A while ago, I submitted a request for feedback on a weekend project I had, designed to help you wake up more refreshed. I called it sleepyti.me [ http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1781423 ].
I didn't expect too much to come of it, since I created it originally to learn jQuery and for my own personal use. Through the feedback and improvements suggested from my HN post (and later a reddit post), I launched and became mildly popular on Reddit and StumbleUpon.
These days, I'm ramen profitable--a small webapp isn't a startup, but the supplemental income from the occasional banner click is nice. I serve approximately 30,000 hits per day according to Google Analytics, and I've been covered by several news outlets and blogs (LifeHacker, MSNBC, The Toronto Star, TheNextWeb, CNet and more). I even had a brief affiliate agreement with a YC company, but unfortunately the terms didn't serve either side as well as I would have liked--we parted amicably.
It seems that sleepyti.me has come full circle - HN was the first community to ever see the site in action. Without the encouragement of the few comments I received here and on reddit, as well as the inspiration of all the awesome projects HN members created, this never would have happened.
I'd be happy to answer any questions you guys have, or listen to any suggestions - I'm thinking about putting an FAQ on the site for common issues, but haven't gotten around to it yet.
It gives me a motivational boost to know that such a simple thing that I (think I could) hack in less than a day (with all due respect and everything) can be ramen profitable, especially when it seem that more can be built from this.
A while ago, I submitted a request for feedback on a weekend project I had, designed to help you wake up more refreshed. I called it sleepyti.me [ http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1781423 ].
I didn't expect too much to come of it, since I created it originally to learn jQuery and for my own personal use. Through the feedback and improvements suggested from my HN post (and later a reddit post), I launched and became mildly popular on Reddit and StumbleUpon.
These days, I'm ramen profitable--a small webapp isn't a startup, but the supplemental income from the occasional banner click is nice. I serve approximately 30,000 hits per day according to Google Analytics, and I've been covered by several news outlets and blogs (LifeHacker, MSNBC, The Toronto Star, TheNextWeb, CNet and more). I even had a brief affiliate agreement with a YC company, but unfortunately the terms didn't serve either side as well as I would have liked--we parted amicably.
It seems that sleepyti.me has come full circle - HN was the first community to ever see the site in action. Without the encouragement of the few comments I received here and on reddit, as well as the inspiration of all the awesome projects HN members created, this never would have happened.
I'd be happy to answer any questions you guys have, or listen to any suggestions - I'm thinking about putting an FAQ on the site for common issues, but haven't gotten around to it yet.