

I built a resume-padder and earned $700 in the process - polyfractal
http://euphonious-intuition.com/2012/07/i-built-a-resume-padder-and-earned-700-in-the-process/

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potomak
My side projects look like gifts to me, I feel uncomfortable to sell them.

Maybe this isn't the entrepreneur way but I feel bonded with most of the lines
of code I write. I think I could sell two side projects of mine
(<http://tomato.es> and <http://drawbang.com>) profitably but I use them to
experiment and I really like to see them grow naturally, they're like little
plants growing in a big forest.

~~~
dag11
I just checked out your drawbang. It's pretty neat!

<http://i.imgur.com/IeiQB.gif>

You should add some tooltips on the buttons though, as some of them aren't
immediately all that clear.

~~~
potomak
You're right, thanks for reporting.

I've created an issue for that:
<https://github.com/potomak/drawbang/issues/45>

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muellerwolfram
funny to read that, i'm just about to launch my side project with basically
the same idea. its not ready yet, but you can peek a sneak preview at
<http://www.themescroller.com>

i think that the themeforest ui sucks for finding themes as well. additionally
i think it would be cool to compare themes from different marketplaces...so
thats what i'm working at right now

~~~
polyfractal
_Very_ nice. After getting feedback, this is basically what I imagined
ThemeSquirrel should turn into. Good job grabbing the screenshots of the live
preview, and directing right to it. I was too lazy to adjust ThemeSquirrel to
do that but I really should have. Also great idea of aggregating the
marketplaces.

A few thoughts:

-I'd make the "Large" thumbnail default. It was the biggest complaint I got, and I noticed a lot of people switching to the large size when I checked my analytics.

-Open the previews in a new tab/window. I know most people scroll-click things, but it'd be best to make that default (imo). Most people don't buy the first theme they click, so you ideally want to keep them at your site as long as possible.

~~~
muellerwolfram
hey thanks a lot for your feedback. really appreciate that!

i always thought that open links in new window is kind of aggressive. but a
friend of mine also instinctively suggested that, the first time he saw the
site, so maybe that's what people want/expect...

did they give you a reason why they'd prefer larger images? isn't it harder to
compare themes then?

~~~
polyfractal
Sure! I hope your site goes well, it has a lot of potential.

It feels a little aggressive on some sites, but for an "aggregating" site I
actually prefer them to open in new tabs. As I see it, I'm using your site to
find something...but I probably will look at several different options on your
list. I don't like navigating back and forward a lot...I'd rather just close
tabs and go back to the aggregator.

Now, that could just be me. I do compulsively open tabs (I have like 40 tabs
open right now).

As to larger images: reduces clutter, makes it easier to scan, easier to see
details.

If you want to read the initial feedback I got, you can see it here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3502418>

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picsoung
Very inspiringm, I will consider doing the same thing with my side projects.
Thanks !

~~~
polyfractal
Awesome, glad you enjoyed my story! Hope you make a bit of money off your side
projects (or perhaps find a way to monetize them and keep them in your
portfolio)

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withinthreshold
Wow, this is what i needed. To show me that even something simple can make a
change in my financial position. I've almost gave up trying to build something
on the side, you definitely put me back on track, thank you!

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sktrdie
This is nice and surely the project was worth $700. However, 700 is my monthly
rent. I'd rather it stay on my hard drive and allow it to become something
bigger in the future instead of selling the idea to someone else willing to go
the next step.

~~~
polyfractal
Yep, I went through the same thought process while trying to decide if I
should sell or not. Your side projects may turn into something bigger if you
hold on to it...but are you going to put the time in required to do that?

In the end, I looked at everything on my plate and knew that I would never
touch ThemeSquirrel ever again. I have other side projects that I'm far more
interested in, with much larger visions of growth/monetization.

It didn't matter that ThemeSquirrel was making money, or that there were
actionable pieces of feedback that I could use to improve the site. I simply
did not care for the project anymore, and had no desire to operate in the
WordPress theme ecosystem.

If I held on to the project, it would eventually have died a slow, gasping
death. It's fun to dream about scaling side projects into real companies...but
if I never acted on it...it's just dreaming.

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zanny
6 hours is impressive. It took me that long to just do the jquery + javascript
course tracks on codeacademy when I was learning js + jq O.o

~~~
polyfractal
To be entirely fair, jQuery Masonry and jsTree do _a lot_ of the hard work for
you. Supply them with some JSON and the defaults are pretty good.

I'm a very "copy/paste/modify" learner. So it was pretty easy to grab the
jQuery Masonry examples and fiddle with them until I got the output that I
wanted.

I also had done two previous greasemonkey scripts to alter the HN interface,
which is where I learned a lot of jQuery fundamentals.

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Evbn
I made an Android app with a small user/fan base that I published for free
after Admob went wonky in the Google acquisition, but I might want to sell to
someone who wants to add ads or port to iPhone since I am too busy to maintain
it.

Flippa gets good reviews here, but all the sites listed on its front page look
like junk and Spam, nothing even as worthwhile as little ThemeSquirrel

~~~
polyfractal
Repost of a comment I made elsewhere about Flippa:

Yeah, 95% of Flippa is garbage.

A few gems pop up from time to time, but there is so much noise it is hard to
find them. For a while I really wanted to purchase an app, renovate it by
fixing sales funnels/marketing/bugs and start building a portfolio of semi-
passive income.

I ended up with a strict set of filter options. Must be X months old, with Y
monthly unique making Z revenue. That filtered out a lot of the garbage. I had
Flippa email me once a week with these sites/apps, which I then glanced
through manually. Most of them were still crap, or way overpriced (like 20
months net-profit).

I _really_ wish there was an "Abandoned App" equivalent to Flippa. A place
where programmers could sell off their side projects and abandoned web-apps. I
wouldn't allow any adsense sites or anything that wasn't a real "web app"

