HN Explorer

Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?

573 points by JNRowe ↗ HN
Last February there was, in my opinion, a really uplifting thread with the same title¹. I'd like to see all the cool new things going on, and I'll steal the intro text from as89 to explain:

One where you don't care if it makes money or gets a lot of attention, but you are working on it regardless. I don't think I mean private hobbies, exactly, but projects that could or will be shared with others - you just don't care about the outcome.

¹ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25992782

959 comments

[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 494 ms ] thread
catsarebetter
I have a blog that I write hshidara.com that I don't care about doing well. My mind tends to wander and I have a hard time articulating and forming abstract ideas verbally, usually I need to write it out in a journal, but this helps me get my thoughts even more in order because of the public nature of the content creating more social pressure to get it right.

I have a tools section where I make small edge-case tools for myself, I host it on Render and use django admin so I can get away without having tons of core functionality in my tools. Technically they're MVPs that I launch on PH, but they never do well, but they're still useful to me and the problems it solves in my own life.

But to answer you more seriously, I'm my own "I don't care if this succeeds" project. I don't think that I'm particularly smart or talented but I'm still young and excitable and exploring my own nature through software. Hopefully I'll make something that's really valuable to the world one day, but for now I learn, build, meet new people, fail, and grow. And that makes me happy.

animesh
> I'm my own "I don't care if this succeeds" project.

It is like you are me. I came to a similar conclusion independently. Whatever I do doesn't need to "succeed".

The only think I push myself is to build and build. Meet new people and hope it opens new doors.

coffeefirst
At this point I absolutely don't want my personal blog to "succeed." I don't want attention, or fame, or any of the shenanigans that come along with a large following. If it ever achieved these things I'd probably delete it.

Building stuff just for yourself is underrated.

sundarurfriend
It would be ironic if you followed that comment with a link to the blog :D
coffeefirst
Yes but if I did that I'd need to perfect the absurdity by adding an aggressive "sign up for my newsletter" lightbox, and that's a line I can't cross.
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seanwilson
Here's a word game I'm still tweaking you can play in the browser for people that like time-based challenges (top score I've seen is about 3000 points!):

https://seanwilson.itch.io/wordoid

Working on games without thinking about how you might monitise them is a fun way to spend some time. :) It's a nice feeling to know some other people got some fun out of something you made too.

givemeethekeys
A few years back YouTube didn't support the sharing of playlists. In-fact creating playlists took far too many clicks. Fortunately, their API support was good and I built a 3rd party playlist builder, which worked brilliantly. I built it for myself and didn't care if anyone else used it. Turned out people did use it, but I didn't find out until YouTube changed their APIs and I no longer had time to work on it.

A few years later, I learned that most Craigslist ads sucked. So, I created a simple "make your craigslist ads better" tool. You'd go to the site, fill out a much better form than the one Craigslist provided, and it'd spit out a much better ad that you could copy and paste. Then, whenever I saw a car ad that was crappy, I'd message them with a link to my tool and ask them to update the ad. People did it and it was growing organically. I was glad that people found it useful.. it was free and going to stay that way forever. Then I got a Cease and Desist from Craigslist.. for using their name, I think. They've made similar boneheaded decisions.. no wonder they're declining.

alexnastase
I was a bit annoyed I couldn't use keyboard shortcuts in most online json formatters so I build my own mostly for my personal use. After a while I got the idea to ask the guy who owns jsonformatter.com if he wants to host it and after a while he got on board. So there you go : https://jsonformatter.com/
alexmingoia
Mine is https://sumi.news. I use it, others use it, and I consider that a success.
dimitrisnl
Looks great, thanks for sharing - will definitely use it moving forward!
jarbus
Looks fantastic, thanks for sharing. Love how you include news sources from other nations.
FailMore
This is AMAZING
alexmingoia
Thank you. I'm always looking for ways to improve it.
sandreas
My devtools with svelte and webasm: https://pilabor.com/dev/#/

I use it to generate passwords, hashes, colors and base64 encodings :-) I plan to add more stuff in the future...

livinglist
here is a kanji dictionary app I started making when I was in college, I was learning flutter myself and also taking Japanese classes so I figured this could be a good way to practice both my Flutter and Japanese skill, as well as having some project to be put on my resume, the code is a total mess but overall I’m pretty satisfied where this has taken me.

https://github.com/Livinglist/Manji

jjuliano
A lot, I don't list them in my resume or attach a title (founder, etc.), I just did it for the fun of it or to teach my son.

active & hiatus projects (published in Google Play & Apple App Store)

https://ABCDutch.app - Various Dutch learning apps I made for my son

https://ChronoBook.app - Muji Chronotebook for iPad

https://CloudArchitect.app (see wayback) - AWS/Kubernetes/Google/Azure Cloud Whiteboard Magnets for iPad

https://SketchDesigner.app - UI/UX design tool for iPad

PencilPuzzle - Over 25k+ puzzles, pictionaries, sudoku for iPad

sunsetted projects

https://PrintableFaceMask.com (see wayback) - last option printable origami Facemask to fight COVID-19

Various auto-generative NFTs (anon. around ~6k ERC-721 NFTs minted)

Too many. https://jjuliano.github.io/jjuliano/stuff-i-did.html

warrenm
I'd say doing it "for the fun of it" or "to teach my son" are both forms of "succeed" :)
rozenmd
For me it's a feature flag service I built over a weekend: https://deploywithflags.com

Uses Cloudflare Workers to globally distribute the API, and I intend to keep it free for individual developers.

I might monetize it for teams eventually, but I just like having a simple, performant way to disable/enable features for my other projects.

bruce343434
I'm working on a programming language. It's a slow and tedious route and I still have so much to do, but I'm making it for myself. If others take it up, I'll be flattered. If not, I still got my worth.

ananke.dev

ramkarthikk
I created https://plaintweet.com/ primarily for myself. I posted it on HN sometime back and many people visited it. It is completely free and doesn't use any analytics so I don't know how many people use it (if any).

It runs on a $5 VM along with some other small projects, so it doesn't cost me much and hence the outcome doesn't matter.

Eighth
Fantasic idea and implementation. My timeline on here compared to twitter.com looks more sane and inteligent without those recommendations of 'X liked this tweet', and all the news topics. I assume that's because it's getting the raw feed.

I also love low-fi websites like this. I think websites shouldn't be a large drain on resources, and should embrace standard HTML as much as possible.

This has the opportunity to curve timewasting scrolling by making it more a periodical read. As such, I'd like the return of the timestamps and to implement hourly pagination, so that there's an 'end' point and a easy bookmark to start where you left off.

ramkarthikk
Thank you for the feedback. Glad you like this. Yes, I was spending way too much time because of the endless feed and scroll. I was seeing more things I didn't subscribe to (follow) than what I subscribed to. So I created this app.

The timestamp idea is great. I will look into implementing it next. It's always nice to have a start and an end. Maybe I will add a setting where the user can specify how frequently they want to fetch new items.

AnonHP
An alert for you: the donate link leads to a “404 Not Found” page on buymeacoffee.
jayfae
Group of us are working on an FPS channel for fun (currently apex legends), been a blast breaking off the rust for my editing skils.

I'm someone who struggles to enjoy a game without some kind of purpose or goal, this helps provide one for me whilst playing competitive games with friends.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTSceMt5EJ4

[dead] kingofkyiv
darebak
I'm sorry to be blunt, but this seems like it gears towards sexpats?
VoodooJuJu
I got the same feeling. I was immediately overwhelmed with cringe and disgust when I landed on the page.
kingofkyiv
I only assist guys seeking real long term connections, not anything else. I don't think that counts as a sexpat.
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irl_chad
I’m an immigrant in Ukraine. I love this country very much. Speak the language, understand the culture, etc.

After checking out your page, I’m absolutely appalled. I’ve forwarded this to a personal friend who works in the immigration department here.

Ukraine isn’t your playground to pimp women to men who aren’t successful with them in their own countries.

Btw you’ve probably seen me around Kyiv in bars/clubs/whatever. I’m the guy always wearing designer + an iced out rolex

kingofkyiv
If you had actually read the website my mission is charity work in helping guys life love, become digital nomads, not be scammed, and generally positive things. The last thing I do is "pimp" out women here. Seems you view Ukraine as your playground and don't want anyone else coming here with your comments.
adrianmsmith
Do you think it's a bit arrogant to announce yourself as the "king" of Kiev?
kingofkyiv
It's a brand. Actually the name the project goes by is Kings of Kyiv, which we all can be here. Most people find it fun and funny.
Folcon
Mine is a simulation game that I'm working on in the spirit of having a forever project[0].

I've been working on pieces of it on and off for years and as it stands it's very incomplete. More of a collection of systems and interesting mechanics that I've been trying to figure out how they fit together.

For some reason I always find it difficult to make games, I can build complex systems spanning multiple servers that interface with clients, but the second the "what do I build next" becomes less a problem to solve with existing constraints and more an artistic decision, that the two sides of my brain decide they aren't really able to agree >_<...

My creative side suddenly becomes the worst kind of client wanting all kinds of weird stuff that it thinks are cool and my dev side goes, great, but that's super vague, how does it work? What do I need to build?

    "But this would be really cool!"

    "Ok, but you're going to have to make some choices here so I can start implementing something, what do you want this or that?"

    "Ahh, I don't want to pick and also now that you've said that, that makes me think of this other thing that would be interesting, can we fit that in there somehow?"

    "How?"

    "You are the one who knows how to build stuff, you figure it out!"

    ~Brain locks up~
Last June I decided to try and figure out how to make a game or bust, I didn't really care what, just that I made something, so I took part in the GMTK 2021, that went ok so I decided to try and take what I learned about focus, scoping and getting a small playable thing up and running asap and made a new project[2].

It's super rough, you've been warned =)...

The gameplay is still sort of non-existent, performance is pretty bad, there's still a lot of existing pieces from those old projects that I need to work out if I should add into it and code quality is kind of all over the place as I'm still really trying to work out how to build stuff like this and I know if I let my dev side have too much leeway it's going to take over and I'll probably no longer be able to figure out what my creative side wants to do.

It's a fiddly balance that I'm still trying to figure out.

I've intentionally not said anything about the game itself, you're welcome to ask me for details, but there are also bits of info littered about here and there[3].

- [0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20130124211012/http://www.dev.gd..., original HN discussion [1]

- [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5096009

- [2]: Itch: https://folcon.itch.io/fruit-economy, GH: https://github.com/Folcon/fruit-economy

- [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22791490

warrenm
Sounds like this flow chart someone shared on Facebook recently: https://scontent-ort2-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/273415552...
Folcon
It is a lot like that and I want to find a better resolution for it.

I don't want ideas to stop, I've had times where I've looked at a game system that I've built and had no idea what to do next. That's also horrible.

Having a new idea shouldn't just have me building some new thing from scratch either.

Working out how to navigate that tightrope when you are the client and it's not just solve this problem is one I'm still trying to work out :)...

warrenm
I wish I had a higher-res version, to ... Maybe I'll just draw it later :)
martindbp
https://github.com/martindbp/merkl

A ML pipelining/build library. Think like make but for ML models, but written in Python code and invalidating results based on data and code changes using Merkle DAGs. Similar to DVC, but again using pure Python instead of YAML files, and (arguably) more powerful caching. I use it myself and find it very useful, but don't have the energy to polish and promote it :) Maybe that will change in the future though!

tluyben2
Created https://flexlists.com 15 years ago to scratch an itch. For me it already succeeded; many happy users for over a decade but it is not a success by any going standard of money or attention and I do not care.

Create a programming language with a friend currently; again to scratch an itch. It will be launched somewhere 2022 hopefully but if we are the only users, it is fine. If not, so much the better.

motyar
Building https://bruzu.com

Currently at 100+ MRR but I don't care much about it.

I ll keep working on it even no-one would buy, because I love this project so much.

quantumite
This is awesome. I will likely never use it but, I can definitely appreciate the effort that went into this. Great example of a side gig/hustle/project!
zulban
Originally I made www.chesscraft.ca for my very long commutes. Put it on Google Play because I've never published an app before, and for friends and family. Eventually I added a donation-like IAP and Steam because the community and revenue continues to impress me. I suppose I now care about its success but I'm not sure what to do next since the project never had a long term roadmap. I'm thinking of making a cash prize kaggle competition out of the user generated chess variant data I now have, even tho it makes little business sense.
culopatin
I’m building a databank for Cyanobacteria specific information. Like a genbank but for Cyanobacteria. I’m not even a biologist so I don’t know what the impact will be, but my girlfriend is and I saw her struggle with some things and I decided to jump on it.

Right now I’m just building the basic forms and such, but I plan on implementing fasta file parsing and an algorithm to locate the conserved regions

onychomys
I mean, actual genbank has cyanobacteria in it[0]. Not to be discouraging, but you're just duplicating a lot of work there. And I assume that's where you'd have to go get your sequences from anyway. So are you actually just building the file parsing and analysis tools?

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/?term=cyanobacteria

culopatin
My project would focus on the ITS region motifs. Which I think are not in genbank. Genbank has the whole sequence but the motifs are not identified.

The way the bio people I talked to explained it to me, when they want to compare ITS structures they need to find the motifs themselves and compare it that way. Is this incorrect?

I’d love to chat if you are in the world.

eyedex
https://www.eyedex.org/ It's an open directory search engine I have been slowly cooking on the side for past one and a half year. Basically an open directory is a webpage on the internet with autoindex set to on - it lists files and directories on server with some metadata. The real reason why I built it was to learn PostgreSQL together with some text searching functionality, so far it has been really fun experience. Another reason was that there haven't been sites like this, most of them are shameless redirects to google dorks or just straight up amateur jobs. What mine does differently is take care of file metadata and allows to order/filter by it, which narrows down searches quickly. I really don't care if it succeeds or no, there is no money in it, I don't really care anyways. It kinda scratches the itch about what great services can be build on good old internet and if it's useful for a few people out there, even better.