
Ask HN: Looking for side project ideas - mraza007
Hi HN,
As I programmer I lack ideas what side project ideas should i try to make skillset strong
======
arvidkahl
The best products happen at the intersection of an existing niche you are some
level of expert in already and a technology that has not yet been adopted in
that niche.

I've found one approach work very well with my mentees:

\- Figure out which "special interest groups" you are part of beyond software
engineering. That can be "aquarium owner", "coffee lover", "morning person",
"diligent grandson" — the less technical, the better.

\- Among these "niches", find the ones that could benefit from a transfer of
technology, like (spitballing here) "teachers who work from home" (education
niche) + "automated submission and pre-grading of homework" could work
(digital document collection and rule-based checking logic), or "aquarium
owner" \+ "nitrate cycle tracking IoT device" (hardware-enabled analytics) +
"optimal light scheduling" (machine-learning-supported recommendation engine).

Do that for all the groups you're part of, and you will find lots of ideas
that aren't just "scratch-your-own-itch". They are 'scratch-an-itch-you-
understand-and-know-how-to-remedy'.

~~~
DoreenMichele
_" teachers who work from home" (education niche) + "automated submission and
pre-grading of homework"_

I homeschooled for a lot of years and my first blog was a homeschooling blog.
I was involved with The TAG Project as part of supporting my homeschooling and
I really hate this idea.

"Teaching to the test" is terrible teaching. Multi-guess answers aren't good
ways to test student knowledge. They are just convenient for a teacher who
needs to grade 25+ students.

Please don't run around thinking of yet more ways to making it nominally more
convenient and easy for individual teachers to process tests or homework or
whatever from large numbers of students. This is not a way to enhance the
transfer of knowledge to the future generation and is also not a good
credentialing method.

There are cool things being done with tech in the education space. There are
people going online and learning things they want to learn because there are
rich materials available for free. But they don't look anything like "pre-
grading of homework" for teachers.

~~~
arvidkahl
I think there are two great arguments here: nobody needs tools that perpetuate
a vanishing system and there are lots of interesting things happening in
EdTech. While I am grateful for your example, I would like to offer a
different perspective.

I know of a university teacher who is looking into solving the arduous task of
grading without going crazy. I approve of a tool being built to facilitate
this.

I am torn on this issue as well: I strongly dislike formal education, with it
following a metric of "teaching to the test" and "learning to test instead of
retention." I wish that there was more systemic change towards a different way
of assessment.

But not for one second will I assume to know what is best for the teachers in
that space. If building a pre-grading (which is merely an example here) can
help them shave off an hour of tedious work a day, I think it's a valid side
project idea. It may even be a valid business idea.

The project that changed my life[1] was an EdTech productivity system that
generated student feedback for online teachers working with young students in
China. Student feedback as text-only is a horrible way of communicating
individualized instruction. Yet we help teachers speed up that process, which
allowed them to do one thing: teach more. Be more present in the classroom.
Foster stronger relationships.

I would argue that making anything nominally more convenient is a good thing:
it removes an inconvenience so that things that matter can take place. No
teacher would call teaching inconvenient. Lots of them would call admin stuff
very inconvenient.

Again, it's not about "teaching to the test" per see. It's about removing
barriers to allow for meaningful, accomplished, and impactful work.

[1] [https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/from-founding-to-exit-
in-...](https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/from-founding-to-exit-in-two-years-
the-feedbackpanda-story/)

~~~
DoreenMichele
_I know of a university teacher who is looking into solving the arduous task
of grading without going crazy. I approve of a tool being built to facilitate
this._

This is a different thing to me and a better suggestion: Solve the problem of
someone you personally know whose work you believe in.

That's completely different in my mind from "pull some generic education-
related blurb off the internet and build that." Even if, nominally, the two
projects sound like exactly the same thing.

In practice, they probably aren't remotely the same thing, which is part of
why we have memes like "Ideas are worthless. Execution is everything."

~~~
arvidkahl
Thanks for clarifying this. I agree with this, one hundred percent. I think
that if you're not an education expert or enthusiast, you'd better go look for
problems to solve somewhere else — which was the premise of my original
comment. It pains me every time I see someone building a business without the
passion to help their audience.

------
KineticLensman
MAL - Make a Lisp [0]. This one has been discussed on HN before - its where I
found it. I completed it last year (from Jan to May 2019) and ended up with
Lisp-a-like interpreter written in C# that is sophisticated enough to self-
host (i.e. it can interpret and run itself). I picked it up again when the
lockdown started and I am now using it to re-implement some of the classic AI
systems described in Paradigms of AI Programming [1]. I almost have Eliza (the
first chatbot, from 1966!) running, which has necessitated some thinking
because MAL is closer to Clojure than the Common Lisp used in PAIP. I'm also
implementing what is in effect a standard library of useful MAL functions.

What I got from MAL was much better knowledge of C#, better insights into the
power of lisp-like languages, some intense satisfaction when I managed some of
the more complex stages, etc. MAL is progressive, supported by 100s of tests,
and an amazing array of reference implementations in a huge number of
different programming languages.

[Edit] My side-project before MAL involved downloading the Unity game engine
and using it to explore the different aspects of game development. I
discovered that I really enjoyed asset creation and in particular lighting and
shader design, and (long story short - totally bizarre trajectory) ended up
creating a tutorial for the Octane render engine that has had actual sales! If
I was going to look at games again I'd probably start with a simpler engine
such as Godot [2]

[0]
[https://github.com/kanaka/mal/blob/master/process/guide.md](https://github.com/kanaka/mal/blob/master/process/guide.md)

[1] [https://github.com/norvig/paip-lisp](https://github.com/norvig/paip-lisp)

[2] [https://godotengine.org/](https://godotengine.org/)

~~~
Insanity
I recommend giving Godot a look, I really like it and have been using it for
small side-projects for about half a year now. I did have no "real" prior
experience with unity and unreal though.

~~~
KineticLensman
Yes - Godot looks interesting because it is simpler and seems more stable than
Unity now. Coincidentally this was discussed recently on HN [0]. A lot has
changed since I used Unity two years ago and it seemed easier to start from
scratch with a simpler environment (Godot) rather than figure out all of the
things that have changed in Unity.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23271973](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23271973)

------
ezl
Please steal any of my ideas! :)

[https://www.dailyidea.com/ideas/eric](https://www.dailyidea.com/ideas/eric)

Some software ones that I like:

1\. A nicer web viewer for Google Spreadsheets -
[https://www.dailyidea.com/ideas/d239cea3-7d1b-429f-afd4-ab9d...](https://www.dailyidea.com/ideas/d239cea3-7d1b-429f-afd4-ab9da1e91278/c578a367-0fd0-4185-ab73-136ccfc07601)

2\. Airbnb guest guidebook creator -
[https://www.dailyidea.com/ideas/d239cea3-7d1b-429f-afd4-ab9d...](https://www.dailyidea.com/ideas/d239cea3-7d1b-429f-afd4-ab9da1e91278/dfff0e4a-be6d-4520-8fc9-c13a98b335de)

3\. Thai writing trainer -
[https://www.dailyidea.com/ideas/d239cea3-7d1b-429f-afd4-ab9d...](https://www.dailyidea.com/ideas/d239cea3-7d1b-429f-afd4-ab9da1e91278/836a1274-ab0b-4c00-a564-9b8f3c84572c)

4\. Instagram account tracker -
[https://www.dailyidea.com/ideas/d239cea3-7d1b-429f-afd4-ab9d...](https://www.dailyidea.com/ideas/d239cea3-7d1b-429f-afd4-ab9da1e91278/9ce392fa-
dacf-4bbd-9094-40e85bd358e6)

~~~
niksmac
I am stealing a few Eric.

~~~
ezl
Please do!

Some of these I just really want to exist, so let me know when you do execute
so I can be your first customer too! :)

------
krm01
1\. Write down the apps on your phone or computer that you use the most. If
you want to bootstrap a profitable business, I recommend listing the apps you
use for work.

2\. Write down the one feature for each app that you use the most within that
app.

3\. Write down what slightly annoys you about that one feature

4\. Build the product around the one feature you feel you can cook up quickly
and that will benefit your workflow

~~~
artembugara
My story. I used to use news API services for my side projects. One day, I
realized that I can build my own service that will be both, best quality (like
real multilanguage support), and cheap.

8 months into it, it is my full-time job and we are releasing our first paid
version (post-beta). We have 600 subscribers (beta-testers) and some people
claiming they will become paid clients.

It is a huge experience in both, business and tech sides.

So, I would say the most important things are:

* forget "ideas"

* resolve your personal problem that you understand well

* always make a (side-)project with which you can charge people (making it "free" is just an excuse for not making something of good quality - 99.9% of cases)

* to the previous bullet point, you either ship a final solution that has business value for someone, or you are wasting your time (because no one can tell if it is of value or not (by paying))

Product: newscatcherapi.com

~~~
abhishektwr
On side, does newscaptureapi provide author information i.e. name of author
bare minimum, email will be great. And also how you tackle copyright issues?

~~~
artembugara
We provide the author(s) name when possible. No email. Regarding the copyright
- no. It looks like a grey area as long as you do not return the full
article’s text body

------
leorio
I would probably get downvoted for this..

It's very rare to find those "scratch your own itch problems", the solution to
that itch is most likely a google search away.

Pick a good product that you use and clone it. Keep an open mind because you
can never copy the entire business since there is only so much you can see.
Atleast you get some direction to start and you know that you are not trapped
in building something people don't want.

Since you mentioned making your skillset strong(technical?), either way you
win by just starting something.

~~~
codq
I'm not a SWE, but this is how I sometimes make music if I'm starting without
an idea.

Take a song you love—or even a song you've just heard 15 seconds of—and try to
recreate it, but _extremely_ loosely, taking as many liberties as possible
exploring directions the initial inspiration leads you towards.

More often than not, it'll morph into something unrecognizable compared to the
source inspiration, and quickly become it's own thing.

Staring at a blank sheet of paper, or the the void of limitless options, is
frozen death. Give yourself a limited toolset and an inspired spark of
imagination to get yourself going, and incredible things are possible.

~~~
inetsee
I discovered a long time ago that I often get lyric ideas while listening to
other songs, usually in the car. What I find interesting is that most of the
time the ideas that pop into my head are completely unrelated to the lyrics of
the song I'm listening to.

------
snazz
Do something challenging but not too challenging. It should be hard enough
that you can learn something without being so hard that you give up.

Some classic computer science project ideas:

\- Build a path tracer. Physically-based rendering is a topic with lots of
information on the Internet. It requires some math, but at least it's fun math
:)

\- Write an operating system kernel. It doesn't have to work on real hardware,
just QEMU. You could even run it on a very old PC, Raspberry Pi, or TI
calculator. This is a good introduction to how OSs work. Again, there's lots
of courses and pages full of information online.

\- Write your own programming language. Combine ideas from existing languages.
You can make an interpreter, a JIT compiler, a single-pass compiler, a
nanopass compiler, or something completely different.

\- Combine multiple projects! Make your own programming language run on your
own operating system and write a path tracer in your own language! Be
creative, have fun, and learn useful stuff.

~~~
clarry
> a nanopass compiler

Got any good resources on this that aren't focused on the Nanopass Framework?

~~~
snazz
No, I don't, unfortunately. I haven't tried writing this kind of compiler
myself, although I would like to at some point.

------
helldritch
I'm currently working on a progressive web application for support workers in
care homes.

I've seen through first hand experience how much paperwork there is in this
setting (daily outcome charts, medicine administration records, abnormal
behaviour records, dietary and fluid intake, etc) and how many clerical errors
there are. I've also seen first hand the key-document-dependency there can be
around service user files, communication notification booklets for staff, etc,
where changes often happen synchronously and are forgotten because the
document isn't available in the moment.

I've spent the last 4 months or so taking a sabbatical from working as a
software engineer to work for £9.00/hour at a support home for people with
mental and physical disabilities (think Down's syndrome or people who are
unable to live in an independent setting). As a result I now know an awful lot
about this setting, the people who work in this industry, the minimum feature
set I would need and the legislative landscape these companies operate in.

The best way to find a profitable side project is to become familiar with a
none-technical discipline which is direly in need of modernisation. If you
don't want to take time out of work, then choose an industry (it could be tree
felling, red-brick manufacturing, shale oil extraction or solar panel
installation) and figure out what the problems are plaguing the companies,
staff or end customers.

There are so many $1,000,000,000 companies out there just waiting to be
founded in areas which are considered unsexy and don't involve yet-another-to-
do-list application. Find one company, with one problem, fix the problem,
there's your profitable side gig.

~~~
jerp
Hi this sounds really interesting - I'm currently doing a PWA for a completely
different industry and use case (enterprise sales), but I'd love to compare
notes sometime - especially on ios & ipados side.

------
mkl
\- Make things that solve problems you have.

\- Make things that seem interesting/fun to you.

Borrowing ideas from other people seems unlikely to be very engaging, and
making things just to learn skills has the same problem.

Lacking side project ideas seems kind of incomprehensible to me, as I have far
more ideas than I could ever put into practice, even if I didn't need to work
for a living. Therefore, I suspect you do have suitable ideas, but maybe
aren't recognising them as such for some reason?

Scripting repetitive or annoying things is an easy place to start. Maybe start
with simple website-improver GreaseMonkey scripts, to fix things that bug you,
or make your life easier?

~~~
dgb23
There is an initial phase, where a creative person is just starting out. In
this phase ideas are rare and sometimes seem precious.

I don’t quite understand what happens but after a while this phase passes. I
think one of the core factors might be just doing stuff out of curiosity,
playing, implementing things that are your own, fueled by curiosity.

Then, day after day you get showered in ideas. Good ones, crazy ones, boring
ones. All kinds of solutions or new ways of doing things come to mind.

Today I find it much more challenging to filter and evaluate ideas than to get
them.

Some important virtues that help in both cases: patience, practice,
playfulness. Also respect of other people’s work.

------
closeparen
Consider building completely ridiculous, useless things. It removes any mental
pressures towards commercialization/viability and shifts the activity from
more like work to more like art, which can open up space to flex the skills
you want to flex.

~~~
FailMore
This. Have fun and create.

------
Dumblydorr
I don't want you to take this personally, but your post seems very low effort.
How can we devote time to helping you if you only put 10 seconds into making
this post without reviewing it?

For one, writing skills are important. You will have a hard time selling your
project to anyone on its merits if you write incomplete sentences with
lackluster English.

Second, you haven't taken the time to list out what your strengths and domains
are, therefore HN can't leverage its vast knowledge to point you in the right
direction.

If you want to build a useful project, you'll need to be more detail oriented
and persuasive than your post here. Take the time to do things right. Feedback
is worth its weight in gold, and you've given us zero to offer feedback upon
except for your scanty quick query.

~~~
goshx
I love how your points make sense and seem reasonable at the same time that
they were completely irrelevant to attract the right audience and feedback
from the community.

A foreigner does not need a perfect English (or English at all) to create and
sell a product in their countries. Please keep in mind this is an
international community.

Foreigners should not be discouraged because of a broken English.

~~~
rabidrat
This is not a "foreigner" or "broken English" problem. I agree with the parent
that this was a low-effort post. No details were included, neither emotional
nor technical nor interests.

~~~
goshx
My point still stands. None of that prevented the post from reaching the front
page and bringing a lot of good insights. This is a good reminder that we, as
humans, sometimes focus on irrelevant things.

------
tuesday20
What tasks do you do manually in your life/job that is boring? Automate it
wherever possible.

Help users of nonprofits understand them better - watsi, Kiva etc share data
that can be visualized in a variety of ways.

Teach (blog, video etc) - this is especially effective in topics you already
know, but have gaps. Teaching forces you to clear those gaps.

Do exercises from project Euler, Rosetta etc

~~~
Nzen
Probably a bigger time commitment than implied, but the UN [0] and code for
america [1] list volunteer opportunities.

[0]
[https://www.onlinevolunteering.org/en/opportunities?f[0]=fie...](https://www.onlinevolunteering.org/en/opportunities?f\[0\]=field_task_id:5)

[1]
[https://brigade.codeforamerica.org/?_ga=2.40007591.405176958...](https://brigade.codeforamerica.org/?_ga=2.40007591.405176958.1590326457-721959622.1589632620)

------
furstenheim
I think it's important to find feasible projects. A full stack project will
probably be left unfinished. A way to find projects is to do tasks that you'd
at work if you didn't have deadlines and were allowed to do more exploratory
work.

That said. If you like nodejs, you might try to do a Babel plugin. They would
allow you to do meta programming and it's an area mostly unexplored (because
of the great breadth). In my case that was
[https://github.com/furstenheim/babel-plugin-meaningful-
logs](https://github.com/furstenheim/babel-plugin-meaningful-logs) to improve
error messages.

If you like java and use Intellij, give it a try at creating a plugin. You'll
be able to simplify your flows. Since it's mostly self tailored it will be
most probably not done. It's not extremely hard, in a couple days you might
have something workable. In my case it was adding support for ZPL language,
which is very niche. But most probably you can find something tailored to your
dev experience.

------
tobr
I counted at least six mistakes in your question text, so I would recommend
you to work on your writing skills. Luckily, writing is a universally useful
skill, and almost any side project you pick should give you an opportunity to
practice writing.

~~~
purplezooey
So you decided the best way to help was to scold OP about his English
mistakes.

~~~
tobr
Come on. They asked for advice on which skills to improve. I know nothing
about them except that they seem to struggle to piece together a sentence.

------
toohotatopic
What's your level? Are you a beginner or do you already have some experience?

Also: What's your language, your target market? Suggesting a backend project
for a frontend language or vice versa doesn't help you much.

In general, start with a game. You can be as creative as you like, there are
no limits. On the other hand, you can keep it as simple as you feel
comfortable.

That said, if you have some experience, look for an open source library that
needs support. You improve the library, you improve your resume and you will
get constructive feedback.

------
srawat1001
\- I would suggest make a small app with just basic crud operations. It should
have a front-end, backend and a database and then work incrementally to the
other steps mentioned below.

\- Use k8s to deploy and run your app.

\- Add more business logic where you will be needing more tools like
elasticsearch, message-queues, etc.

Some examples from the top of my head are Stock Ticker app, Ticketing software
like Zendesk, Food delivery App, etc.

Note: Start small, add one feature at a time.

~~~
Silver3
What are the differences and pros and cons of a Database vs local storage? I'm
thinking of creating a site where users can add there own urls and titles and
this information should persist after the browser is closed, should I store
these strings client side and tie it to there browsers local storage or tie it
to some account on a database ran by me? Keep in mind there is no limit to the
amount of strings a user could make and I predict there will be lots of users
with at least 200 individual strings needing storage. Don't want to commit
without being sure first.

~~~
tomklein
If you either want to do stuff like processing or analyzing it on the backend,
or let users access their data from other devices, use a database. If not, use
local storage.

Local storage has the benefit of saving you bandwidth and storage cost, no
matter how much your users save, and probably more privacy.

Databases on the other hand, allow you to „do stuff“ with the data when the
user is offline, share it through cross-device sessions and things like that.
However the users can’t be sure what you are doing with it.

~~~
Silver3
Aight thanks for the reply will keep this in mind

------
zoomablemind
If your goal is to 'make skillset strong', then I assume your want to learn.
It's hard for us to guess what your interests are, so the most straightforward
advice would be to join an open-source project that uses the desired
technologies (language, framework, etc.) and go from there.

There's usually an issue-tracker and mailing list for the project to get some
contact with other devs.

Pick an issue that has attention and which you feel you can understand.
Replicate it, then try to solve it.

It's impossible __not__ to aquire new professional knowledge in such process.

It's also ok, to drop it and try to find another project, perhaps, more up to
your present skill level.

The more you try, the more you'll learn...about yourself.

------
askytb
Build an app for finding lost pets with facial recognition. Recognizing cats
is the easiest thing for neural nets, yet I haven't seen it used for lost pets
yet.

Basic idea, if my pet is lost, I open up your app, upload a few images of my
cat and set a monetary reward. On the backend your neural net learns how that
specific cat looks like, then other users of the app can snap pictures of
random cats on the street and the app will tell them if that animal is lost or
not. If someone snaps a picure of a lost cat, they'll get connected to the
owner and the reward is transfered, the app can take a small cut of it.

~~~
la_fayette
Neutal nets can definitely identify cats and also tell if it is a black or
white cat. But identifing a specific cat might be difficult...

~~~
askytb
Not really, human face recognition is quite accurate and humans all look
identical in comparison to the diversity of cats and dogs

~~~
la_fayette
... ok what approach would you use for that? Let's say you use yolo to detect
th bounding box of the cat, but how do you want to identify the cat, based on
your sample images?

~~~
askytb
Re-train
[https://github.com/davidsandberg/facenet](https://github.com/davidsandberg/facenet)
on cats?

~~~
la_fayette
Ok. This could work, somebody tried it for dogs
([https://github.com/GuillaumeMougeot/DogFaceNet](https://github.com/GuillaumeMougeot/DogFaceNet))...

For the problem to solve in the first place, one might use a gps-tracker for
pets or something.

------
giantg2
It can be difficult to find a worth while idea. I feel that it is important to
come up with the idea yourself so that you feel more committed to it, but that
might just be me.

Look for something you are passionate about, or for something that is useful
to you. The idea doesn't have to be unique or original. For example, there are
apps that track your run time and distance when exercising. Some of these apps
collect your data. You could create an app that tracks your run so you know
your data isn't being collected by a company.

------
truebosko
Build something that you wish you had, not what you think people need.

~~~
clarry
These tend to be the sort of things I'd already have if I knew how to build
them, had enough time to build them, and/or could afford them :-(

------
DoreenMichele
This was written in part to prompt people on HN to think about gig work
platform ideas that actually enhance the lives of the workers:

[http://writepay.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-textbroker-
solution...](http://writepay.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-textbroker-
solution.html)

I've also previously talked about the fact that I live without a car in the US
and when I was researching what small town to move to and using Google maps to
try to figure out how to get there, if it can't give you a full solution from
point A to point B, it will not tell you "There's a train that goes to X city,
but that's only halfway" and it doesn't cover commuter bus routes between
local cities.

I routinely went on Amtrak's site to find out how close I could get by train
and then began searching for local transit options of some sort. I eventually
found a solution and a city to move to and all this, but I was homeless at the
time and spending all day at the library trying to figure out solutions to my
problems.

As far as I know, there aren't any good apps for "How do you get there from
here without a car?" for the US. Google maps does not have this problem space
sorted and they seem to be the overall best solution (that I'm aware of) for
finding out how you can get there from here.

~~~
superafroman
My company collaborated on a project to solve this problem (currently UK only,
though the tech can expand anywhere given available datasets) -
[http://commuter.cc/](http://commuter.cc/). Unfortunately it’s a very
challenging problem and there is very little interest from travellers, at
least not enough to create a profitable business! So unlikely we are going to
expand this any further.

------
cameronbrown
Build something simple, and make it a product/tool that doesn't require many
active users to work, aka, doesn't require a network effect.

I built [http://feedsub.com](http://feedsub.com) for this reason. Only a few
users, but it indexes thousands of feeds and I make plenty of use out of it
for myself.

My current project is deploying this app on a Raspberry Pi based cluster, and
I'm going to write all the software for this myself to learn distributed
programming.

------
sandreas
Well in my opinion you should create something that helps yourself (!) - not
others. Think of your all day life - some things you do pretty often and try
to find a project, that really would help you. If there already is a great
open source project for your purpose (and probably there is), you could try to
get part of it... improve things... read code (which is a good way to get a
better skillset!).

Targeting a better skillset or developing just for making money most of the
time does not result in good ideas or products - but a project of personal
interest will motivate you for a long time.

Personally, i created software, that i always wanted to have, but did not find
something, that fitted all my needs - and it is still fun to work on it...
e.g.:

    
    
      - A simple tool to transfer files
      - A tool to improve scanned document images and create a pdf 
      - A tool to convert audio files
    

Just my 2 cents.

~~~
tmbsundar
>> \- A tool to improve scanned document images and create a pdf

Would you mind sharing the approach you used or the product page if it is
public?

Incidentally, I was trying today to get two images combined into a single
image and convert that into a single PDF. Tried with paint.net, MS Paint 3D
etc., It was messy and the resultant PDF was also huge. Finally, gave up and
manually pasted the images into a word doc and exported them as a single PDF.

~~~
sandreas
My approach (in java) was using a set of filters to clean up the image with
BoofCV, then using tess4j OCR to make the document searchable and then use
Apache PDFBox to create a PDF with invisible text layer. Its not open source
yet (i plan to do so), but you could take a look at
[https://github.com/ctodobom/OpenNoteScanner](https://github.com/ctodobom/OpenNoteScanner)
\- which seems to be much more advanced.

------
DyslexicAtheist
a different take: why not look for existing abandoned projects that need a new
maintainer. every year we have thousands of new ideas that will never survive
in the long run so why not help out on something that already has a user-base
but doesn't see updates? maintaining an existing system, and making it better
might not give you the same glory as inventing something new, but imvho it
should.

e.g.:

slide #46 and #47: [https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/packaging-
tutorial/packag...](https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/packaging-
tutorial/packaging-tutorial.en.pdf)

[https://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/](https://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/)

[https://wiki.debian.org/Teams](https://wiki.debian.org/Teams)

------
pinopinopino
I am working on spark tickets. Perhaps boring, but useful for others.
Sometimes if you have no ideas, you can help out other projects instead.

------
joeblau
Start a community for helping people ideate on side project ideas.

------
xupybd
The CAD/CAM space is pretty out of date. Modern tooling in that space could be
highly valuable. That said the industry is not that open to new ideas.

------
Peretus
TheMask01 from here on HN posted a project they had created called
[https://decentdrops.com](https://decentdrops.com). While browsing this really
great tool, I noticed the domain name EasySVG.com was available for
registration.

Maybe an online tool for making SVG files from various types of image formats
built on this fantastically brandable domain name?

------
rapjr9
Build a teleconferencing app tailored for parties rather than meetings. The
needs of parties are very different than meetings. I'd suggest there be a
central channel where everyone can participate and talk, with the video on
that channel being something that sets the theme of the party (a bonfire, a
movie, a performance). Then it should be extremely easy to click on
participants and engage one or a few in conversation. Perhaps those side video
conversations could bleed into the main channel (maybe audio only) so that
people in the main channel can overhear and potentially decide to join in.
Think about how people interact at parties and try to tailor video
conferencing to work better for social gatherings. Security should be built in
to reduce worries about privacy so people feel free to talk; no routing of
everything through a central server, peer to peer only; recording should be
only by consent (though there would be no way to stop analog recordings).
There are a variety of video streaming libraries that might make building such
an app easy. It should be trivially easy to understand and use. I think it
might almost be possible to use existing teleconferencing apps if everyone
could join two channels, the main channel and a side channel, using two
devices, e.g., a laptop for the main channel shared by several people, and
individual phones for the side channel for smaller conversations. Coordinating
all that and explaining to people how it works might be difficult though, so
putting it all into one app with an intuitive UI would be useful. There may be
issues such as how to deal with audio feedback noise and easily joining and
leaving side conversations though. You don't want people to have to send
invites and accept them to set up a side conversation, you want it to be
instant and easy.

Even if the coronavirus ended tomorrow, I think this would be a popular and
widely used application.

~~~
Taurenking
[https://houseparty.com/](https://houseparty.com/)

------
canada_dry
Perhaps you could develop an open-source self-hosted tool for neighbours,
communities and groups to connect, share info and support each other during
quarantine.

I posted this a while ago and it never received attention:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22604275](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22604275)

------
langitbiru
Create cross platform GUI library for Rust programming language. If you
succeed, at least you will be very famous.

------
ericmcer
This is derived somewhat from a post on HN, and it would be really hard to
pull off... but, An intermediary between all the automated bills you pay and
your credit card. I.E. Comcast is going to bill me $89 I get a notification
asking me to approve the automated payment.

~~~
xcubic
In Switzerland I have that. It integrated directly into my bank account. Any
automated payments goes into an inbox were I approve each payment when I want
to.

------
Datsundere
I've been wanting to create a side project that I can expand and hire people
back in my home country (there are tons of college graduates but because the
country is a third world country, there aren't many tech jobs).

My goal is to bring a change on how software is developed using lean methods
and based on user research and feedback so the devs aren't looked as sweat
shop cheap labor from Asia.

I'm having trouble because I'm not sure how I should start. I don't think I'd
want a VC to be involved. There are some great ideas here, I think approaching
people and asking them about their problems and empathizing is not easy as an
engineer myself but I'm learning.

Any pointers appreciated

------
gitgud
If the goal is to improve your skillset, then maybe try building a real-time
multiple game. You will learn many different skills, including:

\- Graphics: Displaying 2d/3d graphics, using the GPU, shaders, etc..

\- Multiple Clients: Dealing with multiple browsers or OS's

\- Realtime Communication: Multiplayer will require sockets or web-rtc to
provide a _realtime_ experience

\- Database Tech: Depending on what DB you choose, you'll learn CAP theorem
and other trade-offs.

\- Algorithms: Developing gameplay logic, rendering logic, AI logic.

\- User Experience: Making the game fun, getting feedback and implementing
sugguestions.

Making a game is also very satisfying, which is important to prevent burnout
during the project.

------
LockAndLol
[https://github-help-wanted.com/](https://github-help-wanted.com/)

[https://what-to-code.com/](https://what-to-code.com/)

Have your pick

------
pr0duktiv
For me it was just looking for a procedure that annoyed me so much that I just
had to build a tool to fix this.

Why do we still have to open our calendars, look through endless event notes
to copy and paste a link into a browser that then launches the native meeting
app? That's why I built an app called Meeter [0] for that.

[0] [https://apps.apple.com/de/app/meeter-fast-call-
initiation/id...](https://apps.apple.com/de/app/meeter-fast-call-
initiation/id1510445899?l=en&mt=12)

~~~
nagyf
This is awesome. Do you have a website with a list of features? Does it
support outlook and chime?

------
kodablah
Take any of mine you'd like: [https://github.com/cretz/software-
ideas/issues](https://github.com/cretz/software-ideas/issues)

------
sideproject
Have a look through all the different side projects submitted here

[https://www.sideprojectors.com](https://www.sideprojectors.com)

See if you can make something better. :)

------
hayri
a simple search engine in 200 lines -
[https://gist.github.com/selimslab/7d63349e4e247fbcf7ff9dd01c...](https://gist.github.com/selimslab/7d63349e4e247fbcf7ff9dd01c300b42#file-
search-py)

a simple blockchain in 100 lines -
[https://gist.github.com/selimslab/4ea8e87792dec4e23ecedfd435...](https://gist.github.com/selimslab/4ea8e87792dec4e23ecedfd4353107b7#file-
blockchain-py)

------
total_plus
One side project idea I am working on is a web application starter kit that
may be up and running in 30 minutes, with more than 10 fundamental features
for every web app. I think it can speed up the time to market of other web app
based side projects. It is available at
[https://turbovar.com/turbovar/index.jsp](https://turbovar.com/turbovar/index.jsp)

------
realgabriel
I wrote a mildly successful article on the topic:
[https://filipesilva.me/blog/12-ideas-for-programming-
project...](https://filipesilva.me/blog/12-ideas-for-programming-projects-too-
dangerous-not-to-build/)

I include a, not very scientific, evaluation of each idea according to
profitability, complexity and complexity. Also some real examples of each
idea.

------
sawmurai
Give us a list of keywords to help you: languages you want to use, hobbies you
have, stuff like that. We will try to come up with an idea

------
geocrasher
Do something you _want_ to do. That' sit. It doesn't need to be something that
whose point is to make your skillset stronger. Just have fun, and don't back
down from any challenges. Having fun is a huge part of learning, and if we're
driven out of interest, it's even better. So, do what you WANT to do, and the
rest will follow suit.

------
systematical
Is there something that is annoying you? Do you know there is a better way to
do it?

I've spent part of the pandemic automating OpenAPI spec with minimal
annotations needed for an API. I was annoyed that the existing solutions
wanted more annotations than actual code, when all the information
OpenAPI/Swagger needed was already right there in my code. Just an example.

------
AlchemistCamp
You could start with teaching what you know.

I've been doing that with [https://alchemist.camp](https://alchemist.camp)
(screencasts for learning Elixir), and it's been a great side project. It's
pushed me to learn more than I would have otherwise, built up a (small)
profile online and generally lead to good things.

------
sankalp221
Check out [https://trends.co/](https://trends.co/)

They release their research on upcoming trends. Some articles are awesome and
lots of people seem to start side projects based on it. In addition, the
community and FB group are solid. You can meet lots of makers if you have
questions about a specific industry.

------
doersino
I'm sure these already exist in some shape or form, but anyway:

1\. Grep, but as a web service for RSS/Atom feeds. Allows to filter a feed
based on search terms, or by author, or by length of post, etc.

2\. A feed reader (as a web service and mobile app) that specializes on
YouTube (etc.) videos, with current playback position sync and other video-
specific features.

------
newusertoday
auto generate react ui code based on drawing in emacs artist mode
[http://www.lysator.liu.se/~tab/artist/](http://www.lysator.liu.se/~tab/artist/)
. I don't have time right now else i would have pursued it.

------
jamesbhe
Here is a list of profitable ideas for reference
[https://www.profithunt.co](https://www.profithunt.co) . I found it helpful to
skim through because it isn't a list of shiny cool ideas, but projects that
actually made money

Edit: add https to the URL

------
techbubble
Many innovations are two existing things combined in a novel way
(phone+computer=smartphone, home+hotel=AirBnB, carriage+motor=car)

You could list things you are familiar with or use regularly and see if
combining them in a novel way sparks the idea for an innovative product.

------
dan_can_code
I also struggle but find that if I choose a few libraries and tools that I
would like to make use of, I try and build a project around them - doesn't
have to be anything in particular, just a kind of playground for the cool
libraries and tools.

------
tasogare
If you have no idea, why do you want to have a side project? You are taking it
backwards, a project is the expected solution to a problem you face. You need
to find something to solve, then what can be a project will be obvious.

------
bergstromm466
Check out the cool stuff happening in the distributed web space, as well as
the Protocol/Platform Cooperative movement

It's all open source, and I believe we will go into that direction very soon!

Projects like Holochain, IPFS, DAT and Holo-REA

------
markus_zhang
Not sure what's your target, so it's really difficult to make suggestions.

A few things I might do in the near future: a PyQT tilemap editor which
supports limited random generation; Reading CSAPP3 and work on the projects.

------
xellisx
[https://github.com/ellisgl/keyboard-
schema](https://github.com/ellisgl/keyboard-schema) (or any other of the repos
could always use help. Haha)

------
kfk
I am putting together a crm and data extractor with nomad/consul/fabio. I feel
there is a lack of good content on how to build cloud solutions with proper
security. Feel free to reach out.

------
meagher
Bunch of random ones I’ve come up with [https://www.are.na/tmm/random-public-
ideas](https://www.are.na/tmm/random-public-ideas)

------
bingdig
If you're interested in politics and transparency, we're looking for help over
at [https://www.govtrades.com](https://www.govtrades.com)

------
tehlike
Please build a decent vms for residential use. I will pay for it.

~~~
omk
Could you provide more specifics? Cloud based platforms for personal computing
needs is something that intrigues me. I would like to understand what is it
that NextCloud or other existing offerings are lacking according to you?

~~~
tehlike
Sorry. When I said vms, I meant video surveillance for residential use :)

~~~
ozim
Maybe just buy synology NAS? Some cheap network cameras, there are even ones
working via wifi. Not sure how good survilence station is for your needs but I
could quite easily connect 2 cameras and have it running without paying more
than device price and hard drive.

~~~
tehlike
The most decent I found was camect. I am considering buying it.

------
sixQuarks
Very simple. Create something that saves a group of people time in some way.
Let’s say making it easier to research something / like a product they’re
interested in.

Saving time = value.

------
distantaidenn
No comment on the ethics of it, but: go to freelance sites (such as upwork),
and look at what people are requesting. Lots of good (and bad) ideas are on
there.

~~~
inetsee
I'm not clear on the ethical problems of doing research on what problems
people / companies need solving?

------
mesaframe
Maybe build something to learn something. Ask yourself what do you want to
learn. Then go down that path.

Try to make the goal short yet difficult.

------
revskill
I have an idea but still not implemented yet. Make a webpack plugin to have
file-based routing like Next.js.

------
miguelmota
Find something that you repeatedly do and try to automate it. Create things
that save time.

------
dlkf
Meta advice: don't try to solve a problem you haven't personally had.

------
ThomPete
Make an automated bookmarking service based on your browser history.

~~~
pictur
Thats cool idea

------
nallo
Build things for other people you like or care about.

~~~
ozim
That is easy way to lose friends :) when you get annoyed with feature
requests. It is easier to build stuff for people you don't like because
usually you want to cut amount of features.

------
lalaland1125
1\. Build an adblocker for locast.org

------
pgt
Make something you want.

------
nkkollaw
I think you could improve your English if you have some free time.

That's a good skill to have!

------
tolidano
Cynically, this post could have been: “you aren’t going to work on that
potentially lucrative or rewarding idea, stop hoarding it and give it to me.”

Isn’t this also “I need a product-focused co-founder”?

~~~
codingdave
I don't see a problem with people sharing ideas - especially for those of us
who lean more to mission-driven ideas... if we have an idea that we believe
would make the world a better place, then by all means, let someone go make
it.

