Ask HN: Side project you're working on?
An open Ask HN community consultation from 2018 where @startupflix convened hundreds of developers and bootstrappers to share real experiences, hard numbers, and tactics.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Participants share raw revenue figures, churn rates, and stack decisions that corporate PR never publishes.
Recurring answers reveal that distribution, not coding skill, is almost universally the rate-limiting step in developer businesses.
Practical recommendations on bookkeeping, payment gateways (Stripe vs Paddle), and freelance-to-product transitions.
Community Debate Themes:
Hundreds of active indie hackers contributed case studies, pricing heuristics, and pitfalls to avoid when moonlighting on side projects.
CATEGORY Ask HN Roundtables →
HISTORICAL ERA Cloud & Mobile Era (2014–2019)
COMMUNITY SCORE 4 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 4 comments
I've been working on some software called Etherate that let's you test (or "rate") an Ethernet connection: https://github.com/jwbensley/Etherate ↗
I use it for testing that devices parse frame headers correctly, that L2 VPNs, rate limiting, QoS etc. are all working correctly.
I sometimes find bugs in routers and switches when I find that they parse certain headers incorrectly.
I have also been working on a multi-threaded version which doesn't provide any header manipulation, it is a pure Ethernet load generator / sinker for testing higher bandwidths: https://github.com/jwbensley/EtherateMT ↗
I have been working on creating a system that reads the stock market for patterns in order to buy valuable contract options, calls in bull markets and puts in bear markets.
The major issue I had was being away from the computer when a trade needed to be made. Now I get in automatically and sell with stops.
Been showing impressive returns for myself. Was not thinking of running it as a business.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17270396 ↗