HN Side Fund - Profitable Side Projects from Hacker News

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A dead-simple, one-time, online fax service.

A monthly dinner club offering ethnic cuisine with fixed-price menus at various restaurants.

A project that makes money from grants rather than customers, currently in development.

Soundreads

An audiobook streaming service focusing on timeless classic works in the public domain.

A Chrome extension that allows one-click importing of web pages into NotebookLM.

Chrome extension

A macOS app for quickly finding duplicate and visually similar files, designed for photographers and users with large local storage collections.

macOSincremental hashingperceptual image matchingFinder integration

A daily logic puzzle game where users can purchase additional puzzle packs.

A modern desktop database client for developers focused on fast, local-first workflow.

A desktop app that lets users browse, search, tag, and organize videos on local or network drives.

A file management tool that supports multiple storage protocols and plugins, created in response to a comment about Dropbox and FTP.

A tool that simplifies turning Kubernetes environments into a Heroku-like PaaS for corporate use.

An uptime checker for websites with support for APIs, cron jobs, and automated status pages.

React

An advanced educational tool for learning logic gates through hands-on experience, originally developed as a PCB board for teaching.

PCB designweb designmarketing

An Etsy shop selling digital sewing patterns for decorative felt crafts.

Etsy

A service that converts photos into coloring pages for parents and educators using image diffusion models.

Stable Diffusion 1.5

An escape room game app where players solve puzzles in groups, with free initial missions and paid in-app purchases for later missions, featuring a mission editor for user-created content.

A large uncensored AI image and video generator for adult content.

AI-Assisted SOC 2 & ISO 27001 compliance for small teams.

AWSGitHub

Hacker Newsletter

A newsletter summarizing Hacker News content, maintained for 15 years.

A weightlifting app for the 5/3/1 program.

A guitar learning app focused on music theory.

A service that links bank accounts via Plaid to Google Sheets for tracking transactions and balances with customizable templates, used by individuals and small businesses for personal finance management.

Google SheetsPlaid

StationDisplay

A public transportation departure board for Switzerland designed for home or business use.

Shepherd

A book recommendation app that makes it fun to explore books through what other people loved to read.

LeetArxiv Substack

A Substack that teaches programmers how to convert advanced math papers into C and Python code.

CPython

An AI cycling coach that is free for athletes, with the underlying coach logic licensed to human coaches.

AIGPT-3.5

mergecal.org

A tool that merges multiple iCal feed URLs into a single feed.

Django

An app for learning Japanese by reading, tracking words and kanji locally, with features like flashcard integration and content curation.

SwiftUIiOSmacOSiCloudoffline-first architecture

A YouTube channel teaching Python for Finance with affiliate revenue.

Python

A platform for practicing cold calls with a bot to improve skills through exposure therapy.

A game released on Steam where players engage in tornado research and rescue activities.

A platform that provides real-time hard skills knowledge superpowers for tech and non-tech recruiters to better assess candidates, with a bot option for self-conducted interviews.

Unlisted Jobs

A tool that scrapes company websites to find unadvertised jobs, providing users with a head start and daily curated job alerts.

A tiling window manager software.

A platform for employing and tracking children's work to reduce tax burden and fund Roth accounts for families with businesses.

A browser extension that enhances Twitter usability by providing customizable features and settings.

A command-line tool that syncs ChatGPT history with local Markdown files for local-first access and integration with tools like Obsidian.

A board game turned free web app about climate change, originally Kickstarted and now available for play online.

A fitness readiness app that provides route weather forecasting, go/no-go callouts, AI nutrition/gear lists, and tracks progress using smart watch metrics.

A platform for managing fleets of gaming consoles, users, and subscriptions for pediatric hospitals, functioning as an MDM for Xbox devices and users with managed subscriptions.

An iOS app for referencing Air Force publications with improved mobile UX.

iOS

A mail merge tool for PowerPoint that allows users to import data from Excel files for flexible merging into presentations.

TheMapsGuy

A business selling laser-cut decorative maps.

Bottle and Plume

An online shop specializing in fountain pens, fountain-pen friendly paper, bottled inks, and related accessories for hobbyists.

A Mac App Store scanning app that has been maintained for nearly 15 years with free updates.

Apple platform development

Standly

A standing desk companion app for iOS and Mac that helps users build stamina for standing and stretching while working, particularly beneficial for those with lower back pain.

iOSMac

An open-access educational website in Catalan that also sells printable content.

A tool that turns long-form content into structured, personalized courses based on learning preferences.

A platform for Twitter users to place themselves on a map with a bio to find or be found for purposes like friendship, dating, or connecting with new parents.

A training planning and analytics platform for endurance athletes and coaches, offering features like forecasting, training logs, plans, and integrations with various devices and services.

KeywordsPal

A keyword research tool that scans posts across social media sites like Bluesky, Mastodon, and Hacker News.

SideProjectors

A marketplace for buying and selling side projects and businesses.

A website that tracks the value of LEGO sets and minifigures, allowing users to catalogue and monitor their collections.

An app-based attendance service for teachers, coaches, band directors, and conference organizers to track who showed up.

3D printed accessories for the Volkswagen ID. Buzz, including custom models based on owner requests.

3D printing

A pocket music instrument designed by the creator, manufactured and handled by Seeedstudio, with the creator receiving royalties.

Unrav.io

A tool that lets users reshape articles, papers, or videos into formats like mind-maps, summaries, podcasts, or interactive Q&A to aid thinking.

An end-to-end certified mail platform that simplifies sending legal notices like email.

A single API to get odds data from a number of US Sportsbooks.

Universymbols

A tool for creating and restyling feature icons to expand an app's icon set.

A simple buzzer soundboard app built 15 years ago.

A service that delivers a daily Chinese story tailored to your HSK level and preferred themes.

A tool to build good looking hand-drawn style charts.

AI Workshops

AI workshops that make AI accessible to regular people by teaching mental models and communication skills to build products in three hours.

A newsletter delivering weekly software engineering conference talks and podcasts to subscribers.

An AI-powered tool that automates the capture, analysis, and organization of screenshots by syncing them to Notion.

Next.js

An Anki extension that embeds AI, text-to-speech, and image generation to generate example sentences, audio, and explanations for studying in bulk.

AnkiAItext-to-speechimage generation

A product that started as a side hustle and now generates revenue, focusing on user experience and customer service.

A collection of tools generating revenue from courses, apps, community, and books.

A brutally honest city builder game.

renderapp.io

A platform for digital asset management, review, and workflow, focusing on image review for automotive configurators.

Two similar projects using regex to parse eBay item titles and descriptions for disk prices and digital film stock.

regex

An accounting app built as a SaaS for small businesses, originally created to replace a Windows Access application.

A platform for creating and sharing lists, with around 50k lists and 8k users.

Percento

An iOS net worth tracker app built by a former accountant turned programmer.

iOS

A Chrome extension that dubs YouTube videos into 82+ languages and provides enhanced controls for a better YouTube experience.

AIChrome extension

A porn website built as a side project to learn hosting, SEO, and monetization, now generating revenue.

NextjstailwindWordpresscustom CMSVPS+1

Troviamo

A modern tool for automatically scheduling meetings to align calendars, tailored for groups of developers.

An alternative to ngrok for tunneling and reverse proxy services.

Super Fine Cuts

A service offering super low run custom vinyl records with manual processing and automation in development.

A GLP-1 tracker app for iOS/Android that connects health data for real-time AI feedback and insights.

Slouch Sniper

An app that uses your webcam and local AI models to predict sitting posture to prevent neck pain.

A service that helps businesses automate their admin work using Google Workspace products with App Script and Typescript.

App ScriptTypescript

A timesheet and activity report management app designed to simplify administrative workflows, originally for the French freelancing market.

A screener optimized for selling options.

Wallpunch

A censorship resistant VPN for people in China, Iran, and Russia.

FFmpeg API

A REST API for FFmpeg service, now adding MCPs and AI endpoints to simplify command usage.

A scientific calculator for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS with a one-time payment model.

A long-running website with affiliated projects like omiword.com.

An iOS app for organizing and tracking receipts.

iOS

An AI-powered tool for easy photo editing.

An iMessage extension app that helps schedule events and find availability dates within group chats without leaving the conversation.

A front-end SaaS application for analyzing securities and events, aiming to replace platforms like iHub and StockTwits with a bot-free experience for professional money managers.

A service for transcribing and chatting with audio/video content, offering pay-per-use and subscription options for features like AI summaries and insights.

A tool for importing and categorizing bank statement transactions to help users understand household spending.

A catalog of side projects for research and record-keeping purposes.

A sound effects engine for generating audio.

A no-code platform for experienced operators to develop apps and start their own business.

CineQuote

A daily movie quote guessing game that uses audio quotes.

CodeApprove

A code review UI on GitHub for ex-Googlers who miss Critique.

A podcast app designed for flip phones.

A book about modern HTML and CSS to create websites with minimal JavaScript.

A project and inventory management tool for audio visual companies.

ShoppingScraper

API-based tool that converts EAN/GTIN barcodes to pricing information, product specs, content, or images.

A recipe app with subscription-based revenue.

An iOS app that finds recipes using your ingredients.

iOS

AccelPrompt

A tool to generate instructions for different AIs.

A simpler alternative to Nextcloud for users who don't need extensive customization options.

A SaaS platform for photographers tailored to the Latin American market.

A bot application platform

Save For Later

An AI-powered bookmark manager that resurfaces saved content.

Stockevents

A stock events application created around 2019.

An AI assistant integrated into iMessage group chats.

Norma

A tool for curating datasets to capture maximum signal for model training.

PrivacyPolicyURL.com

A service that provides a live URL for privacy policies quickly, typically in under a minute, for use in forms.

An erotic story generator for couples to spice things up, created as a side project.

A portfolio of Slack apps including Nightowl for multi-DM broadcasting and Channitor for channel management and auto-archiving.

A website where users can buy canvas space for private parties to settle scores, generating revenue through ad buys and coffee purchases.

A side project selling photographic prints with detailed income and cost breakdowns.

Provides home sale trends to help buyers make informed decisions.

zine.baby

Software for making small art books with the goal of creating physical books.

replayer

An HTTP request replay and comparison tool in Go for replaying real traffic, comparing environments, detecting broken endpoints, generating reports, and analyzing latency.

Go