HN Explorer

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

3 points by eli_s ↗ HN
Hi all,

---------------------------

tl;dr Launching a new ecommerce site builder/print catalogue builder after 2 years of tinkering away.

http://www.wizifi.com

a HN demo store: http://www.wizifi.com/nexus_login

un: hn

pw: hn

The site is optimized for webkit - best performance in Chrome.

---------------------------

just though i'd share a side project turned personal obsession with you.

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.

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.

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.

It was created in my spare time during nights and on week ends, since by day I'm a high school IT teacher :)

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.

You can check out my site at: http://www.wizifi.com

You can use the product without downloading the program as long as you're using a webkit based browser.

Cheers, eli

4 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 14.7 ms ] thread
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.