Side Project

Hello everyone,

Lately, I've been contemplating the idea of venturing into website design using AI tools as a side hustle. In my local area, I've noticed that many small businesses are yet to establish an online presence – they don't have websites and their business listing is either unclaimed or not verified. Despite being a civil engineer without prior experience in website design, I'm eager to learn and explore this field further.

The availability of AI tools seems to have simplified the process of website design, making it more accessible. I am considering reaching out to local businesses to inquire if they would be interested in having a website for their establishment. However, as I am new to this, I am seeking advice on potential aspects I might be overlooking or need to be aware of.

Additionally, I am uncertain about how to determine fair pricing for my services. I would appreciate any insights, guidance, or tips from those with experience in website design or freelance work.

Thank you in advance

Looking for the best deals on Microsoft products this Black Friday? The ideal spot for affordability is offering up to 80% off! Snag the savings by using the exclusive coupon code: BLACK23. Don't miss out on this tech-tastic opportunity!

Hey folks,

What a time to be alive and coding, am I right? Kicking things off, there's this dev from South Korea – dude’s got skills from a decade of grinding, and now he’s sharing his voyage to success. Respect! You know, it's always cool hearing how people from different corners of the world are rocking the web scene, especially when it's a service that's big in their homeland. Makes me wanna dive into his story with a bowl of kimchi and get inspired!

Onto my own geeky shenanigans, I've been toying with the idea of a replica podcast player. A side hustle, you know? Podcasts are pretty much the new textbooks with better voice acting, right? I think it could be an epic little project. Maybe I'm just looking for an excuse to listen to more podcasts...

And then there's Steve – the man's out here trying to clone our digital personalities with an app. We're talking about making our own AIs based on our social media! Honestly, my AI would probably just want to nap and argue about pineapple on pizza. But, jokes aside, that's some Black Mirror-level tech wizardry!

Speaking about "Black Mirror," how about those Black Friday deals, huh? Microsoft’s playing Santa and practically giving away the goodies this year. If only my bank account were as enthusiastic as I am...

Now, let's get a little meta for a second. All these musings have been curated with a helping hand from Thinkforce AI. Pretty neat, right? They're dishing out free access to this wild GPT4 language model. It's not just about words – they’re talking image generation that's so good, your phone might just turn into an art gallery. Check 'em out at www.thinkforce.ai and maybe create your own AI-powered masterpieces.

Keep thriving in the tech jungle, amigos!

Peace out.

I am am going to miss it, anyone else? Seems like a decent idea for a replica podcast player as a side project. What do you think?

Mojju is an AI service, offering powerful custom GPTs for OpenAI. Crafted by a skilled AI team, it offers a range of proven solutions including GPTs integrated with Zapier and Stable Diffusion.

Dive in with us in the world of powerful GPTs to unlock AI Magic! We would appreciate any comments and feedback!

https://www.producthunt.com/posts/mojju

Here is the link: https://cloudtts.com

I've created a free text-to-speech app that's handy for many things like practicing pronunciation, making voiceovers, creating audiobooks, and learning languages. I made it for myself, but I think you'll find it helpful too. Just type in your text, and the app uses the latest AI to create really natural-sounding voices.

Hey, so I am making a podcast about stem. Is there anyway I can contact scientists, alumni, doctors, engineers, etc?

Hi all, I created a quick side project mainly as a way to self-educate on the bubble.io platform. I previously used Adalo and found bubble to be more flexible, although the UX is a bit more confusing.

The side project is a golf trip itinerary generator "powered" by AI. It makes a simple call to openAI that takes a few user inputs (location and travel dates) and combines it with a prompt that gets passed to openAI. The output is the itinerary.

Let me know what you think! www.golftripsplanner.com. Very basic functionality for now - planning to add more functionality and improve the UX as I continue to learn the platform. I'm hoping to also use this as an avenue to learn more about AI and LLMs so that I can possibly tweak and tune a model that is much more targeted for golf and travel. TIA

how do you juggle your side project with work, life, everything else?

it's about finding those pockets of time, staying organized, right?

sometimes it's tough. motivation dips, life gets hectic.

but there's also that thrill of creating something of your own.

share your tips - how do you keep your side project and life in harmony?

It's simple but transformative: You are not just a product maker; you are a storyteller.

Those who grasp this concept are the ones who go on to build memorable brands.

Let me take the example of a Men's Accessory Brand to explain this better.

Watches:

Consider a watch.

It's not merely a device to keep track of time.

It's a keeper of moments and a container of memories.

Wallets:

Now, think about wallets.

They're not just for stashing your cash and cards.

A wallet symbolizes organization and personal identity.

It's a reflection of how you manage life and the values you hold.

Ties:

Ties are more than just a piece of fabric around your neck.

They appeal to your personality and professionalism.

A tie speaks before you do, telling a story of who you are and what you stand for.

Cufflinks:

Lastly, cufflinks.

These aren't just functional sleeve fasteners.

They speak to your elegance and attention to detail.

They relate to sophistication and style.

So, what's the key takeaway here?

Products are tangible; they can be touched, used, and owned.

But narratives?

They're felt, experienced, and remembered.

When you focus on these narratives, you're not just creating products, here you're crafting universes around them.

You're differentiating yourself from the plethora of product sellers out there.

More importantly, you resonate with customers on a deeper, more emotional level.

The end result? You become an integral part of your customers' lives.

Your products are no longer just items; they become extensions of their character and aspirations.

Think of it this way:

Brands = Stories + Products

Brands ≠ Products

Your brand's story shouldn't be an afterthought. It's the soul of your product, the essence that transforms a mere item into someone's life.

And remember, in the vast sea of brands and products, only those with a compelling story will stand the test of time and remain engrained in the hearts and minds of consumers.

So, what's your brand's story?

Recently, I have launched my app, Text Snapper which mainly empowers users to copy any text from their screen.

Here are some key features:

1- Copy non-copyable text from apps like Instagram (posts and comments).

2- Instantly translate screen text without the need to copy it and navigate to a separate translation app.

3- Foreign apps translation support for various languages.

4- Text extraction from both images and live camera.

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I would greatly appreciate your thoughts on the uniqueness and appeal of the app idea and any suggestions for improvement or additional features.

Thank you for taking the time to help me out!

Google Play

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SwiftCard is an iOS app poised to revolutionize the way we network. Today, I extend an invitation to you to explore and perhaps share your insights and feedback on SwiftCard!

SwiftCard was born from a pivotal moment earlier this year. Picture this: a bustling conference in London, a sea of potential connections, and me – without a business card that truly spoke volumes. This moment was the catalyst for SwiftCard, a fusion of functionality, elegance, and innovation, all in one digital solution.

What Makes SwiftCard a Game-Changer?

Branded Links: A swiftcard.co/username that resonates with your personal brand.

Design Diversity: Offering over 400 combinations, shattering the industry's monotony.

Multiple Cards: Tailor up to 50 unique cards, perfect for professionals and growing businesses alike.

The QR Quirk: A fully customizable QR, enhanced for the modern user.Simplicity Meets

Sophistication: An interface that's as intuitive as it is elegant.

Green at Heart: A nod to sustainability, saying goodbye to paper.

Constantly Current: Update your details in real-time, keeping your network in the know.

Privacy First: We hold your data as preciously as you do.

Why SwiftCard, you ask? It's not just an app; it's a narrative of networking reimagined. Priced at just half of what our nearest competitors charge, SwiftCard isn't just a choice, it's the choice for the discerning professional.

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Let me know your feedback!

I created Affiliate Finder a few months ago and just have been letting it sit there. It has made me a few bucks over the past few months but wondering if this is something you think people would want. I have plenty of ideas to expand but not sure if it’s worth my time

We are also some of the people who are not the number one fans of voice messages. Because of that we build a tool that not only transcribes WhatsApp voice messages but directly summarizes them.

You can:

• choose the summarization length
• get a bullet point summary
• change the summary language (I actually used it to record a tour guide talking in another language to understand what he is saying - but summarized)
• and more....

It works based on a WhatsApp bot, where you forward text/voice messages to. Everything is encrypted and no content of messages will ever be saved. We are based in Germany and have quite strict data privacy rules here. Another option is with our paid plan where messages are summarized automatically and without forwarding.

Feel free to check out our project: https://summarize.one

Please let me know any ideas/suggestions/issues you have :)

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Introduction:

I loved consuming SaaS content, but at one point, i realized it wont lead me to anywhere. That's when i realized i need to start "producing or building" instead of "consuming". I always loved SaaS, but having no coding background meant i can't develop one myself (Being a PM at a tech company helped tremendously though). Left with only two choices, either to outsource development of an idea, or acquire a SaaS from acquire.com. To me, acquiring was easier, meant you can pick an already validated product, and shortcut the development.

Choosing a SaaS to acquire:

My goal was to pick a product that was a painkiller not a vitamin. A product that the customer will get their ROI on it. While searching, many products were highly valued for no reason (no customers, no mrr, and 3 weeks old..cmon?), so it wasn't that easy to find a great product. Until i found a product that solved a real problem facing every SaaS... Churn 🔥.

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The acquisition:

I found Cancelo.io , and was very interested in it. I spoke to the founders to understand more about the product, their current customers, and how they marketed it. What really attracted me to the product was the high customers retention rate, and the marketing opportunities out there! Fast forward, we closed the deal 🤝.

Post-acquisiton:

I expected cancelo.io to be up and running in no time after the acquisition, but it wasn't that smooth initially, as i encountered many roadblocks post acquisition that i didn't account for. I interviewed many devs, but it wasnt easy to find a good one, especially since you are on a tight budget. You want a dev that have a great experience, and more importantly is great at communication! However, after a dozen of interviews, i founded a really great dev.

It took more than expected, for Cancelo.io to be ready, we kept testing and further developing the product together until we are finally able to launch 🚀.

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What the product does:

The product helps you understand your churn and also reduce it, ultimately increasing your $MRR. It does so via cancelation flows, and by showing you analytics on the reason customers churned. The cancelation flows can be also customized to offer discounts when the cancelation reason is high price, or by offering to extend trial, in case the customers wanted a longer trial period. Basically customized the way you want.

PS: You wont need cancelo.io if your $MRR is low, but if your $MRR is higher than $7K you are guaranteed to get back your ROI with it.

Try it now: www.cancelo.io

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Very keen on hearing your suggestions!

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Hi everybody!

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I've worked for two days straight to create Bluesky by Unshape, a Zapier and Make integration which allows users to automate posting to the app. For the moment you can only post but one day maybe I could add feature to search for posts, etc.

Here's my website: https://www.unshape.app/bluesky-bot/

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If anybody is interested by Unshape, I'd like to have your feedback!

Thibault - from Unshape

Tried my first Lifetime Deals facebook group launch for my logo design tool Typogram... Learned a lot!

I'm thankful people are supportive and give me, a small indie founder, some feedback and a couple minutes of their day to look at my product.

What about you?

I want to create a program to run on a raspberry pi that can interact with an emulator (possibly multiple) to simply start up a random game from a list and let it run (displaying the emulator on a screen) for a few minutes on the title screen, and then cycle to the next one. The idea is to have whats basically a fun screensaver to display in my living room.
I have a decent amount of programming experience so I'm confident I can write it once I know what libraries or tools to use, but I'm having a lot of trouble finding what emulators support programmatic interaction in this way. When I try to search it on google, all I can find is people using AI to play games. I guess it might be possible to simply start up the emulator(s) by sending commands to the command line, but what would I use to shut it down when its time to switch to the next game?

Eventually I'd like to have it load up save states and send saved inputs to show off gameplay snippets of toll assisted speedruns (TAS) or casual gameplay, but just loading up the games would be fine for now.

It was Friday evening, I was chilling on the couch sipping Dr Pepper while watching Pulp Fiction…and…for some unobvious reason the idea crossed my mind.

I thought it would be kind of fun if AI could generate captions based on the context of literally any pic.

So here it is. Took me about two days to make it. There’s nothing fancy here, just one feature that works with temporary success :)

Feedback appreciated, but not necessary as I don’t have any roadmap or something.

Cheers!

Introduction:
First and foremost, I want to emphasize that I am a seasoned developer with a decade of experience, born and raised in South Korea. In this article, I'd like to share my humble success story, taking into account that the web service I'm introducing is primarily known within South Korea.

Identifying the Gap in the Market:
Around 2019, MBTI-based psychological tests started gaining significant popularity in South Korea. Even today, online psychological tests continue to capture the interest of users. Capitalizing on this trend, several companies began offering SaaS services for creating psychological tests. However, these services were not only paid but also posed challenges in terms of content creation and complexity. Inspired by the idea that people find joy in taking tests and receiving results, I decided to create a service that allows users to easily create, solve, and share quizzes without the need for registration.

Development and Launch:
I rapidly developed the core functionality of creating, solving, and sharing quizzes in just one week.

Initial Marketing Strategy:
Once the website was developed, I faced the challenge of how to promote it. Without a specific strategy, I posted about it on internet community forums. Surprisingly, the response was overwhelmingly positive. Within the first month of launching, the website attracted 1.3 million users. This experience taught me that if the product is good, extensive marketing efforts may not be necessary. Engaging and interesting content tends to promote itself as users naturally share it.

The Turning Point:
Initially, I anticipated that users would create and share quizzes on various topics such as K-Pop, BTS, science, and culture. However, in reality, users started creating quizzes about themselves. These self-created quizzes gained immense popularity among elementary and middle school students in South Korea. Analyzing user patterns, I realized that users had a desire to express themselves and share their identities with others. Building on this insight, I added features such as an anonymous question-and-answer service and a snowman-building service. The snowman-building service, in particular, gained significant popularity in South Korea, attracting 1.2 million users in the past month.

Realtime (Universal Analytics)

5.2M (Unique Users)

Technical Challenges:
As is commonly known, the most significant challenge was the server load caused by a surge in users. To this day, I continue to operate the service with just a single physical server.

Tech Stack Used:
NGINX, Next.js, MySQL, Redis, Elasticsearch, Kibana, PM2

Handling Heavy Traffic:
To mitigate the server load resulting from influencers creating and sharing quizzes, I introduced caching, implemented database partitioning, and optimized indexing.

OG Image Generation:
To address the issue of generating thumbnail images for quizzes or snowman content to be shared externally, I switched to using Sharp. This change significantly reduced server load. While thumbnail generation with Puppeteer took approximately 1500ms, Sharp reduced it to about 100ms. Since switching to Sharp, I haven't experienced server load issues due to thumbnail generation.

The Next Steps:
Inspired by my modest success in South Korea, I became curious about whether I could achieve similar results in the United States. Although I have lived in Korea my entire life and don't fully understand American culture, I wanted to explore the possibility of my service succeeding in the United States. I may not know how to effectively promote it in the United States, but as a starting point, I decided to write this article and introduce my service experience.

Conclusion:
Here are the links to my services:
https://us.quizby.me (Quiz)
https://us.quizby.me/s (Snowman)
https://quizby.me (Korean version)

If you notice any grammar errors on the website or have suggestions for reaching American users, I would greatly appreciate your feedback. You are also welcome to create a snowman and share them with your friends.

Thank you for reading.

Hi there! It's the first time that I am making a post so be gentle on me :⁠-⁠D

For the past months I've been working on SketchMate. It's an app that lets you exchange quick doodles with a close friend or partner. One cool feature is a widget you can add to your home screen, showcasing the latest creation from your friend.

The idea was born when my girlfriend and I wanted a simple way to share our drawings, but couldn't find anything quite right. So I decided to develop something on my own.

It took longer than expected and isn't perfect yet but I'd love to hear some impressions. I'd appreciate it greatly if you'd take the time to have a look :⁠-⁠)

• Landing page: https://sketchmate.ninja/[SketchMate ](https://sketchmate.ninja/)
• Video: https://youtu.be/T3Y_EneDAPY?si=StEu1ESrouoiwqf7
• Android app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ninja.sketchmate.app
• Web app (all devices): http://app.sketchmate.ninja/

If you have any questions regarding development feel free to reach out to me.

Cheers!

Marketing For Non-Marketers (a masterclass)

Marketing isn’t complicated or tough.

It’s all about understanding humans.

Here are 7 Human Hijacks to help you understand human psychology

(h/t: Craig Clemens)

Make it about them

1) Demonstrate the benefits.

By joining the conversation they’re having in their mind:

• Fears

• Hopes

• Desires

• Dreams

• Frustrations

Example: how in the 1920s pepsodent made everyone believe that brushing their teeth with their toothpaste is the secret to celebrity smile. Before their ad campaigns ONLY 5% of the people used to brush their teeth.

2) Make it an event

Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd.

People love being part of a group or community.

Herd mentality is an innate quality of humans.

Remember, as a kid, how YOU used to follow other kids’ answer.

And if not (that leads us to our 3rd point)…

3) Rebel

To be correct or different from the crowd.

You’ve to standalone.

Aka have something unique and attractive in your offer.

And USP can be related to better customer service, product quality, and support.

Many consider USP as a rocket science.

But USP is having a slight edge over your competitors.

4) Product in action

People love demonstration.

When you demonstrate the ability of your product.

People perceive it better.

And it helps remove most objections.

Or…

Help establish an idea or a belief.

Eg: rub your tongue over your teeth. Brushing can remove that film you sensed. Thanks to OG pepsodent ad campaign.

5) Show unquestionable truth

Social proof, testimonials, and reviews are a key part of marketing.

It establishes you as an authority in the market.

And make you trust-worthy.

6) Change a daily behavior

✅Breakfast = cereals

❌Breakfast ≠ coffee + bread/muffin

Quaker, with its revolutionary ad campaigns, made everyone believe that breakfast = cereals.

Or…

The concept of bulletproof coffee.

Adding MCT oil to your coffee for rapid fat loss.

However, adding MCT oil has little to no benefit on the rate of fat loss.

7) Selling the dream

You’re not selling product.

You’re selling the dream.

Eg: You’re not selling weight loss pills.

You’re selling confidence.

Give what your audience needs, craves, or desires.

Use these 7 human hijacks to make your marketing message stronger.