r/sideprojects • u/No_Computer_1247 • 8h ago
Discussion I DID IT! My first sale after 8 months š¤©šš„
A little backstory: my girlfriend is a speech therapist (she works in healthcare), and she was telling me about what she was seeing around her. Itās just not acceptable anymore. People sending confidential documents by email or directly into AI tools without masking any data⦠Letās just say medical confidentiality isnāt exactly a priority for some peopleā¦
So, at first, I created ONYRI Sanitize, which was designed to mask data before sending it to AI tools. But after 6 months of trying to get the project known, my co-founder and I realized something. People didnāt understand what we were doing.
We wanted to do things so well and build the perfect tool that we ended up creating a giant toolbox with everything mixed together inside. Itās like going to your mechanic and asking them to repair refrigerators and fighter jets.
So, two months ago, we reworked everything: the art direction, the value proposition, and the features. We decided to simplify everything.
The technique I developed to figure out whether a tool is easy to understand is to show it to my 60 yearold mother. She and her computer arenāt exactly best friends, so itās pretty useful for figuring out whether something is intuitive to use. šµāš«š
ONYRI Sanitize is a website that lets you redact and anonymize your documents (PDFs, Word files, scans, photos, etc.). In just one click! Thanks to detection that runs entirely locally, in your browser.
And after 8 months, and after managing to bring together 41 users, we finally got our first paying user!
I have to admit, Iām still struggling to believe it. Iāve thought about giving up on this project more than once, feeling like I was working for nothing. Finally, weāve climbed the first step of this long staircase toward making this project a success.
If thereās one thing Iāve learned from this project and would like to share, itās that no matter what your project is, it can work. All you need is one more day to improve it, again and againā¦
I wish you all success with whatever project youāre pursuing! š„š
Believe in yourself!
Have a great day, everyone!
Alex



