Looking for side project ideas

The best products happen at the intersection of an existing niche you are some level of expert in already and a technology that has not yet been adopted in that niche.

I've found one approach work very well with my mentees:

- Figure out which "special interest groups" you are part of beyond software engineering. That can be "aquarium owner", "coffee lover", "morning person", "diligent grandson" — the less technical, the better.

- Among these "niches", find the ones that could benefit from a transfer of technology, like (spitballing here) "teachers who work from home" (education niche) + "automated submission and pre-grading of homework" could work (digital document collection and rule-based checking logic), or "aquarium owner" + "nitrate cycle tracking IoT device" (hardware-enabled analytics) + "optimal light scheduling" (machine-learning-supported recommendation engine).

Do that for all the groups you're part of, and you will find lots of ideas that aren't just "scratch-your-own-itch". They are 'scratch-an-itch-you-understand-and-know-how-to-remedy'.

Please steal any of my ideas! :)

https://www.dailyidea.com/ideas/eric

Some software ones that I like:

1. A nicer web viewer for Google Spreadsheets - https://www.dailyidea.com/ideas/d239cea3-7d1b-429f-afd4-ab9d...

2. Airbnb guest guidebook creator - https://www.dailyidea.com/ideas/d239cea3-7d1b-429f-afd4-ab9d...

3. Thai writing trainer - https://www.dailyidea.com/ideas/d239cea3-7d1b-429f-afd4-ab9d...

4. Instagram account tracker - https://www.dailyidea.com/ideas/d239cea3-7d1b-429f-afd4-ab9d...

MAL - Make a Lisp [0]. This one has been discussed on HN before - its where I found it. I completed it last year (from Jan to May 2019) and ended up with Lisp-a-like interpreter written in C# that is sophisticated enough to self-host (i.e. it can interpret and run itself). I picked it up again when the lockdown started and I am now using it to re-implement some of the classic AI systems described in Paradigms of AI Programming [1]. I almost have Eliza (the first chatbot, from 1966!) running, which has necessitated some thinking because MAL is closer to Clojure than the Common Lisp used in PAIP. I'm also implementing what is in effect a standard library of useful MAL functions.

What I got from MAL was much better knowledge of C#, better insights into the power of lisp-like languages, some intense satisfaction when I managed some of the more complex stages, etc. MAL is progressive, supported by 100s of tests, and an amazing array of reference implementations in a huge number of different programming languages.

[Edit] My side-project before MAL involved downloading the Unity game engine and using it to explore the different aspects of game development. I discovered that I really enjoyed asset creation and in particular lighting and shader design, and (long story short - totally bizarre trajectory) ended up creating a tutorial for the Octane render engine that has had actual sales! If I was going to look at games again I'd probably start with a simpler engine such as Godot [2]

[0] https://github.com/kanaka/mal/blob/master/process/guide.md

[1] https://github.com/norvig/paip-lisp

[2] https://godotengine.org/

1. Write down the apps on your phone or computer that you use the most. If you want to bootstrap a profitable business, I recommend listing the apps you use for work.

2. Write down the one feature for each app that you use the most within that app.

3. Write down what slightly annoys you about that one feature

4. Build the product around the one feature you feel you can cook up quickly and that will benefit your workflow

I would probably get downvoted for this..

It's very rare to find those "scratch your own itch problems", the solution to that itch is most likely a google search away.

Pick a good product that you use and clone it. Keep an open mind because you can never copy the entire business since there is only so much you can see. Atleast you get some direction to start and you know that you are not trapped in building something people don't want.

Since you mentioned making your skillset strong(technical?), either way you win by just starting something.

Do something challenging but not too challenging. It should be hard enough that you can learn something without being so hard that you give up.

Some classic computer science project ideas:

- Build a path tracer. Physically-based rendering is a topic with lots of information on the Internet. It requires some math, but at least it's fun math :)

- Write an operating system kernel. It doesn't have to work on real hardware, just QEMU. You could even run it on a very old PC, Raspberry Pi, or TI calculator. This is a good introduction to how OSs work. Again, there's lots of courses and pages full of information online.

- Write your own programming language. Combine ideas from existing languages. You can make an interpreter, a JIT compiler, a single-pass compiler, a nanopass compiler, or something completely different.

- Combine multiple projects! Make your own programming language run on your own operating system and write a path tracer in your own language! Be creative, have fun, and learn useful stuff.

I'm currently working on a progressive web application for support workers in care homes.

I've seen through first hand experience how much paperwork there is in this setting (daily outcome charts, medicine administration records, abnormal behaviour records, dietary and fluid intake, etc) and how many clerical errors there are. I've also seen first hand the key-document-dependency there can be around service user files, communication notification booklets for staff, etc, where changes often happen synchronously and are forgotten because the document isn't available in the moment.

I've spent the last 4 months or so taking a sabbatical from working as a software engineer to work for £9.00/hour at a support home for people with mental and physical disabilities (think Down's syndrome or people who are unable to live in an independent setting). As a result I now know an awful lot about this setting, the people who work in this industry, the minimum feature set I would need and the legislative landscape these companies operate in.

The best way to find a profitable side project is to become familiar with a none-technical discipline which is direly in need of modernisation. If you don't want to take time out of work, then choose an industry (it could be tree felling, red-brick manufacturing, shale oil extraction or solar panel installation) and figure out what the problems are plaguing the companies, staff or end customers.

There are so many $1,000,000,000 companies out there just waiting to be founded in areas which are considered unsexy and don't involve yet-another-to-do-list application. Find one company, with one problem, fix the problem, there's your profitable side gig.

- Make things that solve problems you have.

- Make things that seem interesting/fun to you.

Borrowing ideas from other people seems unlikely to be very engaging, and making things just to learn skills has the same problem.

Lacking side project ideas seems kind of incomprehensible to me, as I have far more ideas than I could ever put into practice, even if I didn't need to work for a living. Therefore, I suspect you do have suitable ideas, but maybe aren't recognising them as such for some reason?

Scripting repetitive or annoying things is an easy place to start. Maybe start with simple website-improver GreaseMonkey scripts, to fix things that bug you, or make your life easier?

Consider building completely ridiculous, useless things. It removes any mental pressures towards commercialization/viability and shifts the activity from more like work to more like art, which can open up space to flex the skills you want to flex.

I don't want you to take this personally, but your post seems very low effort. How can we devote time to helping you if you only put 10 seconds into making this post without reviewing it?

For one, writing skills are important. You will have a hard time selling your project to anyone on its merits if you write incomplete sentences with lackluster English.

Second, you haven't taken the time to list out what your strengths and domains are, therefore HN can't leverage its vast knowledge to point you in the right direction.

If you want to build a useful project, you'll need to be more detail oriented and persuasive than your post here. Take the time to do things right. Feedback is worth its weight in gold, and you've given us zero to offer feedback upon except for your scanty quick query.

What tasks do you do manually in your life/job that is boring? Automate it wherever possible.

Help users of nonprofits understand them better - watsi, Kiva etc share data that can be visualized in a variety of ways.

Teach (blog, video etc) - this is especially effective in topics you already know, but have gaps. Teaching forces you to clear those gaps.

Do exercises from project Euler, Rosetta etc

I counted at least six mistakes in your question text, so I would recommend you to work on your writing skills. Luckily, writing is a universally useful skill, and almost any side project you pick should give you an opportunity to practice writing.

If your goal is to 'make skillset strong', then I assume your want to learn. It's hard for us to guess what your interests are, so the most straightforward advice would be to join an open-source project that uses the desired technologies (language, framework, etc.) and go from there.

There's usually an issue-tracker and mailing list for the project to get some contact with other devs.

Pick an issue that has attention and which you feel you can understand. Replicate it, then try to solve it.

It's impossible __not__ to aquire new professional knowledge in such process.

It's also ok, to drop it and try to find another project, perhaps, more up to your present skill level.

The more you try, the more you'll learn...about yourself.

I think it's important to find feasible projects. A full stack project will probably be left unfinished. A way to find projects is to do tasks that you'd at work if you didn't have deadlines and were allowed to do more exploratory work.

That said. If you like nodejs, you might try to do a Babel plugin. They would allow you to do meta programming and it's an area mostly unexplored (because of the great breadth). In my case that was https://github.com/furstenheim/babel-plugin-meaningful-logs to improve error messages.

If you like java and use Intellij, give it a try at creating a plugin. You'll be able to simplify your flows. Since it's mostly self tailored it will be most probably not done. It's not extremely hard, in a couple days you might have something workable. In my case it was adding support for ZPL language, which is very niche. But most probably you can find something tailored to your dev experience.

What's your level? Are you a beginner or do you already have some experience?

Also: What's your language, your target market? Suggesting a backend project for a frontend language or vice versa doesn't help you much.

In general, start with a game. You can be as creative as you like, there are no limits. On the other hand, you can keep it as simple as you feel comfortable.

That said, if you have some experience, look for an open source library that needs support. You improve the library, you improve your resume and you will get constructive feedback.

- I would suggest make a small app with just basic crud operations. It should have a front-end, backend and a database and then work incrementally to the other steps mentioned below.

- Use k8s to deploy and run your app.

- Add more business logic where you will be needing more tools like elasticsearch, message-queues, etc.

Some examples from the top of my head are Stock Ticker app, Ticketing software like Zendesk, Food delivery App, etc.

Note: Start small, add one feature at a time.

Build an app for finding lost pets with facial recognition. Recognizing cats is the easiest thing for neural nets, yet I haven't seen it used for lost pets yet.

Basic idea, if my pet is lost, I open up your app, upload a few images of my cat and set a monetary reward. On the backend your neural net learns how that specific cat looks like, then other users of the app can snap pictures of random cats on the street and the app will tell them if that animal is lost or not. If someone snaps a picure of a lost cat, they'll get connected to the owner and the reward is transfered, the app can take a small cut of it.

It can be difficult to find a worth while idea. I feel that it is important to come up with the idea yourself so that you feel more committed to it, but that might just be me.

Look for something you are passionate about, or for something that is useful to you. The idea doesn't have to be unique or original. For example, there are apps that track your run time and distance when exercising. Some of these apps collect your data. You could create an app that tracks your run so you know your data isn't being collected by a company.

Build something that you wish you had, not what you think people need.

Build something simple, and make it a product/tool that doesn't require many active users to work, aka, doesn't require a network effect.

I built http://feedsub.com for this reason. Only a few users, but it indexes thousands of feeds and I make plenty of use out of it for myself.

My current project is deploying this app on a Raspberry Pi based cluster, and I'm going to write all the software for this myself to learn distributed programming.

This was written in part to prompt people on HN to think about gig work platform ideas that actually enhance the lives of the workers:

http://writepay.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-textbroker-solution...

I've also previously talked about the fact that I live without a car in the US and when I was researching what small town to move to and using Google maps to try to figure out how to get there, if it can't give you a full solution from point A to point B, it will not tell you "There's a train that goes to X city, but that's only halfway" and it doesn't cover commuter bus routes between local cities.

I routinely went on Amtrak's site to find out how close I could get by train and then began searching for local transit options of some sort. I eventually found a solution and a city to move to and all this, but I was homeless at the time and spending all day at the library trying to figure out solutions to my problems.

As far as I know, there aren't any good apps for "How do you get there from here without a car?" for the US. Google maps does not have this problem space sorted and they seem to be the overall best solution (that I'm aware of) for finding out how you can get there from here.

Well in my opinion you should create something that helps yourself (!) - not others. Think of your all day life - some things you do pretty often and try to find a project, that really would help you. If there already is a great open source project for your purpose (and probably there is), you could try to get part of it... improve things... read code (which is a good way to get a better skillset!).

Targeting a better skillset or developing just for making money most of the time does not result in good ideas or products - but a project of personal interest will motivate you for a long time.

Personally, i created software, that i always wanted to have, but did not find something, that fitted all my needs - and it is still fun to work on it... e.g.:

  - A simple tool to transfer files
  - A tool to improve scanned document images and create a pdf 
  - A tool to convert audio files

Just my 2 cents.

a different take: why not look for existing abandoned projects that need a new maintainer. every year we have thousands of new ideas that will never survive in the long run so why not help out on something that already has a user-base but doesn't see updates? maintaining an existing system, and making it better might not give you the same glory as inventing something new, but imvho it should.

e.g.:

slide #46 and #47: https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/packaging-tutorial/packag...

https://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/

https://wiki.debian.org/Teams

I am working on spark tickets. Perhaps boring, but useful for others. Sometimes if you have no ideas, you can help out other projects instead.

Start a community for helping people ideate on side project ideas.

The CAD/CAM space is pretty out of date. Modern tooling in that space could be highly valuable. That said the industry is not that open to new ideas.

Build a teleconferencing app tailored for parties rather than meetings. The needs of parties are very different than meetings. I'd suggest there be a central channel where everyone can participate and talk, with the video on that channel being something that sets the theme of the party (a bonfire, a movie, a performance). Then it should be extremely easy to click on participants and engage one or a few in conversation. Perhaps those side video conversations could bleed into the main channel (maybe audio only) so that people in the main channel can overhear and potentially decide to join in. Think about how people interact at parties and try to tailor video conferencing to work better for social gatherings. Security should be built in to reduce worries about privacy so people feel free to talk; no routing of everything through a central server, peer to peer only; recording should be only by consent (though there would be no way to stop analog recordings). There are a variety of video streaming libraries that might make building such an app easy. It should be trivially easy to understand and use. I think it might almost be possible to use existing teleconferencing apps if everyone could join two channels, the main channel and a side channel, using two devices, e.g., a laptop for the main channel shared by several people, and individual phones for the side channel for smaller conversations. Coordinating all that and explaining to people how it works might be difficult though, so putting it all into one app with an intuitive UI would be useful. There may be issues such as how to deal with audio feedback noise and easily joining and leaving side conversations though. You don't want people to have to send invites and accept them to set up a side conversation, you want it to be instant and easy.

Even if the coronavirus ended tomorrow, I think this would be a popular and widely used application.

TheMask01 from here on HN posted a project they had created called https://decentdrops.com. While browsing this really great tool, I noticed the domain name EasySVG.com was available for registration.

Maybe an online tool for making SVG files from various types of image formats built on this fantastically brandable domain name?

Perhaps you could develop an open-source self-hosted tool for neighbours, communities and groups to connect, share info and support each other during quarantine.

I posted this a while ago and it never received attention: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22604275

Create cross platform GUI library for Rust programming language. If you succeed, at least you will be very famous.

This is derived somewhat from a post on HN, and it would be really hard to pull off... but, An intermediary between all the automated bills you pay and your credit card. I.E. Comcast is going to bill me $89 I get a notification asking me to approve the automated payment.

I've been wanting to create a side project that I can expand and hire people back in my home country (there are tons of college graduates but because the country is a third world country, there aren't many tech jobs).

My goal is to bring a change on how software is developed using lean methods and based on user research and feedback so the devs aren't looked as sweat shop cheap labor from Asia.

I'm having trouble because I'm not sure how I should start. I don't think I'd want a VC to be involved. There are some great ideas here, I think approaching people and asking them about their problems and empathizing is not easy as an engineer myself but I'm learning.

Any pointers appreciated

If the goal is to improve your skillset, then maybe try building a real-time multiple game. You will learn many different skills, including:

- Graphics: Displaying 2d/3d graphics, using the GPU, shaders, etc..

- Multiple Clients: Dealing with multiple browsers or OS's

- Realtime Communication: Multiplayer will require sockets or web-rtc to provide a realtime experience

- Database Tech: Depending on what DB you choose, you'll learn CAP theorem and other trade-offs.

- Algorithms: Developing gameplay logic, rendering logic, AI logic.

- User Experience: Making the game fun, getting feedback and implementing sugguestions.

Making a game is also very satisfying, which is important to prevent burnout during the project.

For me it was just looking for a procedure that annoyed me so much that I just had to build a tool to fix this.

Why do we still have to open our calendars, look through endless event notes to copy and paste a link into a browser that then launches the native meeting app? That's why I built an app called Meeter [0] for that.

[0] https://apps.apple.com/de/app/meeter-fast-call-initiation/id...

https://github-help-wanted.com/

https://what-to-code.com/

Have your pick

Take any of mine you'd like: https://github.com/cretz/software-ideas/issues

Have a look through all the different side projects submitted here

https://www.sideprojectors.com

See if you can make something better. :)

a simple search engine in 200 lines - https://gist.github.com/selimslab/7d63349e4e247fbcf7ff9dd01c...

a simple blockchain in 100 lines - https://gist.github.com/selimslab/4ea8e87792dec4e23ecedfd435...

One side project idea I am working on is a web application starter kit that may be up and running in 30 minutes, with more than 10 fundamental features for every web app. I think it can speed up the time to market of other web app based side projects. It is available at https://turbovar.com/turbovar/index.jsp

I wrote a mildly successful article on the topic: https://filipesilva.me/blog/12-ideas-for-programming-project...

I include a, not very scientific, evaluation of each idea according to profitability, complexity and complexity. Also some real examples of each idea.

Give us a list of keywords to help you: languages you want to use, hobbies you have, stuff like that. We will try to come up with an idea

Do something you want to do. That' sit. It doesn't need to be something that whose point is to make your skillset stronger. Just have fun, and don't back down from any challenges. Having fun is a huge part of learning, and if we're driven out of interest, it's even better. So, do what you WANT to do, and the rest will follow suit.

Is there something that is annoying you? Do you know there is a better way to do it?

I've spent part of the pandemic automating OpenAPI spec with minimal annotations needed for an API. I was annoyed that the existing solutions wanted more annotations than actual code, when all the information OpenAPI/Swagger needed was already right there in my code. Just an example.

You could start with teaching what you know.

I've been doing that with https://alchemist.camp (screencasts for learning Elixir), and it's been a great side project. It's pushed me to learn more than I would have otherwise, built up a (small) profile online and generally lead to good things.

Check out https://trends.co/

They release their research on upcoming trends. Some articles are awesome and lots of people seem to start side projects based on it. In addition, the community and FB group are solid. You can meet lots of makers if you have questions about a specific industry.

I'm sure these already exist in some shape or form, but anyway:

1. Grep, but as a web service for RSS/Atom feeds. Allows to filter a feed based on search terms, or by author, or by length of post, etc.

2. A feed reader (as a web service and mobile app) that specializes on YouTube (etc.) videos, with current playback position sync and other video-specific features.

auto generate react ui code based on drawing in emacs artist mode http://www.lysator.liu.se/~tab/artist/ . I don't have time right now else i would have pursued it.

Here is a list of profitable ideas for reference https://www.profithunt.co . I found it helpful to skim through because it isn't a list of shiny cool ideas, but projects that actually made money

Edit: add https to the URL

Many innovations are two existing things combined in a novel way (phone+computer=smartphone, home+hotel=AirBnB, carriage+motor=car)

You could list things you are familiar with or use regularly and see if combining them in a novel way sparks the idea for an innovative product.

I also struggle but find that if I choose a few libraries and tools that I would like to make use of, I try and build a project around them - doesn't have to be anything in particular, just a kind of playground for the cool libraries and tools.

Check out the cool stuff happening in the distributed web space, as well as the Protocol/Platform Cooperative movement

It's all open source, and I believe we will go into that direction very soon!

Projects like Holochain, IPFS, DAT and Holo-REA

Not sure what's your target, so it's really difficult to make suggestions.

A few things I might do in the near future: a PyQT tilemap editor which supports limited random generation; Reading CSAPP3 and work on the projects.

https://github.com/ellisgl/keyboard-schema (or any other of the repos could always use help. Haha)

I am putting together a crm and data extractor with nomad/consul/fabio. I feel there is a lack of good content on how to build cloud solutions with proper security. Feel free to reach out.

Bunch of random ones I’ve come up with https://www.are.na/tmm/random-public-ideas

If you're interested in politics and transparency, we're looking for help over at https://www.govtrades.com

Please build a decent vms for residential use. I will pay for it.

Very simple. Create something that saves a group of people time in some way. Let’s say making it easier to research something / like a product they’re interested in.

Saving time = value.

No comment on the ethics of it, but: go to freelance sites (such as upwork), and look at what people are requesting. Lots of good (and bad) ideas are on there.

Maybe build something to learn something. Ask yourself what do you want to learn. Then go down that path.

Try to make the goal short yet difficult.

I have an idea but still not implemented yet. Make a webpack plugin to have file-based routing like Next.js.

Find something that you repeatedly do and try to automate it. Create things that save time.

Meta advice: don't try to solve a problem you haven't personally had.

Make an automated bookmarking service based on your browser history.

Build things for other people you like or care about.

1. Build an adblocker for locast.org

Make something you want.

If you have no idea, why do you want to have a side project? You are taking it backwards, a project is the expected solution to a problem you face. You need to find something to solve, then what can be a project will be obvious.

I think you could improve your English if you have some free time.

That's a good skill to have!

Cynically, this post could have been: “you aren’t going to work on that potentially lucrative or rewarding idea, stop hoarding it and give it to me.”

Isn’t this also “I need a product-focused co-founder”?