Maker Neal Agarwal has been launching these types of side projects for a few years now and aggregating them on this website.
They range from interactive visualizations of the Universe to how many yachts, Big Macs, and NBA teams you’d need to buy to spend all of Bill Gates’ money.
We can go on, but we have Neal to speak on that.
Let’s take Earth Reviews, for instance. Tell us a bit more about that. How would you describe it and what inspired you to build it?
The idea came from two different trends I noticed. One trend is that an increasing number of people seem to believe that we live in a simulation. And the other trend is that almost everything is now reviewable, from Uber drivers to mountains to pets. So combine those two trends and it makes sense that we should be able to review everything on Earth.
If life really is just a simulation, we should try to give the devs some feedback! Maybe we’re still in Early Access. And if we don’t actually live in a simulation, then at least now we have a place to vent.
You’ve launched 11 products on Product Hunt. Which one are you proudest of and why?
I’m quite proud of The Deep Sea project. It was my first attempt at making something more educational and at using the unique features of the web to tell a story. I think it’s really resonated with people since I still get messages about it daily. It’s also being used in classrooms and has been featured in some museums and exhibits.
I really like the idea of creating “web-native” stories, or stories that can only be told using the unique features of the web. I think it can be taken a lot further than I have done so far, and I’m excited to continue experimenting.
Scrolling through Earth Reviews is kind of addicting. I’m curious as to how it all works. Did you use something like GPT-3 to generate those reviews? (For context, one of my favorites can be found under “babies”: “Gross. Cute for a week, maybe a month, then it’s just like get on with your life baby. Who are you and why aren’t you leveling up, weirdo.”)
All the reviews on the site are real, believe it or not! Over 250,000 user reviews have been submitted since the launch in April. Apparently, people have A LOT of opinions about living on Earth, which I really should’ve seen coming.
I’m terribly behind on moderation and have only been able to comb through around 20,000 of the reviews so far. I am actually using GPT-3 to help moderate the reviews though, so I fine-tuned GPT-3 to help spot high-quality reviews and surface them for me. I also hired a part-time moderator to help get through the backlog.
That’s crazy. What are some of the challenges you’ve faced while building these projects?
I love making sites with weird and uncommon layouts, and so one problem I run into frequently is how to get a weird layout to work on mobile. It’s always a balance of trying to make things functional on mobile, while also not “dumbing” down the interesting aspects of the layout and idea too much.
Monetizing my projects is also a tricky balance. I want to make sure the monetization doesn’t get in the way of the content and the user experience, but on the other hand, I want to make sure the site is monetized well enough so I can continue making projects.
What’s the biggest piece of advice you have for aspiring makers?
When you’re making your first few side projects, try making something that’s fun and pointless!
The common advice for aspiring makers is to make something that you need in your day-to-day life, but that advice leads to everyone making weather apps and to-do list apps. It’s a lot easier to stay motivated when working on something fun, so try picking crazier ideas.
What’s next for you? Will we be seeing more of these in the future?
Yes! I recently started working full-time on neal.fun (I was previously at MSCHF).
I’m excited to keep making weird things on the web, and I really want to see how far the web can be taken as a creative medium. You can expect to see a lot more funky projects, and probably some web experiments that make absolutely no sense. But hopefully, they’ll provide some entertainment either way.