HN Explorer

Ask HN: What's your startup or product?

19 points by jjets718 ↗ HN
I'm getting ready to launch my first rails app, and I thought it would be interesting to hear about the software projects people are developing. It's amazing and inspiring to see what problems people are solving through software. So, what product or app have you developed or are you working on? It can be anything from a full-blown startup to a small side-project to a quick hack.

79 comments

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d0m
I help families finding home-care help for their loved ones.
jjets718
Thanks for your response! What you're doing sounds very rewarding and interesting. I'm assuming that the families you are helping have loved ones who are elderly or may suffer from conditions that prevent them from properly taking care of themselves. Is this the market you're addressing?
urthen
It's always nice to hear about someone doing some real, hands-on good. Keep it up!
gawker
Kudos to you! Are you working as an agent-basis or developing some software?
wj
I created and am continually improving Indie Intern which is software intended to help filmmakers go from script through production.

http://www.indieintern.com

You didn't say what you were working on.

urthen
Hey, this looks fun! If only I had time to actually work on the movie I wanted to make :-)
jjets718
Thanks for sharing your site. I'm not someone who produces or films movies, but I do have some friends that enjoy making movies.

I'm working on an application called PillHQ, which will be a reminder service to help people remember to take their medications.

ReKognition
We just launched our ReKognition API - best Face.com alternative. (Face Detection/Recognition, plus Gender)& Scene Understanding. And, will launch our 1st App by the end of this Month. http://rekognition.com/
tsumnia
I was playing with your demo page and was curious, how do you handle gender classification? Follow-up would be what are you results in broad ethnicity recognition (based on what I've seen, I can tell you at least tried it). Any attempts into age?
ReKognition
Thanks for testing our api.

We have trained our system so that it knows typical/common female and male facial features.

Our machine learning algorithm will generate a score from 0.0 to1.0 representing gender.

We are still tuning our age and emotion recognition. We will release (most likely in just a couple of weeks) it when we feel it's good and reliable enough for public use.

[dead] Ride120
Wow...that is something bit interesting and i would love to use this API in near future
jjets718
It's great to see a service like ReKognition offering a Face Recognition API in the wake of Face.com closure. Keep on doing what you're doing!
ReKognition
It's really encouraging to hear you saying so! Also, we will launch age detection and FB training API soon. Your feedback is always welcome.
pjnewton
I'm working on creating a "School of Crossfit" http://wodacademy.com to bring functional fitness and nutrition to those who don't have the time or the funds to pay for high quality personal training.
tnorthcutt
Interesting. I'd suggest focusing more on benefits (get in shape, feel better, whatever) that "learn about the WOD" on your splash page.
pjnewton
Yeah I agree... I'm still working through the concept and I've landed on the Coadcademy for Fitness and Nutrition.
jjets718
Nice! I'm looking forward to see WODAcademy launch.
factorialboy
Review19 - http://review19.com - Collaborative decision making for teams
jjets718
Thanks for sharing. Review19 looks interesting and the site design is fantastic. Keep up the great work!
[dead] Ride120
I am working on creating a service called "Visifoo" at http://www.visifoo.com and its a service which will help you find correct answer online.
urthen
Just finished the minimum viable prototype for a identity and permissions brokering network: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLU1TJmMSjo&feature=plcp

I'll be initially offering services such as single sign on and aggregated micropayments... think being able to charge as low as $0.25 / month / user for your service, without requiring users to sign up for a long period (which can hurt signup rates) or being hit with a $0.30 fee per transaction.

You can poke at the first demo yourself at http://prototype.projectmaelstrom.com

jjets718
Neat. What types of scenarios do you see where site owners would be looking to charge people very low prices for software like $0.25/month?
urthen
My first target market will not necessarily be for software, but for subscriptions to content. I'm thinking webcomics, small online news outlets, professional blogs, etc. Anywhere that is traditionally supported by advertising.
jjets718
Ah, okay. That makes sense and sounds like it has the potential to be pretty lucrative.
lsiebert
I'm working on advertising supported niche tools/game aides on Android. Though honestly, that's more a vehicle to build my resume.
jjets718
That sounds good. Building apps to boost your resumé is never a bad thing.
VuongN
I'm working http://officecheese.com, a community on a mission to help increase smile count in the work environment through funny jokes as well as resources on how to be funny and stay positive.
jjets718
Very nice! I think this could help out lots of different offices.
matvoz
Working on "helping you drive economically, everywhere". http://www.mylpg.eu
jjets718
This looks like a great tool. I think changing the domain name might be a good idea since some people may not infer that mylpg = miles per gallon.
kevinrpope
nitpicking: mylpg = my Liquified Petroleum Gas, as this is a site for lpg-fueled cars. Also, given the context of the site (x stations in Europe, .eu TLD), it's unlikely he'd want 'mpg' in the domain name as Europeans don't use miles or gallons.
gqgy
Will soon be launching site with information on products releasing in the future and to gauge level of anticipation of people.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4379664

Wish you the best of luck with your app!

jjets718
Thanks for the kind words! What you're working on sounds neat; is it focused more on tech products than physical products?
sprobertson
A meta-startup, rapid web application development for early stage entrepreneurs. Prontotype - http://prontotype.us/
jjets718
Thanks for sharing! What do you mean by rapid web application development? Does Prontotype have a drag-and-drop interface or does it involve programming?
sprobertson
Well Prontotype isn't a product, it's a service -- we do the web development (rapidly) for clients.
bharani_m
Resumonk - http://www.resumonk.com - Beautifully simple online resume builder
jjets718
Wow, the design for Resumonk is beautiful and the functionality looks great as well. May I recommend requiring people to pay for the product up-front instead of doing a free offering? I feel business-wise that freemium might not be as profitable. Of course though, I could be wrong!
adam-_-
I'm still assessing the viability of a new social media analytics and monitoring solution - http://twitcherhq.com
jjets718
Thanks for your comment! This looks interesting, but I think the market you're trying to enter is fairly crowded.
adam-_-
It is but my hypothesis is that most products are aimed for large businesses and not easy to use/buy for smaller companies (I could still be wrong - we'll see).
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
wallawe
Recommended --> margin-top: -7px (I think) on your signup button
adam-_-
Thanks, I will check this out.
fezzl
We are a daily deal platform. We host Groupon clones: http://www.zuupy.com.
freshfey
interesting, do you have any revenue?
fezzl
Certainly, and growing too.
wallawe
Since most of the people who are going to be your customers will likely not be in the business long (let's be realistic), why not charge a large up front fee for them to purchase the software as opposed to letting them pay a monthly subscription? The daily deal business is extremely difficult (I work at livingsocial) and most of those clones won't last more than a couple months.
fezzl
Because that's not in our interest long term. If we charge upfront a large amount (and inevitable disincentivize ourselves from providing great support and upgrade to them thereafter -- which are crucial since it's an "extremely difficult" business), we will get negative word of mouth that will not be great for our sales and marketing.
jjets718
This looks great. I'm curious as to how long on average people who sign up for your site stay with it? Thanks for sharing, and the best of luck with your venture!
fezzl
It varies greatly, but most stay for at least 3 months, empirically.
hemantv
We are online test and interview platform. http://simplyhire.in/
Ecio78
Service Temporarily Unavailable
hemantv
Sorry for unavailable. I am in process of moving the website to new datacenter. You can check back in 12 hours. I don't know why linode is so slow for traferring machine.
jjets718
The site is still down for me, but I'm looking forward to checking it out. Thanks for sharing!
splatcollision
Edit Room is the fastest way to build production-ready responsive web design prototypes.

http://www.edit-room.com

Solo founder, bootstrapping in my spare time. Rails and lots and lots of Javascript. Ask me anything!

jjets718
Very cool! How many paying customers do you have, if you don't mind me asking?
wallawe
Really cool, you should re-post as "show HN" (recommend later in the day) and make an effort to get exposure on the front page.
splatcollision
Thanks, look for it in a couple of weeks at the latest.
[dead] viniciusfbm
Guchex is a free social platform intended for knowledge exchange between Professionals, Students, Scientists, Researchers and Geeks in general. http://www.guchex.com

Self-funded, bootstrapping , 7 partners

caw
I'm working on a side project where you can configure various Linux server setups by answering a few questions. It will automatically generate the proper config files and install the software for you. Similar to AWS Marketplace, but more geared towards single installs for dev or production servers.
jjets718
What you're working on sounds like it will make hosting much easier. Keep up the great work!
alliem
SeedTG is like a wider breadth yC clone focused on transgender founders, and is designed to bring down the high unemployment rate in the transgender community as a long term side effect of helping trans-owned businesses become successful. Seedtg.com/wordpress
tdorrance
http://neufit.com We are launching at TechCrunch Disrupt SF next month. NeuFit is a social fitness entertainment platform. We are looking to solve the issues of chronic diseases caused by obesity and a sedentary lifestyle by delivering a platform that lets users encourage and motivate each other to get and stay active. We've partnered with device manufacturers and mobile app companies to integrate their products as well. For instance if you are a RunKeeper user or have a Fitbit we automatically pull in your actvity data. We translate your real-world activity into fun game mechanics that allow you complete quests, challenge and motivate others and earn real world rewards.