No, I don't write code at all. I'm in engineering leadership and manage many engineers (devs, SREs, QAs, etc.) but am not a software engineer myself. The goal for me was to really understand the landscape and to be able to confidently speak about the tools from first-hand experience, not just what I read daily. I absolutely recommend non-coders check the coding tools out. If you were trying to become a coder it may not be the best approach to start that way, but if you're someone who has ideas that you want to build and iterate on without needing to involve a coder, and learn a ton about all the design aspects, hosting considerations, etc. it's gold (bit much cheaper).
I know of a social org which runs of entirely on its people's face to face interaction. And, these folks have consulted recently with me about how they can adopt tech to facilitate their ops. I can sit with a LLM and build a platform for them, but idk it will cover the entirety of their day to day nuances.
You can't just throw resources at a road with muddy puddles everywhere and let a autonomous vehicle figure it out all by itself.
A perfect predictable problem is solvable with large resources, but the minute you touch something human, you need a equivalent human judgement to give it the sought after direction.
I have a side project running since last 12+ years. It has about 3k users. The community built around the app makes me happy. I have probably made $120 from it in those years. Money was never how I measured its success.
I understand your point, and I can relate to that feeling. But in my case, I am building this project for two main reasons. First, I want it to help other people earn money instead of making them pay for something they may only use for a short time. Second, I also want it to change my life, so I see it as a real business. If it gets no attention and makes no money, then for me, it would be difficult not to see that as a failure.
I also have a few side apps that I built completely for free because I originally made them for myself and later decided to put them online. Around 100 people now use them with me, and that honestly feels good, so I completely understand what you mean. Thank you for sharing your perspective.
For an app to turn into a sustainable and real business many factors come into play. I'm still pondering upon them myself.
As a founder what did you do differently this time with your new app that increases your odds of making it a success? Did you validate your idea before building or it was just your assumption that people would buy it? How painful or valuable the problem is that you are solving with your app? Is there a demand for your app or are you trying to create a demand too? Are you solving around just a convinience or a painful problem for people to care enough?
About app distribution, are you just hoping and leaving it to luck or you have a plan (even on a budget) to get some eye balls on the app? Many questions to pause and reflect about.
I maintain an online playable version of a antique board game called Baghchal [1] which has origin stories about being native to Nepal since 3000 years. I actually launched this website on HN a decade ago.
I'd like to self-host personal projects as well but haven't been able to figure out way to do it behind NAT and also on a budget hardware. Is there a way to get in touch with you and get some ideas?
I am on budget hardware. Do not let this stop you. I bought a really crappy cheap box for $300 before hardware prices went crazy. My hard drives don't even fit in the case.
As for NAT I use the free tier of TailScale to expose my home network to specific devices in the public world. This way I can play my media or access my files, that are behind NAT, from across the country when traveling.
If you would like to talk more about this my email is in my HN profile. I am always looking for new idea and use cases to expand my Aphorio dashboard app.
How do you securely expose your local services through Tailscale or Cloudflare Tunnel? For eg. Is it possible to expose just web server instance on port 80 and nothing else? Even better if possible to just expose one web service. Also, is it possible to ensure no other local devices are accesible from public?
1. They provide a VPN for your device to their server.
2. They then map that device to a public IPv4 address they own. The address is not static, but TailScale solves for that with internal DNS.
3. The free tier allows X number of devices to connect via a single account. I am not sure how many. Maybe 6, maybe 20. These devices are able to access each other on a private network only available from the VPN. TailScale calls that a TailNet.
4. They have internal DNS for the TailNet, so that you can map a name to one of those IPv4 addresses they provide and connect to something like http://server
5. I have not tried the others, but the TailScale magic DNS does not fully work on iOS. On iOS its all or nothing in that once their DNS is enabled its all you can access until your bring TailScale down on your device. I don't have this problem on my desktops (Windows or Linux) so my desktops are always connected.
6. NordVPN also provides these same capabilities, but they do not have a free tier. I don't know if they up charge for this capability above standard VPN.
7. Most all of these solutions seem to be based on WireGuard. WireGuard is an open source VPN solution, but it does not provide the extra services: IP address, DNS, service accounts, private network.
In summary, TailScale provides a VPN to a private cluster, your private cluster, that can be accessed from any network, due to the public IP, so long as the given device is on the same VPN account or has received an invitation from that account.
If I were a PM at SO, I'd consider pivoting it to a social networking platform for programmers prioritizing relationships, messaging, jobs and interview support etc just enough features to make it not too generic like Linkedin.
Paid expert support in natural extension to bounty based q/a. Also, an AI with human in the loop.
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