Ask HN: What is your hardware side project?
An open Ask HN community consultation from 2019 where @exxybebbi 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 5 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 3 comments
A few years ago, I started making word clocks as presents for people. After a while I started teaching a workshop on how to make a simple clock at a local maker space. Now I have a refined design that my wife and I are producing in our basement and starting to sell at low volume: www.finewordclocks.com
Making clocks is also a great excuse to buy cool tools. We have a probotix asteroid cnc in the basement. I have a 3yo and 6yo. It’s been fun getting them involved in making things. Most of the presents for their friends’ birthday parties are home made (mostly by me but with the kids’ participation) and are REALLY well received.
Building a small computer, powered by a Z80 processor.
Currently I'm in the state where I have a Z80 CPU hooked up to an Arduino (mega). The software running on the Arduino fakes RAM and hardware I/O so I can write simple programs in Z80 assembly language and test it.
I've also managed to get BASIC running on it. The next step is to actually build a real circuit with serial I/O and real RAM/EPROM hardware so it will be standalone.
I have build a set of WebUSB Scales and a WebUSB Label Printer to speed up shipping at my small business. 20 Sec Demo: https://vimeo.com/334547755/c387957a25 ↗