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I launched 17 side projects. Result? I'm rich in expired domains

• __alexander 1y ago
  > I’m rich in expired domains Haha. Thanks this made me laugh. I also know the feeling of being rich in expired domains.
• sturza 1y ago
  Anything you want to do differently next time? Like find a representative user and build until you solve that problem?
• module17 1y ago
  Keep pushing.
• billy99k 1y ago
  We've all been there. I lost track of the domains I registered for a great business idea and then let them expire.
• dustincoates 1y ago
  This is timely, as I've got a domain expiring in the next week. It's a .bingo TLD, so at $50+, I'm going to just let it expire. "Vibe coding" has actually been a boon for me on this front. Fewer than 10% of my side projects are serious and 95% of it are static pages, so there's no big security concerns to worry about. Most of them are joke pages anyway, which I've started calling "Sht Coding," as in Vibe Coding + Sht Posting.
• poojasinha12 1y ago
  been there
• jonplackett 1y ago
  I have now reached the point where I won’t buy the domain name until I get a prototype ready. I’ve only bought one domain name since then and got the project out! I think the domain name is your reward for finishing your minimum viable product.
  • LanceH 1y ago
    I think of this as the "garage band problem". Imagine a bunch of teens deciding to make a band. They come up with a name, make t-shirts, even get the cover for the bass drum -- but how much did they actually play? Personally, I'll snag a domain if it's really good -- like one word or a proper combo of words, spellable, etc... I won't set it to renew, though.
    • cpursley 1y ago
      I love this take
  • geldedus 1y ago
    never bought a domain until i had the first production version ready
    • jonplackett 1y ago
      So pessimistic
  • cornfieldlabs 1y ago
    > I won’t buy the domain name until I get a prototype ready. Me too. I learnt it after 6 expired domains
    • OldfieldFund 1y ago
      I learned after 600. Or did I? :)
      • 1y ago
• goqu 1y ago
  I'll say as long as you’re not repeating the same mistakes and each project teaches you something, you’re getting closer to the exit of the maze.
  • deadbabe 1y ago
    Honestly I doubt this. You can learn endlessly and never get any closer to succeeding in something. It’s like the developer equivalent of people who keep reading business books and case studies and going to network events because they want to start a business. After 1 or 2 failed side projects, you should have learned roughly 80% of what you need to know. A few more might get you the next 20%, but 17 failed projects is likely not teaching you anything you couldn’t have learned before, you’re just wasting time at that point. The optimal amount of failures before a successful project is probably about 3. After that, you need to seriously consider that maybe you just don’t have what it takes and move on. Otherwise you spend your whole life chasing something that will probably never happen, and avoiding better opportunities.
    • jon-wood 1y ago
      I think whether your take on this is correct depends on why people are doing side projects. Personally I do them for fun, there's some tool I kind of want to use, or a new programming language I want an excuse to play with. The side project is just a vehicle for that rather than something I expect to become a source of income. I've got way more than 17 failed projects, and that's fine, because the project was never the point.
    • hellojesus 1y ago
      > Otherwise you spend your whole life chasing something that will probably never happen, and avoiding better opportunities. I'm also have a decent graveyard of domains. I've all but accepted that I'll never create anything of value in my life or even anything awesome. But the dark side of that is now there's no point to being alive, so I'm planning to die. What are these better opportunities you referenced? Anything that will make a life of mediocrity bearable?
• dcminter 1y ago
  Ha, I wrote this the other day: > I think it’s part of the procrastination cycle; buying a domain name feels like progress towards the goal, but is incredibly low effort, and thus feeling like I’m making progress I wander off and get attracted to the next shiny thing. So, yup, except that it sounds like you typically make more progress than me! Edit: Context is https://paperstack.com/hntags/ https://paperstack.com/hntags/
• dage212 1y ago
  [dead]
• fourneau 1y ago
  We should start a club with the amount of us in the same boat... what should our domain be?
  • volkk 1y ago
    foreverwip.com
    • 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y ago
      ghostridingthewip.ai
  • jve 1y ago
    underconstruction.com
    • lurn_mor 1y ago
      www.awebsiteyouwillnevergoto.org
  • cpeterso 1y ago
    Matchmaking service for swapping unused domains with other side project hobbyists.
    • abrookewood 1y ago
      lol, that might actually work!
  • kukkeliskuu 1y ago
    projectgraveyard.org seems to be available
• sitzkrieg 1y ago
  i feel this when i get porkbun emails w expirations nearly every month. i have a lot of cool ones i tried to give away or at least start the conversation w a few relevant sites but i guess that seems weird to randomly get
• thorio 1y ago
  Sometime it's funny to look at the packages list of your domain provider and realize for example, that at some point in the past I was indeed convinced "thewienerway.com" would one day be the go to merch shop for everything around wiener dogs :-). Okay, there were some beers involved...
• jimhi 1y ago
  Yep https://dare.fail/ https://dare.fail/ but also at least finish the things
• th1nhng0 1y ago
  We are on the same boat
• moralestapia 1y ago
  RIP I have my own graveyard here moralestapia.com It's a hobby, like any other.
• whatamidoingyo 1y ago
  Of course. I had like 50 domains at one point. There's nothing worse than an auto-renewal hitting your bank account on a project you gave up on. In 2025, with new vibe-coding projects being pushed every second, I think it's not even worth the time unless you have $$$ upfront for marketing (and/or a massive audience). Otherwise, you're wasting your time.
• barrell 1y ago
  Man I built an app a while back called Kanji Plus. The idea was to build a small side project to generate an income, then use that to fund my magnum opus, Phrasing [1] I built the prototype in a weekend. I spent the next 8 months turning it into a product people cared about. As soon as people started using it, I realized I was going to spend the next 10 years beating around the bush on a product with a very low ceiling. I eventually decided to build Phrasing [1]… and kanji plus just kind of disappeared. Dependencies updated, subscriptions expired, service providers went offline. I feel bad because I sold some lifetime memberships - genuinely expecting to just leave it on the internet forever - but man, apparently websites don’t do that out of the box anymore. Luckily the entire product of kanji plus will fit nicely as a feature in Phrasing, and it’s written with the same front end tech so it should be a very simple copy paste. 2 weeks of work max (famous last words). Still, I feel really bad that people paid me money and the service just went offline. I didn’t know I was being so naive just expecting things to work for more than 6 months unattended. If any old kanji plus subscribers are reading this, please feel free to get in touch. I’m planning to give all my old supporters a free lifetime membership to phrasing once it’s ready to go! (a membership tier that will not be available to the general public) [1]: https://phrasing.app/ https://phrasing.app/
  • freeone3000 1y ago
    I would not subscribe to your new app that is not yet finished when you have a previous product that was cancelled without fanfare.
    • barrell 1y ago
      I think that’s fair! The question was greatest fails though, I would say that is par for the course. Check back in 10 years though, Phrasing will still be running, and it will have had all the features of kanji plus for 9 years and then some :-)
      • NetOpWibby 1y ago
        See you in 10 years! https://archive.is/gnhIi https://archive.is/gnhIi
• rorylaitila 1y ago
  12 years into my graveyard of side projects and making a modest income, nothing has ever "taken off", but I have survived. I yearn to be "pulled" by the market inextricably, but that is unlikely. The reality is almost every business (and I mean almost every one) is "pushed" up the hill, interminably, like Sisyphus. Even my most successful clients never feel "ahead". Something always breaks in the business model, given enough time.
• donatj 1y ago
  I created a rule almost ten years ago that I won't buy the domain until I actually have something to host, and it's done me reasonably well. I however have a similar but more expensive problem, I develop side projects to an MVP and leave them up for literal decades with no one but myself using them, paying for the domain and hosting. I can't let things go. I rewrote a number of things in Go recently so they could scale down to zero on Fly.io and save me some money. For example though I have been developing a note keeping SaaS for fifteen years. It fits my own needs perfectly and I use it every day, but everyone I have ever had try it has bounced in a couple minutes. I literally removed the sign up after GDPR scared me in 2018 and never put it back. I should put it back, everything is client side encrypted and I don't keep any PII. I have an ad free emojipedia-esq tool, a tool for making API controlled README badges, a tool for converting MIDIs into print outs of colored sheet music for children's keyboards, a joke API, so much more. I did accidentally let the domain expire for my Wordle knockoff where you guess the soup based on the ingredients. It never worked very well anyway.
  • parpfish 1y ago
    if i search for a domain and it's available, i feel unreasonable pressure to buy it IMMEDIATELY. I'm paranoid that some squatter can tell which domains i'm searching for and they'll swoop in and get it as soon as they know there's one interested party
    • cornfieldlabs 1y ago
      > I'm paranoid that some squatter can tell which domains i'm searching Don't search on GoDaddy. I read somewhere GoDaddy raises the prices of high value domains by choosing them from searches
    • quesera 1y ago
      I do the same. And FWIW, your (our) paranoia is justifiable. As mentioned in another comment, GoDaddy is historically-notorious for front-running domain searches. ICANN tried to make that a bit less practical, but I just assume that they (and other sketchy registrars) still do it. If you search directly through whois (i.e. from the command line), you should be OK. That's been my strategy, and I think it works.
• jdonaldson 1y ago
  I once owned both cakefax.com, and faxcake.com. I was going to corner the market.
  • ted537 1y ago
    Is this happy-birthdaying a fax machine or what? haha
    • jdonaldson 1y ago
      I didn't think very deeply into this, but it would involved these steps: 1. You send me a pdf 2. I print it out on white sheet cake and deliver it. 3. Profit?
  • devoutsalsa 1y ago
    The corners have the most frosting!
  • codazoda 1y ago
    I want a fax on my birthday! Sign me up.
• zamalek 1y ago
  I recently went and killed off ~10 domains :). Current project: something like eww[1], only using lua and a UI idea that I think may actually be ergonomic in Rust (immediate/imgui style and actors). Maybe I'll finish it this time. One the other hand, I have a great idea for CI and it's an itch I am currently suffering... [1]: https://github.com/elkowar/eww https://github.com/elkowar/eww
• LeifCarrotson 1y ago
  > I buy a domain name → I code for 3 all-nighters → I lose interest → I start again. At least you're actually doing the "I code for 3 all-nighters" step! I've stopped too many projects at the "I buy a domain name" stage, and added an intermediate "I create a Trello board" step between that and starting to write code. No need to pull all-nighters, which are hard to do with family and a full-time job, if all I need to do is add a card to a feature wishlist. Maybe prototype a few key functions to see how they work, wireframe a unique piece of UI, or follow the tutorial to create "hello world" in a new framework, but it turns out that those steps are also optional. The problem seems to be that my brain gives me a dopamine buzz for merely _imagining_ accomplishing the project, whether or not I eventually implement, publish, and get users for the it. I can give myself a similar cognitive reward for simply reading on HN about other people completing projects, and even (at my lowest) passively watching YouTube videos of other people building cool stuff. It's all the mental rewards of participating in a group project where the tribe accomplished something great, except I'm barely in a parasocial relationship with a dude on Patreon or Discord a thousand miles away who actually performed 100% of the work. Maybe he likes my comment "Nice work! I really liked how you did [thing], have you considered [alternative strategy]?". Maybe he even comments back. Bang! Neurotransmitter pump engaged, dopamine boost received. It's a scary thing to realize that you're doing this, and very, very hard to train yourself out of those bad habits. I find it's important to write down and consciously review my daily/weekly/monthly/yearly goals, my productive and unproductive activity towards those goals, and my actual accomplishments. It's too easy to get addicted to fake reward loops, whether because they're engineered by social media companies who make money off my attention span or because brains are just vulnerable to low-effort high-reward stimuli. What did I do in July? X hours of Reddit, Y hours of HN, Z hours of Youtube... and a half dozen things I'm actually proud of. (Note to self: Don't get too excited about upvotes or replies to this comment, acquiring HN or Reddit fake Internet points are not part of my actual goals and should not be considered real accomplishments.)
  • busssard 1y ago
    i actually buy the domain name at the end. i am stingy. which means i do not buy domain names as i always loose interest after some allnighters. but the code base remains until the motivation returns
• DWBH 1y ago
  Adderall?
• mschuster91 1y ago
  > My Google Domains look like a graveyard of unfinished dreams. So does my github or the 5 rack servers in my homelab lol. At least the servers aren't running and consuming power 24/7
• zabzonk 1y ago
  Why buy a domain at all these days? Can't you simply use github?
  • devoutsalsa 1y ago
    github.com is taken, but github.mx is available!
    • dudeWithAMood 1y ago
      How did you figure out that was available? Searching just for, "github" on domain searches didn't pop that up but you were correct. I scooped that up because I could :)
      • devoutsalsa 1y ago
        Haha, I just looked on a domain registrar. Maybe Microsoft will buy it from you :)
        • dudeWithAMood 1y ago
          We'll see what happens!
  • cschep 1y ago
    no.
• wonkyfruit 1y ago
  There's one Peter Levels, and I don't even think he's actually Peter Levels. I think he's a dude who went viral, so now anything he does gets traffic. ALWAYS, it comes down to one thing. If you built the best thing in the world, and no one visits it, then it's a "failure" at least in terms of earning anything.
  • OldfieldFund 1y ago
    It's not so much about what you build, but about the "secret sauce"/marketing that most people who actually succeed big time will never reveal.
• bugjoey 1y ago
  I'm a person just like you, I have dozens of side-projects around. The difference is that I've never went "far" enough to buy domains for any of those. But I have a decent half-baked AI based investment portfolio manager, one month of hard work (nights/weekends) dreaming of selling it for a bank. Projects of such complexity are impossible for people stuck in the ordinary life (job/family). PS: I'm not complaining - I love my family. But it demands energy.
  • parpfish 1y ago
    sounds like you just discovered a product niche: build an AI to do all your family stuff
• paulwilsonn 1y ago
  This feels way too real. I’ve done the same , bought many domain names, got super hyped, coded for a few nights… then lost interest. Now I’ve got a bunch of random projects that never saw the light of day. But honestly, I learned a lot from each one. Even if they didn’t go anywhere, I got better at building stuff. And who knows, maybe one of them will work out someday. Glad I’m not the only one doing this.
  • dashdashu 1y ago
    I've got ADHD and that has been my whole life - an endless list of side projects and hobbies that were hyperfixated on in the beginning, drained of all dopamine and then abandoned once it actually became "work"
• anyg 1y ago
  I was going down the same path and that's why i bought a domain to use as the base for all side projects, Pieter Levels style. If it takes off, i can then find a separate domain for it.
• geminiboy 1y ago
  I have been doing this for the past 15 years. Countless domains have been bought and expired worthless after I lose interest. Vibe coding actually helped me get a few projects out of the door finally! But even now I can't resist the urge to buy a domain when I get an idea for a new side project.
• Brajeshwar 1y ago
  Hello brother from a different mother. Luckily, I sold some of high-priced domains a while back. So far, in my 15+ years of the cost of buying domains have yet to cross the amount that I sold them for. That keeps me going and I feel happy. Of course, I have also let domains expire just to realize that the registrar is re-selling them for high single-digit thousands of dollars. And, I bought my last domain less than 10-days back. Built a landing but left it to research further and talk to customers. :-)
• parpfish 1y ago
  tangential question for the HN side-project crowd: i have lots of ideas for fun little side projects that would never be revenue generating. i'll go on a tear and start building it, but when it comes time to figure out how much it'd cost each month for domains/cloud services/etc I talk myself out of it. I'm not talking about big LLM bills here, just things like $25/month for the database, $10-50/year for a domain, etc. I don't think it's just that I'm being cheap, it's that I don't like the idea of having to pay for something in perpetuity. Because that leads to me thinking about how long I plan to keep it active and when I'll sunset it. And once you start thinking about that before you've even launched, it's pretty easy to conclude it's not worth the time to build it given its limited shelf life. If I could just do a one-time upfront payment I'd probably go through with it. The solutions to this are either buying a server and self-hosting (no thanks) OR making peace with having a recurring 'goofy computer stuff' monthly bill. So... how much do yall spend each month on your side-projects? Having some numbers would help me contextualize and justify this
  • cornfieldlabs 1y ago
    I have had a single cheapest ec2 server at 5$ per month and hosted both db and server in it. Sqlite for db so easy to back up. It didn't contain any important data though. I ran many projects in it
  • titusjohnson 1y ago
    I have an old Mac mini in a closet that runs Ubuntu and serves as a Dokku [1] host. My side projects run for free and are accessible inside my network or if I'm on VPN. If the project gets enough love eventually it'll graduate to public hosting and the transition is easy because the app is already built with deployment in mind. I have saved so much money over the years just not having to pay $20/mo * IDEA_QTY. The Mac mini doesn't take much power and is dead silent. [1] https://dokku.com https://dokku.com
  • lelanthran 1y ago
    What's wrong with a single domain and a $5/m VPS that keeps both DB and application on it? I ran a paid business app on a $5/m VPS. No complaints. If your $5/m VPS cannot handle some load, then that's when you upgrade it. And, TBH, at the point that your $5/m VPS is at 80% load on a paid product, you're already getting a few thousands of dollars of revenue from it anyway.
• Spastche 1y ago
  >But honestly, I've never learned so much, nor enjoyed it so much. that's all that matters. it's important to enjoy the process of making things.
• niklasbabel 1y ago
  tldr: looking for a partner i know how to start. i know how to ship. i don’t know how to pick what’s worth staying with. and i still don’t know what my next thing is. i’ve shipped real SaaS apps. – https://truereviews.co https://truereviews.co // OAuth-based verified customer reviews. – https://refersend.com https://refersend.com // Referral tracking via email for non-digital industries. – https://postpov.com https://postpov.com AI-powered content machine for professionals with AI content simulation. if you’re also in that “smart but tired” phase, DM me or reply. maybe we can get out of it together. here’s the pattern: i sprint hard. i get it live. i stall. not because I’m lazy. b/c promotion/selling burns me out way more than building. i’m not some weekend hacker. i’ve been a Chief of Staff, a founder, a fixer, a builder. i’ve managed up, down, and sideways in a real company. i’ve coached teams. i’ve been coached. it’s helped friends escape the corporate treadmill. i still don’t know what my next thing is. i’m not writing this for pity. i’m writing it because i see myself in this post, and maybe someone else sees themselves in mine. niklasbabel.com
  • ChemiSpan 1y ago
    > i sprint hard. i get it live. i stall. > b/c promotion/selling burns me out way more than building Describes me perfectly. Engineer with 7 years exp and can build anything. Let me know if you'd want to chat. My most recent project: deepswe.io
• theanonymousone 1y ago
  I have one 4-letter domain to which all my side projects are subdomains :)
• yomismoaqui 1y ago
  The trick is just buying 1 domain and putting every project on a different subdomain. Apart from this I see myself represented in this post.
  • pan69 1y ago
    Yes! Build a "platform". I learned that as well. Also saves your from having to come up with snazzy names for your "new product" as you can just name it after its function, notes.mydomain.com
  • cs02rm0 1y ago
    You can do that for the odd small tool, but you can't launch GreatNewThing™ without having it's own full domain! Except it never gets any users. I suppose the plus side to spending months rather than days on projects that never go anywhere is I have fewer domains. Only 7 here. Sigh.
    • al_borland 1y ago
      PuTTY is hosted from a user home directory[0]. Maybe having a fancy URL isn’t everything. [0] https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
    • yen223 1y ago
      I like to remind myself that Wordle, when it went crazy viral, had a domain that was very unmemorable https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/ https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/ Not having the "right" domain is never the blocker
  • codazoda 1y ago
    I do that, but I’m never satisfied.
• cornfieldlabs 1y ago
  > And the famous "anti-social media social network" (spoiler: it was just me). Haha we are building one too! Got any advice for us? Here's the waitlist page with all the features: https://waitlist-tx.pages.dev https://waitlist-tx.pages.dev Email is in profile if you want to connect. Thanks in advance! I myself have left 6 domains expired over the last 4 years so you are not alone! 3 are from this year alone Now a days I don't buy the domain until I have actually set up the server with the codebase. Project might get dropped just before that. It has happened Edit: I feel validated after reading the replies. I am not alone!
• kassner 1y ago
  Thankfully I got domain-sober before the 2012 gTLD round, otherwise I’d have gone bankrupt from renewal fees. A tip to everyone: subdomains are free, and you can set up a 301 redirect once the project gets some traction. As others have mentioned, I only buy a domain once there is some traction, or when I start getting organic/indirectly referred traffic.
• 8200_unit 1y ago
  I am in a similar boat. My problem is that once I lose momentum on a project I have no interest in every revisiting the work I have done. Sometimes it is a full day of coding, sometimes it is a couple continuous days coding. Once I break away from the computer and start living life it feels like to much work to load all of the project back into my brain. I would finish more projects if I didn't have friends, family, a house, or a life and sometimes I wish for that.
  • baduiux 1y ago
    I think that the problem is not that you lose momentum but rather that you start with momentum. I prefer having a clear mind and no need to rush (this happens when I’m excited about the project / have the initial momentum). This helps me a lot at deciding what I want/need/should/must do and what not. It also helps me to prioritize the project over/below family, friends, and house. It helped me a lot that every time a have a new idea or want to start a new side-project that I wait at least two days before I dig deeper and get really started. Only then I really know if I really want this or if it’s just the initial hype/momentum.
• matt_opmistro 1y ago
  At least you've got the building + pivoting down! Looking back, how do you think you did on the marketing/sales front? I don't mean the results of the efforts but I mean the input front. Curious if those pivots were caused because the problem addressed wasn't painful enough, the solutions didn't address that pain well enough, or if it was simply distribution. If the former two, I imagine it's only a matter of time until you strike gold. But if it's the final third, there's a chance one of the 17 could have worked out well.
• heathrow83829 1y ago
  is anyone else here tired of building products for which there is little to no demand? What if we started with a product idea for which we know there is demand for: things people are already paying money for. For example: apples, or tires, or etc. something you know people are paying money for. and then try and either build that product or another product that makes building the product easier.
  • mr_mitm 1y ago
    I just build things for myself, so I know the demand. I call it me-ware. Works for me, and once or twice it also worked for others, but if it doesn't, that's fine, too. Of course I don't charge anything, I just release it as FOSS. The thing is that figuring out how to realize an idea is the fun part. Making it into a polished product that others can easily use with proper documentation is as important as it is tedious and exhausting.
    • heathrow83829 1y ago
      i love the term "me-ware". I've done that many times too! my interests are too weird so no one's interested in the projs i'd do.
  • kassner 1y ago
    That’s called product-market fit (PMF), and once any product reaches that stage (in other words: it’s proven that people will spend money in such solution), it’s a race to the bottom in terms of costs/building it cheap. Unless your market is location-dependent, most of the time the incumbents have waaay more experience, so the only advantage you can bring to the market is a lower price, as the first expansion any incumbent will do is to higher the price band with better quality offerings. Think about stuff like an Air Fryer. Convection ovens had been in the market for several decades. Someone (Philips? I’m not sure they were the first) proved there is a market for a smaller counter-top convection oven and all of the sudden there are Air Fryers from literally any supermarket brand out there.
• karmakaze 1y ago
  I only once finished the development and deployment of one product. It was complete down to landing page, pricing, signup, automatic provisioning, and billing. Then it came down to producing customers not artifacts and I ran out of steam. I posted on Product Hunt and a few other places but never took it further. I'm glad I did it once as a solo dev, but now I know how far I'll go on my own.
• msephton 1y ago
  I'm similar but my ratio of prototypes to launching is higher. I find it helps to pace yourself, it increases the chance of finishing exponentially. But the most important things is good scoping and resisting gesture creep. After 35+ years I'm now really good at both. My list of projects is at https://www.gingerbeardman.com https://www.gingerbeardman.com and details of my 2023, the year one of my projects got Game Of The Year, are at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39636937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39636937
  • corentin88 1y ago
    You built emojipedia? I’m impressed. By the way the link is broken on your website.
    • msephton 1y ago
      No, I built a standardised macOS Dictionary of emoji affiliated with Emojipedia, with permission. Link (to majorly outdated GitHub repo) fixed, thanks for reporting :)
• stillsut 1y ago
  Currently working on a python package: agro. It helps devs build parallel agents from the cli. (think claude code, gemini, aider) And simplifies the git workflow for testing and accepting the best solution. Check it out: https://github.com/sutt/agro https://github.com/sutt/agro I keep a little text file pr.txt and try to link my project to HN / X / other aggregators once a day... This way I spend a few hours each day coding, and a few minutes each day promoting and refining me message.
• NetOpWibby 1y ago
  My most recent one was a social network: https://socii.network https://socii.network Stopped working on it because Mastodon is good enough for me. I had a Handshake domain registry/registrar: https://neuenet.com https://neuenet.com Stopped working on it because Andrew Lee tried to take over the blockchain. An analytics tool: https://chew.sh https://chew.sh Gauges shut down and I enjoyed that service. My previous domain is now owned by someone who's last name is Chew, which is cool. Forgot I just let https://design2code.me https://design2code.me expire because I didn't put in the work to get my name/services out there. --- I'm currently working on https://nickel.video https://nickel.video and think I'll stick with it for awhile. I also registered https://neue.host https://neue.host a few weeks ago, with the idea that a lot of the side projects I had in the past would actually work as a collection of services.
• steinvakt2 1y ago
  https://munin.watch https://munin.watch It offers searching in transcriptions of all Norwegian podcasts in (roughly) real-time. Also offers subscribing to alerts, for example if anyone mentions your business name. Launched some days ago
  • itsthecourier 1y ago
    great work
    • steinvakt2 1y ago
      Thanks!
• ei23 1y ago
  yeah, totally me as well.
• glax 1y ago
  There were 6 domains that were bought by me in the last 12 years. side project, business partnership, personal music streaming site, serverless blog. It's hard to do if you have a regular 9 to 5 and also some other hobby(I'm into motorcycles :D). Only remaining domain is of my name pusparaj.com (but it's in auction mode) I have also lost ownership 2 times or more i think, because i tend to rotate registrars and forgot to renew it. now 3 domains are remaining, will let them expire.
• henriquegodoy 1y ago
  Ever thinked on automating this process of creating this side projects? i think that more and more future feels like a lot of ones having really big swarms of "agents" that can like research about ideas on the internet (like finding problems on twitter, reddit, ... that a saas can solve it) and a team implementing and deploying since from code to marketing in a frenetic rhythm
  • vivzkestrel 1y ago
    I dont know about research but I am building a production grade python and express application generator. For express, it would create an empty project with a README, setup typescript, setup path aliases, setup ts-node, setup linters and formatters with all required scripts, setup testing libraries, setup multiple environments aka dev, staging, production and testing and then setup logging that works differently on each environment, creates docker containers for each environment that works differently again, sets up integration tests for redis and postgres, sets up github templates for feature requests, issues, pull requests and adds github actions and gonna set up instant deployments to AWS at the minimum and see how that goes. Once this tool is fully ready, it would take you about 30 seconds to generate a full blown production grade application that works with the latest dependency versions. Everything is run inside docker and verified that it actually works. Gonna make SaaS a real breeze after i integrate ORMs and payment gateways with email providers to this
• danudey 1y ago
  > I buy a domain name → I code for 3 all-nighters → I lose interest → I start again. That's ADHD for you. A former coworker of mine lamented this - "I start so many projects or hobbies, but just when I feel like I've learned a lot I lose interest". I had to point out to him that his hobby isn't - whatever, sheep shearing or book bindery or underwater basket weaving - but rather his hobby is learning things. That's a common thing for ADHD people, absorbing all you can in a rapid amount of time, devoting every minute of thought to something, and then suddenly completely forgetting it exists until you get the domain renewal notice. At least you (seem to) have (some degree of) acceptance of the circumstance and recognize the benefits of this behavior rather than just focusing on the drawbacks; too many people have this behavior and think it's a personal failing, when really they just have a different hobby than they think they have.
  • ropable 1y ago
    > his hobby is learning things. I've rarely felt so seen.
  • karaterobot 1y ago
    I don't think it has to be ADHD. I don't have ADHD, and none of my friends have it that I know of. We all start things we don't finish, though. I was going to post some of the more ridiculous domain names I've purchased for personal projects, before I realized I'd be doxxing myself. Too bad, there are some good ones. I think in many cases, we fail to finish projects because it's so much easier to start than it is to finish. The first 90% is easy, as the saying goes, but the second 90% is much harder. And I use the word 'fail' advisedly. I think it's fine to not finish everything you start, but it's not good to never finish anything, ever. Not if your intention was to finish it anyway. I think finishing things is a crucial skill, and we need to practice it in order to get good at it, and we won't do that if we tell ourselves it's about as good to give up as it is to keep going. ADHD is a real diagnosis, but I'm hesitant to pathologize not finishing projects, since that will end up being an excuse rather than an explanation for a lot of people.
    • MrGilbert 1y ago
      However, as it can be a valid indicator for ADHD, it is fine to do a test, like[1] offers. It's difficult to diagnose adults, but I was surprised to see a quite high rate of matches in the test. I share the same "problems" as OP: I quit projects because I was able to solve the problem at hand. [1]: https://www.adxs.org/en/ https://www.adxs.org/en/
• slackpad 1y ago
  I ended up using one of my more generic domains (https://www.modulecollective.com/ https://www.modulecollective.com/) and then launching things as <product>.modulecollective.com. It's a little wordy but it's free and creates kind of a natural place to catalog things. I figure if any of them take off then I can go buy a better name later and move it over, having the old one redirect. That would be a good problem to have :-) That particular domain was going to be like a Netflix DVD style subscription product for Eurorack modules but I never even ended up trying to build that after buying the domain.
  • abrookewood 1y ago
    I think this is perfectly valid. Why waste the resources until you've proven it out?
    • slackpad 1y ago
      Yeah - I think early users are going to click on a link too and don’t really care. If you were really advertising or something with traction you’d want a nice domain but I don’t think it would hurt early adoption of little saas tools.
• WheelsAtLarge 1y ago
  I suggest you don't code at all. Do a very detailed mind map of the project. It will include, the users you are targeting, what's the goal -- why are they better off with your project, how will you get customers, and there is so much before you start to code. As a learning project, copy a successful project and mind map it, program it and find customers. You will learn so much that you can apply to whatever project you come up with. You'll get frustrated because you will need to go out and learn a lot but power thru it. You'll be better off for the hard work. Good luck!
  • monkmartinez 1y ago
    L.A.M.E.[1] !!!! 99.9999999999% of the fun is the code. [1] Lacking Any Major Excitement
• ill0gicity 1y ago
  I've been attacked by name. Yes, very ADHD.
• clocker 1y ago
  Its almost like impulse buying so I call it impulse coding. I have done it before I am sure will do it again.
• neilv 1y ago
  I register my side project domain names on Namecheap now... partly because they have a marketplace for selling the domain when I decide to scratch the launch. (Most recent example: I made an unreleased browser extension for HN, the MVP feature of which is to let you block annoying users, such that any of their comments are replaced with poop emoji. But since I can't put an AI spin on that, to attract funding or job offers, I'm better off selling the domain names, and not spending any more time on it.)
• tnt128 1y ago
  My advice: It’s probably not that you’ve lost interest in your project — it’s more likely that you don’t know what to do next and you’re defaulting to your comfort zone: building the product. Here’s an easy way to test this: imagine your product suddenly takes off — it gets picked up on Reddit or Hacker News, you start getting lots of users and feedback. Would you still feel uninterested? Or would you find yourself energized, working late into the night to improve it? That thought experiment reveals something important: there’s a gap between building a product and getting people to use it. You haven’t figured out how to bridge that gap yet, so you stay in “builder mode” — because it feels safe and familiar.
  • elpakal 1y ago
    IDK, you can stay in builder mode on the same idea. I’m getting old now and I wonder if there’s something in this whole persistence/keeping at it thing VCs love to talk. Not because you eventually figure _it_ out, but because sticking with an idea makes people see you believe in it and then they eventually think they should check think about it.
  • sincerely 1y ago
    Thanks for sharing this ChatGPT message with us
  • huey77 1y ago
    Advice invalidated. Em dash detected!
• al_borland 1y ago
  I made the mistake of buying a 10 years for the last one I bought. I used it for maybe a few weeks. Now I have to wait the better part of a decade for it to expire.
• mococa 1y ago
  I was the same page 2 years and half ago. Now I am full on my 2D engine (besides the paid work of course)
• bberenberg 1y ago
  I build all kinds of “useless” stuff. Recently I did a LoungeBuddy clone[0]. Prior to that I made a bunch of other things you can see at [1]. I toss things on domains I happen to own if it makes sense. Sometimes they live on a path of an existing domain. If I don’t need the thing anymore I recycle the domain for something else. I’m fortunate enough that I can afford to pay this tax on my entertainment. [0] https://www.tacavo.com/ https://www.tacavo.com/ [1] https://abrega.com https://abrega.com
• bpiroman 1y ago
  For me its when I have to knuckle down and fix up my CSS lol Enjoy my side project unfinished beauties: https://www.adfreetube.com/ https://www.adfreetube.com/ https://qmaps.io/ https://qmaps.io/ https://propertytracker.net.au/ https://propertytracker.net.au/
• RyanOD 1y ago
  Started creating a library of retro game clones built with PyGame for people to use as a learning resource (I was learning too). I built a crummy clone of Pong and a near pixel perfect clone of Frogger...and then lost interest. But, I'll likely come back to build another some day when the mood strikes me. https://retroclones.com/ https://retroclones.com/
• alain34 1y ago
  I buy a domain name but struggled to find the time to work on it, so I put it up for sale as a holding page. I have accumulated a collection of... https://www.bankaccountstatements.com https://www.bankaccountstatements.com https://www.customerdatavalidation.com https://www.customerdatavalidation.com https://www.customerdatavalidation.co.uk https://www.customerdatavalidation.co.uk https://www.confirmationofpayee.co.uk https://www.confirmationofpayee.co.uk https://m.emori.es https://m.emori.es https://www.bankaccountchecker.com https://www.bankaccountchecker.com Grab yourself a bargain if you are interested to complete the project.
  • codazoda 1y ago
    Does it work? I’ve considered using this strategy after my 3-day bender (like op) and then three months of trying to gain traction. Instead of just letting the domain rot and expire, I could put up a for sale sign, like you did.
• anitil 1y ago
  My approach is usually: start building the thing -> 'hmm a DSL would really make this easier' -> 'hmm I think it needs a custom parser' -> project dead
• gzer0 1y ago
  The best way to phrase this would be, information seeking as a form of procrastination itself. I first remember reading this phrasing here on HN and I've been using it for years to explain to others that what I am doing is not "work", its just a hobby.
• wj10000 1y ago
  I developed more than 10 websites, but each domain name was not renewed after 1 year.
• joshdavham 1y ago
  Is it just me, or did this sorta read like poetry?
• webprofusion 1y ago
  It took me about 20 years of normal employee/contractor office work alongside creating a side project every few years, to eventually find the side project that would take off. In the end it was a weekend hack to make something simpler that turned into an app release, which a year or so after that turned into a business. Sometimes people have a great idea, build it and feel entitled to success with it, but it's largely about relevant eyeballs. If enough relevant eyeballs find your thing and use/buy it then it's a success. It's quite easy to launch something that gets lots of views on launch, but there has to be a reason to come back (sticky apps/content). I've also built several things that could have been good but I lost interest and ironically the thing I work on now is arguably one of the most boring topics conceivable, but perhaps that's why few people do it well.
• bufferoverflow 1y ago
  [dead]
• LastManStanding 1y ago
  Do you have ADHD? You're not alone.
• jongjong 1y ago
  I launched about 7 most requiring about 2 years of relatively intense night and weekend work. About half are still going but none making money atm. Only one made me actual passive income for about 3 years.
• jus3sixty 1y ago
  I tried to start a hot air balloon business, but it never really took off.
• phendrenad2 1y ago
  I also keep quite a few domains around because I tell (lie) to myself that someday I'm going to do something really cool with them. I greatly reduced this by repeating to myself, like a mantra: "If you ever make it, a domain will be available".
• palata 1y ago
  IMO building a side project with the goal that it will take off (and to hopefully get rich) is not the right motivation. Spoiler: it probably won't take off and you probably won't get rich. Minor survivorship bias. Work on a side project because it's interesting (e.g. you want to learn the tech) or because it's useful to you (i.e. you want to use it). Not because it may make you rich. In the former case, you may lose interest, but that's okay: you've learned in the process. In the latter, if you get to a point where you can use it, it's really rewarding.
  • kassner 1y ago
    My most successful side project to date is one that has “always-free, no-ads” as a motto, so it will always be a money sink. Sometimes I spend a week refactoring core stuff, sometimes it stays forgotten for months on end. I still come back to it when I want to test some ideas, mostly because it has a decent chunk of data to feel I’m “solving problems at scale”.
• asah 1y ago
  Meh. This is why I own a couple of throwaway domains: I just put new projects on subdomains.
• kwar13 1y ago
  It's kind of my addiction. This is the latest project: https://www.proteinmath.app/ https://www.proteinmath.app/ And this is a couple weekends ago: https://www.danesh.app/ https://www.danesh.app/ Let's be friends! I've hacked couple websites with other people before and honestly the learning itself is worth the time even if the project doesn't take off.
• Madmallard 1y ago
  I have tons of projects partly made or finished but small in scope on my personal site: https://www.mallardgames.com/ https://www.mallardgames.com/ Maybe some of them could make money, with more polish and marketing. Who knows! I have never tried. I just make whatever I feel like.
• countfeng 1y ago
  I also launched 11 projects and harvested 11domain names that no one visited.
• antilisp 1y ago
  I only "finished" 2 projects yet. Before that, i only started them and lost motivation after ~2 weeks. The projects a wanted to do were cyclic though, so i often came back to restart things i had left unfinished. It took me time to change that, but the main thing i did was starting with extremely limited projects, that i knew i could finish in 2 weeks. I did very basic things at the beginning, like hosting a pure html website (but it was by first website i hosted, with nginx and certbot). Sometimes i would get back to it and improve something, like styling, text, SEO,... I say "finished" because the bottleneck is finding users, not the code. So i still work on these projects, but not at the same speed.
• Keloran 1y ago
  I am the same, the most recent side project is [Flags.gg](https://flags.gg https://flags.gg) A feature flag system, that has a ton of agents for various languages on [Github](https://github.com/flags-gg https://github.com/flags-gg)
• ratsimihah 1y ago
  Used to be like you, now I focus on creating high conversion landing pages if I'm trying to build a project for profit, and only build the full idea if I get enough sign ups. Another thing I do more, which I find hard as a developer but somewhat more rewarding, is talking to potential users. Sometimes it makes you realise your ideas are crap haha. But it's a different thing to build for fun, which I tend to do less these days and want to do more. And agreed on the learning side. Building full-on projects is the best way to learn. I've picked up so many skills that have landed me new amazing jobs, i.e. that's basically how I transitioned from a native iOS developer to a full-stack React/React-Native developer. Keep building! and don't forget the user side :)
• gibs0ns 1y ago
  I typically get stuck on the marketing stage. Far too often I build a project, only to get ready to deploy it, then struggle to think of a name/domain for it. Then coupled with the thought of struggling to market the project, I end up fizzling out at that stage. If I already have users of the project, then I'll deploy it as a subdomain and forget about it until a user complains.
• dzonga 1y ago
  what I have found out works -- have a domain you're particularly interested in & go deep into that domain like it's the only domain that exists. forget everything else. the whole too-many side projects is for indie-hacker influencers like levels who make money on notoriety. for the rest of us -- going deep helps.
• Rumengol 1y ago
  That's why I put all my projects as subdomains of the only one I've bought, this way they just hang in there. So even though rumengol.net has nothing (procrastination, yay), there are 5 (soon 6) subdomains with active or dead side projects in them.
• nathias 1y ago
  I have lots of abandoned side projects at 1-5% and one at 80%.
• kukkeliskuu 1y ago
  Somebody should do a website for the graveyard of incomplete projects, so that if somebody wants to work on a certain idea, they can find a potential partner.
• christoph123 1y ago
  I sank three years of side-project time into a project that was doomed to fail if I would've faced reality and thought about distribution more. Better to stop after three days than three years ;)
• jt2190 1y ago
  I’m also curious: Is there a side project that can be created from being “rich in domains?”
  • kassner 1y ago
    Sending spam seems to be what most end up doing. Given this issue[1], one solution is to value domains based on age, that would create a new economic dynamic around domain squatting, favoring older players. One can dream… 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44656115 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44656115
• emrah 1y ago
  Finishing the last 10-20% to release a project and then getting enough eyeballs on it are infinitely harder than creating the app, and I'm finally experiencing it first hand
• linakk 1y ago
  test test
• sunnybeetroot 1y ago
  It’s impossible for you to have a Google Domains graveyard. As of 10 July 2024, all domains were migrated to squarespace. https://domains.google/ https://domains.google/
• seydor 1y ago
  We ve all been through this
• david_li 1y ago
  I totally understand how the author feels. I'm currently working on a project myself, and most of my spare time has been devoted to it. Honestly, there were times when I wanted to give up, but I just couldn’t — maybe it's the sunk cost, or maybe it's just stubbornness. The deeper I got, the harder it was to let go. But in the end, I stuck with it and finally launched it recently on Product Hunt. If you have a moment, feel free to check it out — I hope it can offer you some motivation to keep going too. Product Hunt: https://www.producthunt.com/products/icorner-2/icorner-2/launch-day?utm_source=my-products https://www.producthunt.com/products/icorner-2/icorner-2/lau... Welcomet to https://icorner.net/ https://icorner.net/
• Shypangz 1y ago
  Starting so many projects can feel like an endless loop of unfinished ideas. You might want to try using MailsAI to automate follow-ups if you ever decide to launch a cold email campaign for one of them. It helped me keep things moving without getting overwhelmed.
• Cuesta03 1y ago
  [dead]
• Crystalin 1y ago
  Are you ENTJ ?
• Jotalea 1y ago
  similar thing, but I don't have as much money as you. the result? one domain with a /test/ folder with 25 different files, one for each project.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• george_srs 1y ago
  Why not create one umbrella domain and host your projects on that? That is my approach. Or rather, it would have been if I actually launched anything.
• larsmw 1y ago
  Been there too. I have not count of them anymore! :D A Search Engine, a CMS, an OS, a webserver.. :) Currently my hobby is a CRM system on github under the name CaRMen (larsmw) Keep on exploring. Suddenly you hit a nerve that others will follow.
• domainx 1y ago
  I am domain investor since early 2000's who has plenty of domains to start those side-projects that'll never finish in this lifetime. Nice to meet you bud! ;-)
• youxwa 1y ago
  I purchased multiple domain names a few months ago, but I’ve only recently launched my first website.
• p0d 1y ago
  My advice, make a time machine and travel back 20 years and take your side projects with you. I made a thing 18 years ago that has been making money ever since. If I made it now I would be like an apple in a barrel of apples. If it's a business you are looking to build then learn to do business. This was my problem and why I made a 6 figure sum over 18 years and not 7.
• flippyhead 1y ago
  I've started and abandoned loads of projects! I started to notice that, often, ONLY after putting in considerable effort would I discover competitors or other projects doing the same thing. Sometimes this would get me down. Other times it would motivate me. Either way I got sick of at least not knowing from the beginning. Naturally I started a project to scratch this itch, which aims to help me quickly know in advance if my dumb saas idea is already* out there, so I can then go focus on building, customers etc. * https://already.dev https://already.dev
• wainguo 1y ago
  Haha this hits home. Just renewed a 10-year domain to build a tiny website screenshot tool for my non-tech friends. No login, no tracking, just “paste URL → get image.” https://websitescreenshot.online https://websitescreenshot.online, Will anyone use it? Probably not. But I love it anyway. Most of my side projects end up as ghost towns too, but each one leaves a trail of git commits, lessons, and a bit of joy. Keep building. We’re all in the same club.
• huncyrus 1y ago
  I had side projects that died because the market shifted. When I was in middle school, I managed a small website for tabletop RPGs on a very limited market (a small European country), and the community was extremely toxic and kept copying my work and replacing the name in it, so after like 6-8 years of battling, I decided to close it. Now, after more than a decade, I plan to reopen it, uploading again my old stuff there as archives. I still have the domains.