), and I get support requests not
just for my own product, but asking how to install rival products!

If moving to public will let you feel less guilty about not replying to
emails, then its a good move. But if you think moving to public support will
stop the flood of support emails, I think you'll be disappointed.

~~~
giis
thanks for sharing your experience. Yes, Its more of guilty thing. At-least in
public, some user may point to re-peated FAQ-listed question themselves,
rather than writing individually and pointing them to FAQ section.

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sharemywin
could you move it over to github as a public project?

~~~
giis
Yes,that's a excellent suggestion. We already have github repo, but didn't
update them in last few years. Essentially make it as public project and let
the community decide.

ps: we use opensource terminal emulator named 'shellinabox'

EDIT: We receive quite few queries from students/professor for pointers on
similar setup. This suggestion will be excellent for those cases.

