I've spent the last four years now trying to start a business on the Internet (working on ideas roughly two hours per day before work).
Each project had valuable lessons (both business and code/architecture) that carried over into the next one. So far I've built:
- bill splitting service (2017)
I spent days agonising over which new framework to use (this was late 2017 after all), eventually learned to just use the tools I knew (react, node, postgres). I didn't really care about the problem space, so shut it down.
- jobs aggregator (2017/2018)
I learned that implementation is meaningless to the user if you're not delivering value. I wanted to copy remoteok.io and make it serverless (effectively free to serve traffic), I didn't realise existing sites provided value via their traffic. The reason StackOverflow can charge as much as it did is the millions of page views per month it receives, creating value for its job posters.
- appointment scheduler (2018)
I built an appointment scheduler, had no real means of attracting users, shut it down.
- room booking service (2018)
Spin-off of the previous idea, but for meeting rooms. Tried to build the whole thing using Google APIs, eventually got stung by API limitations, gave up (learned not to rely on other's APIs without understanding their limits first).
- graphql API monitoring service (2018/2019)
Traction again, couldn't find users (tried in-person sales for the first time, too).
- site speed monitoring service (2019/2020)
Essentially running google lighthouse as a service. had some users, but fixing all the edge cases around chrome/puppeteer/lighthouse across super slow websites was a total pain.
- uptime monitoring service (2021-current)
Doesn't seem to be as useless as the other projects. Has bought me the MacBook Air M1 I'm typing this comment on now.
Rewrote my old graphql API monitoring service from scratch to monitor APIs, websites and web apps, seems to be going well so far. Planning on adding features for incident management. Content marketing/word of mouth brings in the users.
If you want the long story across several articles:
Each project had valuable lessons (both business and code/architecture) that carried over into the next one. So far I've built:
- bill splitting service (2017)
I spent days agonising over which new framework to use (this was late 2017 after all), eventually learned to just use the tools I knew (react, node, postgres). I didn't really care about the problem space, so shut it down.
- jobs aggregator (2017/2018)
I learned that implementation is meaningless to the user if you're not delivering value. I wanted to copy remoteok.io and make it serverless (effectively free to serve traffic), I didn't realise existing sites provided value via their traffic. The reason StackOverflow can charge as much as it did is the millions of page views per month it receives, creating value for its job posters.
- appointment scheduler (2018)
I built an appointment scheduler, had no real means of attracting users, shut it down.
- room booking service (2018)
Spin-off of the previous idea, but for meeting rooms. Tried to build the whole thing using Google APIs, eventually got stung by API limitations, gave up (learned not to rely on other's APIs without understanding their limits first).
- graphql API monitoring service (2018/2019)
Traction again, couldn't find users (tried in-person sales for the first time, too).
- site speed monitoring service (2019/2020)
Essentially running google lighthouse as a service. had some users, but fixing all the edge cases around chrome/puppeteer/lighthouse across super slow websites was a total pain.
- uptime monitoring service (2021-current)
Doesn't seem to be as useless as the other projects. Has bought me the MacBook Air M1 I'm typing this comment on now.
Rewrote my old graphql API monitoring service from scratch to monitor APIs, websites and web apps, seems to be going well so far. Planning on adding features for incident management. Content marketing/word of mouth brings in the users.
If you want the long story across several articles:
- 2018: https://maxrozen.com/2018-review-starting-an-internet-busine...
- 2019: https://maxrozen.com/2019-further-reflections-trying-to-star...
- 2020: https://maxrozen.com/indiehacking-3-year-review
- 2021: https://maxrozen.com/2021-strangers-paid-my-macbook