We were constantly having troubles finding files and information in our team. Thatโs when Wildan, our CTO, proposed an idea of building a search engine that could scan all of our apps and find any needed data with a simple title or keyword search.
Within just two weeks, we developed a working prototype that allowed us to integrate apps like Google drive, Gmail, Slack, Notion, Sigma and more to search through them with ease. Though it looked rough around the edges, we were more concerned with obtaining validation.
We reached out to ten companies and were thrilled to find that they all said yes, even paying for a full year upfront. With ten paying customers onboard, we started our private beta in which we got overwhelming support. Oh, we also decided on the name โ Klu.so :)
@sandradjajic ๐ Wow, that's impressive! I love how you were able to turn a common problem into a successful solution. The fact that you got validation and paying customers so quickly is a great sign. So, what's next for Klu.so?
PS: What a cool name :)
Main thing that inspired us to start evoke-app.com was my co-founder finding it near impossible to get an AI to run on his computer (instantNGP).
We wanted to develop a cloud solution but found InstantNGP has a restrictive license, so instead we opted for stable diffusion and here we are today
It started in a very unusual way - I was just looking for a side project to gain product management experience, but it turned out to be much bigger.
Around 5 years ago I've had to change from Law to Business studies and it was a pretty tough journey, filled with many questions, mainly related about my career. Didn't know anyone in the Business field who could help me.
So, I'm trying to have this situation disappear for anyone else looking to change or grow their career, by building one place where you can connect with people who are offering the help you need.
And on the other hand, those who offer services, such as professionals with expertise and career coaches find it hard to find new clients, so this will also help them!
How about you @nareshmeetei ?
@veselin_kostov ๐ Wow, what a journey! It's amazing how a small side project can turn into something bigger than expected. It's such a great idea. I'm excited to see where this takes you!
As for me, I love using design to solve real problems and make a difference in the world. When I started my project, I saw a big opportunity to improve the design quality of B2B products and make them more user-friendly. Today, what drives me is the satisfaction of seeing my work make a positive impact on people's lives. I love hearing from users who say that my designs have made their work easier and more enjoyable. It's what keeps me going and motivates me to keep pushing the boundaries of what's possible with design.
I was inspired to start InterviewJam as I needed a personalized and efficient way of preparing for behavioral questions in Interviews. After conducting several interviews as well, I noticed that people were missing out on opportunities due to the lack of communication about their value add. I wanted to build a product to help people tell their stories, and prepare efficiently.
The shift towards a more privacy-focused future has sparked a renewed drive to develop innovative analytics tools that can operate effectively without relying on cookies.
@mehmet_avci1 That's a huge step forward in creating a more secure and trustworthy online environment. I'm excited to see how you and other developers continue to drive this shift towards privacy-focused solutions. Can you share the website? I'm curious to know more.
@nareshmeetei We would greatly appreciate it if you could review our tool and share your feedback with us. Please stay updated by dropping us an email. Thank you! -->https://usehardal.com/
Love such questions, as there are always so many interesting stories! We are also started TheSprkl for our internal team purposes. For many years on almost all the projects there was a conflict between developing fast and creating good UX/UI. We wanted too make a solution that can reduce a cost but not the quality of the work. That's how we've created our design framework. Passion - feedback and results we see from using it - want to give more flexibility to the community as well.
And what about you Naresh?
@oxana_ivanova ๐ Sounds like you found a way to tackle a common problem in the industry and now you're eager to share the benefits with others! Can't wait to see what kind of impact your design framework will make.
As for me, I love using design to solve real problems and make a difference in the world. When I started my project, I saw a big opportunity to improve the design quality of B2B products and make them more user-friendly. Today, what drives me is the satisfaction of seeing my work make a positive impact on people's lives. I love hearing from users who say that my designs have made their work easier and more enjoyable. It's what keeps me going and motivates me to keep pushing the boundaries of what's possible with design.
Great question. Simply put I couldn't find an app that helped me with my focus and productivity problem so I made one. I'm a big fan of time-blocking, and no app actually did it (this was really surprising). I work day to day as a UX designer so knew EXACTLY how it had to look and feel. And voila, my new favourite productivity app was born. I now use it every god damn day and I love it :)
@nomadpm OK that sounds interesting. So like a slack bot that prompts you? Mines based around a visual interface, you can try out our early version for yourself - there's a link to it in my profile - you're clearly a fan of timeblocking too so I'd love to hear what you think ๐
@nomadpm nice. I mean I don't know about that, but who knows :) . Calendars work because they're visual too. Take that visual element away or reducing it to a command-to-see-it thing could be hard for users to adopt ๐
@therealrossmac ๐ That's awesome! Creating an app that solves your own problem is definitely a great way to ensure it works for you. Plus, as a UX designer, you knew exactly how to make it user-friendly. It's always a bonus when you can use your own creation every day and love it!
I started because I wanted to learn programming in a new way and could not find any resources online. My plan was to study the concepts and languages using notes and flashcards. This started just as a project for myself. A few months later I decided to turn this into a commercial product to earn money and help people learn coding which I think is quite a cool thing. Nowadays I still learn different languages and then I simply turn my notes into a product. I am still learning so my business will extent naturally.
@vimfinn This kind of project often succeeds (solving own's problems). Good luck Finn.
How long have you been working on it? Can you share the website?
@nareshmeetei Been working on it for around 8 months , then launched it on Product Hunt 3 months ago. And sure , here is the website https://www.codingnotes.io/
Solving a real world problem and one that ive felt personally, in my case its the obstacles against startups and SMEs being able to afford adequate cybersecurity to protect themselves!
At the beginning we wanted to solve a very specific problem that had an environmental impact too. We were kind of fed up with unnecessary and unwanted Christmas presents. We looked into data on how much money and resources are wasted on unwanted presents and developed an independent wishlist (didnโt want to use amazon) and then it kind of went from there. When we looked at it from an even more zoomed out perspective the problem space appeared to be very multi-faceted which kept us going. Also wanting to creating something on your on volition probably helps in the long run :)
@nareshmeetei We have wanted to come out with a product for a while and decided to start with the document generation API, it will be the first in a series of products since we want to go from a development agency to a company that offers completed products.
When I was younger, it was all about the dream of money and stature. But, as I've gotten older, it's much more about exploring my passions and pushing technology into new realms. It's more fun this way for sure!
@nareshmeetei Video production is brutally slow, archaic, and expensive. You have to spend 100's of thousands of dollars, wait months, and physically send camera crews/hard drives. Cinebody uses phones to prompt filmers what to capture, that gets sent to the cloud where editors anywhere can make quick turnaround edits for ~$1k in less than a week.
The idea for (https://stare.softr.app/) came from an APM fellowship program and I found many aspiring PMs asking similar questions over and over again and the answers were given in Slack. And that that point in time I knew my niche and thought of creating a knowledge base but the problem was what to include. Went through all the comments in Slack and picked the more frequent ones. Bult an MVP and tested the idea out! and it was a great success!
The idea of people learning from each other's work without irritating or expecting others to help, especially passionate folks who want to keep learning drives my passion.
@saurao_dalvi ๐ That's really interesting how you found a need for a knowledge base through your APM fellowship program and used feedback from Slack to build an MVP that ended up being successful. It's always inspiring to see people learning from each other and helping each other grow.
Today, many projects are planned and managed with ease thanks to the availability of professional online tools. Such tools really inspire managers to initiate new projects and lead them to success. They simplify processes and enhance productivity.
I can recall Trello, JIRA, Asana, and Wrike.
But the most powerful online PM tool for our team right now is GanttPRO https://ganttpro.com/.
I started the project as I was going through the pain myself and have seen others struggling with the same. In my case, it was scheduling meetings internally with a group of people across different timezones. I was doing product management for 8 years, and given that more than half of time goes into meetings (not proud of it), I was scheduling lots of meeting everyday with different stakeholder to collaborate cross functionally. I realised that scheduling is a multi step process, which includes lots of to n fro and takes up lots of time especially if you are scheduling >10 meetings in a week.
I drew the analogy from an executive perspective that they have never have to go through such pain because they have an actual human being helping them for the same which is their EA in most cases. But not everybody in the organisation, not even senior folks in mid sized company have an EA to do this job for them. When I saw my VP Product in 1000+ people company going through the same struggle, I realised that there is something can be done here. And so I picked the phone and had a chat with 50+ people to understand this. What I found this is can be distilled below
- This isn't the problem people looking out for a solution.
- It's not game changer but yeah giving EA to every senior manager will save their time for sure.
So, I'm onto building Jarvis- AI executive assistant for every manager.
It's been almost two months of me building this and I'm loving every second of this journey. The best part is learning curve is so so steep that I keep on wondering why I didn't tried this before. I am determined to launch a closed alpha by April 15 to get the initial feedback. Stay tuned.
My advice for the folks who are still thinking to take the plunge, I would say you have to be in crazy love for the problem to enjoy each bit of this journey and just keep going :)
@nomadpm ๐๐ผ Impressive! It's amazing how a simple pain point can inspire such a brilliant idea. I can't wait to see how your AI executive assistant - turns out.
Keep up the great work and best of luck with the alpha launch in April!
That's invaluable advice there.
For some strange reason, I kept clicking 'Next' instead of 'Play' on YouTube, which led me to launch my first project. I'm hoping this will help others who have faced the same issue as me: https://producthunt.com/products...
Honestly, I work and felt to get the best out of growing, and be ahead of the curve. Working on a project that helps me achieve this to excel and help at the companies i work with more efficiently, consistently putting in the time to not be a bottle neck as much as i can and always use this time to ask questions that i never get a chance to answer during the work day.
It allows me to also experiment with new tech in my own time and just coming out that little bit better and over time having as much comfort talking about topics i wouldn't normally engage in out of not knowing if ill bring benefit to the conversation even if i know that no question should be a wrong if learning is the end goal of the conversation.
Plus, because Im more introverted and always behind the computer, I can use it to get out of situations i am not ready for without others questioning which is a perk at times so my interests always seem to generally get time set aside and i get to work on projects.
@toreanjoel Love the dedication to personal and professional growth through a passion project! It's great to have a space to experiment with new tech and improve skills without pressure. Plus, being able to escape uncomfortable situations is always a bonus ๐
Food and A.I. You read it right, I combined the power of Food and A.I. and made something amazing. With the power of A.I., I made an app that lets you generate recipes based on the ingredients you give it. And itโs not just limited to generating recipes, you can generate drinks, and baking recipes + you can share the recipes generated with the community within the app and even externally.
Currently, Meal GOAT is available for beta testers, and you can download the app by signing up on the website.
www.mealgoat.com
@nareshmeetei Feedback haha, I got a bunch, so just finalizing what will be taken into consideration for the final release.
What are you up to today, Naresh?
And thanks for creating this post, I loved the responses people gave. Super inspiring.
When answering the question โWhat are you passionate about?โ during an interview, remember to always be honest, and when it's appropriate, clearly communicate how your passion would make you an asset to your potential employer. It may feel awkward at first, but don't be afraid to share a little about yourself! https://mexicanpharmastore.com/
Chatbase