
Ask HN: Those starting new side projects in 2018 – Show and tell - crack-the-code
These threads always pique my interest, and it&#x27;s great to hear how people are innovating to make some extra income. Please share your new projects for 2018!
======
ezekg
Alpaca My Bags - Travel website for pre-planned weekend vacations

[https://travelalpacamybags.com](https://travelalpacamybags.com)

Been working on it on and off for about 6 months with my wife (I'm behind the
tech, she's doing the trip planning/social media stuff). We're looking to
officially launch within the next few weeks. We're starting out in the 2
person vacation niche, but looking to expand to other trip sizes and also to
trips outside of the US later this year after launch. This will be my first
B2C business, so excited for a little change of pace.

~~~
Chloro
This looks awesome! I would love to do something like this with my wife. I
would be very interested to see how it works out for you after launch.

~~~
ezekg
Appreciate it! Hoping to launch soon. I'll post a followup on HN after our
official launch.

------
longnguyen
I'm building `react-qml` [1], a build-tool (and Qt plugin) to help you build
native app (desktop/iOS/Android - any platform Qt supports) using JavaScript
and React. It's not quite ready to use in production yet but I hope to have a
beta release in the next few months. Here is what it offers:

\- UI development in Javascript, using either custom React components or
React-wrapped .qml components. You can use almost all of your beloved front-
end library (react-redux, redux, redux-obserable, lodash etc.)

\- Hot reload support! So no more `build/rebuild` in QtCreator (you still need
to rebuild for C++ native components)

\- Supports JS tools out of the box (React DevTools, Redux DevTools...)

\- Use any programming languages to develop backend as long as it has binding
with Qt (ie go-qml[2], qml-rust[3] etc.)

[1]: [https://github.com/longseespace/react-
qml](https://github.com/longseespace/react-qml)

[2]: [https://github.com/go-qml/qml](https://github.com/go-qml/qml)

[3]: [https://github.com/White-Oak/qml-rust](https://github.com/White-Oak/qml-
rust)

------
leonagano
I decided to build
[https://maximiseyourannualleave.co.uk](https://maximiseyourannualleave.co.uk)
that is helping friends to plan 2018 annual leave in the UK. I was inspired
after reading an article that says if you book 14 days of your annual leave,
you'll get 25 days in a row

------
vinrob92
Manypixels - Unlimited premium design services for startups from $159/month
(100% money back guarantee)

[https://www.manypixels.co](https://www.manypixels.co)

I started this in December 2017 as a side project but given its success it has
now turned into almost a full-time job.

~~~
jchung
How do the economics work out for the clients? let's say we're just doing
landing pages all month long (for example). If they turnaround in two days,
that's about fifteen landing pages, which at $160 for the month comes out to
about $11 each. Obviously this is a contrived and unrealistic example, but am
I getting the math right?

I guess this is unlimited the way my data plan is unlimited: with rate
capping?

~~~
vinrob92
Thanks for the interest!

Turnaround is 1 to 3 working days depending on complexity of the landing page.
So you can expect 7 to 20 landing pages per month. If you want to complete a
full website with the same design guidelines that might be done quicker (for
example if you want a Home, Pricing, About us page, this will be done much
quicker than doing 3 different homepages). We also often have clients
requesting us to work on separate design styles in parallel (they can decide
to pick the landing page they love the most).

Here is a work in progress we're currently doing for a popular SaaS (like
Buffer) so you can gauge the quality of our work:
[https://invis.io/ZXF811CP2](https://invis.io/ZXF811CP2)

------
brogrammer2019
Converted Stack Overflow Documentation into free PDF books

Link: [http://books.goalkicker.com/](http://books.goalkicker.com/)

~~~
ahamedirshad123
Awesome, man. Keep up the good work!

~~~
ahamedirshad123
NO documentation for react?

~~~
brogrammer2019
Hi ahamedirshad123, yes there is documentation for react :D

Link:
[http://books.goalkicker.com/ReactBook/](http://books.goalkicker.com/ReactBook/)

------
d_runs_far
Not for income, but for learning and to scratch my own itch. Finally picked up
a raspberry pi and a USB ANT+ reader to pair with my heart rate monitor chest
strap. I've had an old 26" LCD TV in our home gym that I will use as the
display for the pi. Goal is to create a simple workout timer that also tracks
heart rate and logs everything to a local db. My goals out of this are: \-
learn some python \- do some hardware hacking (it's been way too long since I
wrote control codes for RS-232 controlled video equipment in the 90's) \- will
probably do some image analysis down the road to do things like stride count
on my treadmill, count reps in the squat rack - still mapping out the long
term.

Next steps are to finish the plan for the mvp and then continue messing
around. I also need to figure out the best input device for while in the gym
and being quite sweaty; something wireless and somewhat rugged.

~~~
fiftyacorn
I had a project a few years back to connect my indoor bike trainer to google
streetview -

[https://dzone.com/articles/virtually-cycling-the-alps-
with-a...](https://dzone.com/articles/virtually-cycling-the-alps-with-arduino-
and-streetview)

I ended up using the ant+ dongle and connected straight to my laptop. Using
the GPL code from GoldenCheetah for the handshakes -

[https://code.google.com/archive/p/routeviewer-antplus-
bike-c...](https://code.google.com/archive/p/routeviewer-antplus-bike-
computer/source/default/source)

It was a nice project but refresh rates were too slow - i should have built
trainerroad!

I keep thinking about doing the same with rasp pi and retropi, then use hr, or
speed to control a game. but dont have time at the moment

------
patwalls
I'm building an Indie Hackers style website geared towards e-commerce and
consumer product makers.

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

Appreciate any feedback :)

------
sabarasaba
json-menu, converts a json endpoint into a electron-dashboard for your mac.

Launched it a few days ago and already made me a few bucks.

[https://jsonmenu.com/](https://jsonmenu.com/)

~~~
MattPearce
I really like this - is the price being hidden behind the "Buy License" button
a deliberate design decision? I feel the price is low enough that having it
shown upfront would encourage me to buy it, so interested in your thinking.

------
mattbgates
I did release my side projects at the end of 2017, but these are ever-evolving
projects, so I am posting it here to show and tell for 2018 as well.

[https://callmeprivate.com](https://callmeprivate.com) \- great for
entrepreneurs, startups, and businesses; masks your real phone number behind a
virtual number with incoming and outgoing call functionality.

[https://textmeprivate.com](https://textmeprivate.com) \- same as above, but
SMS-virtual numbers only.

I've since built a feature so you can now use the same virtual number on both
services.

Since release about a month ago, I've had over 50 signups, about 5 paying
customers, and a company in China just recently contacted me and wanted to
purchase numbers from Text Me Private in bulk, in order to receive
confirmations from various websites, but were unable to do purchase numbers,
as I hadn't taken into consideration that when I released these products into
the wild, that they would make it all the way to China in just a month. China
doesn't use the traditional credit card system. So I've agreed to build it in
if they could give me a few days to do so.

Never know.... something you create could end up around the world... and more
importantly, could be very valuable to a company in another country.

------
rwieruch
2017 was full of web development with JavaScript and React for me [0]. It was
time to peak into another subject. That's why I started to learn about machine
learning in the last months of 2017 and want to continue this endeavour in
2018. My desire is to spread the knowledge for web developers and JavaScript
enthusiasts [1]. Maybe I can give people coming from web development the
opportunity to hop on the machine learning train by using JavaScript instead
of having to learn another programming language (Python) for it. At the
moment, I learn ML myself by implementing the learned things in JavaScript
[2].

\- [0] [https://roadtoreact.com](https://roadtoreact.com)

\- [1] [https://bri.im](https://bri.im)

\- [2] [https://github.com/javascript-machine-
learning](https://github.com/javascript-machine-learning)

------
ISNIT
This year I'm committed to launching 12 projects in 12 months. For January, I
took a couple of days out and built API Console

[https://apiconsole.io/](https://apiconsole.io/)

NOTE: the website was "heavily inspired by" (copied from) ZeroNet.io - I built
the whole thing in 2 days, didn't have time to make my own.

The aim is to have it making _some_ money, but I'd really appreciate any
feedback on the copy, pitching, etc. Copy is NOT my strong point (though I'm
learning).

Any feedback is welcome, but I'd primarily appreciate the following: \-
Framing/Pitching of the product \- Copy \- Product/idea itself \- Should I
continue developing it before I get email addresses?

------
jozi9
Mine is a REST API monitoring service - because I needed one!

[http://www.apilope.com](http://www.apilope.com)

Going to rework the landing page a bit to make it more benefit/monitoring
oriented, I don’t think ‘testing’ is compelling enough as a keyword.

~~~
mahesh_rm
That's an awesome service: the landing page works just perfect in conveying
what it is. I would suggest (my 2 cents) try to focus on marketing to get the
tool out there instead!

------
hakanderyal
After working in B2B space for the last several years, I will be releasing 2
consumer focused apps this year. Planned initial release date for both it Q2
2018.

\- Want My Body Back (wantmybodyback.com - not released yet) Nutrition and
exercise tracking app, with motivational resources and social features, for
people who want to get in shape and have a healthy lifestyle.

\- Doer's Camp (doerscamp.com - not released yet) Personal development app.
Habit tracking, goal tracking, quantified self tools, with motivational
resources and social features.

------
jwho82
[https://blog-planner.com](https://blog-planner.com) \- A very very simple
tool to help me write blog articles. You can break the article down into
topics. Also wanted to play with Symfony 4, try out Webpack, and test some
better continuous integration.

logmyproperties.com - Empty atm. Going to be some kind of simple property
management tool, to help me manage my rental property, track expenses and
create reports for taxes.

------
buliam
I'm working on
[http://madewithreactnative.com](http://madewithreactnative.com) where I
showcase apps made with React Native and interview developers and teams who
have gone down that road about their experience.

I want to expand to also include interviews with developers who have made
tools and libraries FOR React Native.

If you're interested in doing an interview, I'd be happy to talk to you.

------
campingalert
I am building [https://www.leads-daily.com](https://www.leads-daily.com) so
freelancers can focus on their professional work instead of finding clients.

------
tuacker
I've wanted a simple site to keep track of the TV shows I watch without any
fuss. Just a list of (new) episodes. So I made it.

[https://boldshows.com](https://boldshows.com)

I've put it online a few days ago but didn't do any 'launch' yet and I don't
have the payment process implemented yet so feel free to use it for free until
I get that done.

~~~
wingerlang
Nice, looks similar in functionality as showRSS.com though.

~~~
tuacker
Thanks! showRSS seems to link to torrents though, something which I don't want
any part of (piracy).

~~~
wingerlang
Fair enough

------
manuisin
End of last year released an experimental custom postcards web app:
[https://www.cardwhat.com](https://www.cardwhat.com). Currently about to
release an update for it [https://cards-nrhwdfdpsx.now.sh/](https://cards-
nrhwdfdpsx.now.sh/).

Later in 2018, I want to extend this to a custom t-shirts app.

~~~
lionpixel
I like the website but on mobile safari (iOS 11) the headline on top of the 3D
card is cut off. :)

~~~
manuisin
Thank you! Will account for it in the next release

------
methochris
I'm making Keepshelf.com (not available at time of this writing), a side-
project I've been off-and-on with for awhile now but I'll be launching this
year.

Keepshelf is the note keeping/organizing app I've always wanted. Take notes
with ease and copy/move into folders through a fast and convenient UI,
instantly synced and accessible on all devises.

------
protoduction
I'm working on a side project that involves getting useful NN based networks
working in a browser.

There's some demos which for instance will do class prediction (cat vs dog),
but who needs that? I would love to see stuff like colorization working in a
static webpage, at decent speeds (under 5 sec for a big image). It should also
be easy enough that my mother could use it.

------
fiftyacorn
Hadnt planned on a side project - but my son wanted to learn about computers.
So we're connecting a rasp pi zero + camera up to the bird feeder to take
photo's of birds, with a plan to post to instagram. So far no birds on feeder

Anyone able to advise on the easier way to run it off solar power?

------
antonpenev
BotFrog. Chatbots for several channels.

[https://botfrog.com](https://botfrog.com)

Automating support and marketing campaigns for multiple social media channels
using easy to setup bots

Current stack: React, Express, Mongo. And we'll be happy for any feedback or
subscriptions.

------
longsangstan
Made a dark web chat story app in react native.

Currently iOS only:
[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tormento/id1291133449](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tormento/id1291133449)

------
AR6jSs1IVOtEOcg
I saw that many Rust developers complained about not being able to find jobs
so I'm building a job board specifically for Rust.

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

------
desaiguddu
I started working on App Fixers in late November.

Still iterating copy of the website & interacting with new customers.

[https://app-fixers.com](https://app-fixers.com)

We are growth & maintenance as a service for app owners.

------
clementmiao
I want to build a side project that involves exploring public city data and
building a product/analysis based on that. Not sure where to start, if anyone
has any idea of city problems to solve.

------
Bumerang
I'm building a tool to help people with their decision making via the well
known pros/cons lists.

[https://dilectee.com](https://dilectee.com)

------
Slaul
I'm working on a web based fitness and nutrition tracker because I am not
satisfied with the current offerings out there.

I'll be launching my mvp in the next month or two I hope!

~~~
thecupisblue
Hey can you ping me when it's done? Would love to check it out

~~~
Slaul
For sure! I appreciate the interest!

------
kunqiana
I been working on easyinfograph.com for a few months now. Plan on featuring it
for product hunt when I am done with a few more features.

------
swlkr
Outsidelist - A list of the most inspirational outdoor places

------
maheshs
Building a quotation system for small business.

