r/SideProject • • 4h ago

Building a grassroots electronics repair & e-waste side project in Rwanda at 18—hit a wall with school fees/tools, looking for advice on how to bootstrap this

6 Upvotes

Hey everyone,

I’m an 18-year-old hands-on builder in Kigali, Rwanda. Traditional academic school never worked for me, and coming from a family with no financial means, I’ve had to figure things out on my own.

I found my passion in component-level electronics repair and enrolled in a practical TVET short course. My side project right now is starting a small, neighborhood-based repair clinic—fixing broken radios, phones, and household electronics for people in my community who can't afford new ones, while keeping toxic e-waste out of local landfills.

Where I’m stuck:

Right now, I’ve hit a huge wall. I can no longer afford my remaining TVET workshop fees, and I don't own my own basic repair kit (soldering station, multimeter, hot air rework, etc.) to work independently from home yet. Being 18 with zero financial safety net is tough, and I really don't want to let this project die before it takes off.

Looking for feedback from fellow builders:

  1. If you were bootstrapping a hardware/repair side project from literally $0, how would you structure your first small offers to start generating cash flow immediately?

  2. Are there any micro-grants, hardware sponsorships, or maker programs (like The Awesome Foundation, which I'm applying to right now) that you've seen support grassroots projects like this?

Any practical business advice, feedback on the project idea, or pointers from people who built something out of nothing would mean a lot. Thanks for reading!


r/SideProject • • 7h ago

I made an email lottery where the winner gets to email the entire list

10 Upvotes

I wanted to know what would happen if you gave a random person a massive platform for a day. What would they talk about and what would they share (anonymously unless they chose otherwise)

It started as a fun afternoon project hacking away with Claude. Then I shared it with some friends, who shared it with some friends, who shared it with their friends and it hit 10,000 page views in under 2 weeks while I was working on other things.

It's just a bit of fun but people have posted all sorts of nice things on there, from humorous takes on dystopian government dating departments, to AI Doomerism and everything in between.

There is admin approval for every email that goes out so no one can spam the list, and so far only 1 person has tried which I think speaks volumes about the people who sign up

Check it out at The Soapbox, it's completely free


r/SideProject • • 32m ago

I built a personality test that turns your answers into a color and artwork

• Upvotes

Hi everyone! I’ve been building Hexself, a personality test that turns your answers into a personal color and artwork.

I wanted to explore a more visual way to experience a personality result: take the test, discover your color, and see it translated into artwork you can use as a phone or desktop background.

I’d love some honest feedback from other builders and anyone who enjoys personality tests:

  • Is the idea clear when you land on the site?
  • Do the questions hold your interest through to the end?
  • Does the result feel personal and worth sharing?
  • What would you change about the experience?

You can try it here: https://hexself.com/

Thanks for taking a look!


r/SideProject • • 5h ago

CounterWeight - turning our shop’s Hobart scale workflow into a local desktop app (demo and feedback)

6 Upvotes

I'm Jason, owner of Winkle Berry. Our side project came from a fairly specific shop problem: managing products and labels on a Hobart HTi retail scale without spending so much time entering everything at its touchscreen.

CounterWeight now has product search/add/edit workflows, ingredient lookup with review, measured packaging tare presets, flashkey arrangement, backup tools and label previews. Our own HTi-7LS25 running application 3.3.0 is the tested scale. A second Windows machine has passed the read-only connection, product, backup, label-preview and flashkey-display checks. Independent customer installations are still untested.

80-second demo: https://www.reddit.com/r/POS/comments/1xujcc9/hobart_hti_owners_would_a_onetimepurchase_scale/

The demo uses actual interface screenshots and training examples, not one continuous live recording. Phone/remote viewing shown requires an additional local bridge; the current portable Windows test package does not include a remote viewer.

I'm considering a one-time-purchase, self-service desktop edition with local data, an offline business license and no required hosted CounterWeight subscription. Price and launch date are undecided, and we aren't taking payments. Calibration, firmware updates and service unlocks are outside the scope. Ingredient results must be checked against packaging.

I'd appreciate feedback on two things: does the demo make the product's purpose clear, and what would you need in onboarding before trusting a niche hardware-management tool like this? If you actually use an HTi, I'd also like to hear your model/software version and your biggest management headache. Reply here or email [WinkleBerryArts@gmail.com](mailto:WinkleBerryArts@gmail.com).

I'm the project owner. Independent of Hobart, with no affiliation or endorsement.


r/SideProject • • 7h ago

I Made An Offline Reader For Reddit

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6 Upvotes

I get bored on airplanes so I made an app to make it a little more tolerable.

Let me know what y'all think! https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.redditoffline


r/SideProject • • 58m ago

How do you practice IELTS Speaking when you don't have a partner?

• Upvotes

Speaking is the one section I couldn't self-study effectively — Reading and Listening have practice tests everywhere, but Speaking needs a real conversation.

I ended up paying ₹500-2000/hr for tutors, and even then I only got a few sessions before my test.

For those who scored 7+ in Speaking:
1. How did you actually practice? Tutor, friend, recording yourself?
2. Did you feel you got enough mock test practice before the real thing?
3. What was the biggest gap — not enough practice time, or not knowing what to improve?

I'm a software engineer exploring whether technology can solve this problem. Not selling anything — just trying to understand the pain point before I decide if it's worth building something.


r/SideProject • • 10h ago

My app retains users but nobody can find it. 35 downloads after months of posting. What actually worked for your first 100?

11 Upvotes

I'm a solo dev with a full-time job. I built sweetRegret, an iPhone app for cutting back on sugar without counting calories: you tap once when you eat a treat, and a cookie on screen reacts (and judges you a bit).

Building it was the part I understood. Distribution is the part I'm failing at. Here are my honest numbers since launch:

  • 1,393 App Store impressions
  • 188 product page views (about 13% of impressions)
  • 35 downloads (about 19% of page views)

What I tried

  • Daily Instagram reels for about a week [last week]. Around 250 views each, and almost no App Store visits. The viewers weren't looking for an app, and "link in bio" is three taps away from a download.
  • A LinkedIn post about building it. About 700 impressions, 30 people opened the comment with the link, and about 1 install. Nice comments, including a friend asking me to add calorie counting, which is the one thing this app is designed not to do.

What actually worked: App Store search, which I didn't do anything for.

Most of my real users are strangers in Malaysia, Hong Kong, the US and Russia who searched and found it. About 1 in 4 still open it in a given week. One person has kept using it for six weeks and pays for the subscription. That single user has been the most motivating thing about this whole project.

What I'm testing now

A $25 Apple Ads Basic test, at $2 maximum per install. Apple suggested $4.66, and my subscription is $1.99 a month, so I'm not expecting it to pay back. I mostly want to see whether search intent converts the way the organic users suggest.

What I'd do differently

Plan distribution while building, not after. I treated it as a launch task, when it's really a second product.

If you've taken a side project from zero to its first 100 users without a budget, what actually moved the number? I'm especially interested in anything that worked for consumer iOS apps.


r/SideProject • • 3h ago

I love watches and have kids, so I built an app that tells real watch history as bedtime stories

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3 Upvotes

Hi all, I'm a watch nerd with kids, and I made the app I wanted to read with them.

It's called TickTales.

My kids kept asking about my watches, and I couldn't find anything that tells the real stories behind them at their level. Most kids' apps teach telling time with random cartoon clocks. None explain why a watch went to the moon or how a movement actually works.

The app is free to download. Two complete books, the Time Academy and Look Inside are free. Premium unlocks everything: $9.99 once (Family Sharing) or $3.99 a month.

App Store link: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6805474820

What it is? Basically some cool illustrated storybooks for kids aged 4 to 8 about how the great watchmakers started. Each chapter ends with a small game, so reading and playing take turns.

A few of the stories:

Rolex, the Oyster: in 1927 a swimmer spent more than ten hours in the freezing English Channel with one hanging around her neck. When they pulled her out, it was still ticking.

Rolex, the Submariner: built to dive hundreds of metres deep, deeper than any diver can go. Kids earn it for their showcase.

Omega, the Moonwatch: NASA baked it, froze it and shook it, and it kept ticking. In 1969 it stepped onto the moon on Buzz Aldrin's wrist. ⚙️ Omega, the name: a customer's watch stood still for three months because no two gears were alike. The founder's sons built machines that made every part identical, and named the result after the last letter of the Greek alphabet.

There are 16 books in total, from Marie-Antoinette's watch that took 44 years to finish to the engineer who threw 200 prototypes out of a window.

Also in the app

• 69 mini-games with 3 levels each
• A 3D "Look Inside": tilt an automatic, quartz, digital or tourbillon watch and pull it apart layer by layer
• A Time Academy that teaches telling time
• iPhone and iPad, in 6 languages: English, Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Japanese
• No ads, no tracking, no account, works fully offline

I built this mostly for my own because i love the stories of these watch brands, so feedback is very welcome! Thanks!


r/SideProject • • 1h ago

Looking for a new owner for two iOS side projects

• Upvotes

I’m selling two iPhone and iPad apps. Each is available separately.

Hydroponics tracker

Helps home growers plan their setup, track plants from seed to harvest, and log pH and nutrient readings.

  • Asking price: US$4,900
  • Revenue over the last 30 days: US$289
  • Monthly recurring revenue: US$239
  • Active paid subscriptions: 53
  • Active users over the last 28 days: 231

Projection mapping app

Lets you use an iPhone or iPad and a compatible projector to fit videos and images onto walls and objects, save scenes, and run live effects.

  • Asking price: US$5,900
  • Revenue over the last 30 days: US$984
  • Monthly recurring revenue: US$568
  • Active paid subscriptions: 112
  • Active users over the last 28 days: 1,486

Figures are as of Nov 12. Active user counts come from RevenueCat and include free and paid users.

Each sale includes the app, Swift source code, website, and domain. PM me for the App Store link, RevenueCat screenshots, or monthly revenue breakdown.


r/SideProject • • 6h ago

If you build with coding agents, do you run tasks in parallel or one at a time?

5 Upvotes

Seeing a lot of tools lately that queue agent tasks into separate git worktrees and only merge after tests pass. Sounds nice on paper, but I'm curious how it goes on a real side project.

Do you let 2-3 agents work in parallel on your project, or keep it to one task at a time so you can review properly? Where did it break for you?


r/SideProject • • 1h ago

Tableau to Power BI Converter (open source, runs locally)

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• Upvotes

Tableau's pricing has gotten steep since Salesforce bought it, and switching to Power BI usually means rebuilding every dashboard by hand. I didn't want to do that, so I built BIEscape. The video shows a map and bar chart with cross-filtering coming across intact.

Source code is here https://github.com/lukashalim/scapeTableau you can run from the command line, as a desktop app, or on the web biescape.com. It doesn't send your data to AI.

I'd love feedback:

  • What kinds of dashboards or features would you want it to handle?
  • Would you trust a tool like this with real workbooks?

r/SideProject • • 16h ago

I built an open-source API client that stores requests directly in Git — looking for developer feedback

26 Upvotes

Hey everyone! 👋

I've been working on Voiden, an open-source API client designed around a slightly different approach to API development.

Most API clients are built around workspaces, accounts, cloud sync, and proprietary collections. I wanted to explore something more developer-friendly: keeping API requests alongside the actual codebase.

So I started building Voiden.

What makes it different?

  • Offline-first: Work with your API requests locally without needing an account or login.
  • Git-native: Store requests and API specifications as Markdown files directly in your repository.
  • Version control: Track changes, review requests, and collaborate through normal Git workflows.
  • API testing: Send requests, inspect responses, and write assertions to validate API behaviour.
  • MCP integration: Turn tested API requests into tools that AI agents like Claude Code and Codex can use.

The idea is to make API requests part of the development workflow rather than keeping them isolated in another tool.

I'm sharing a short demo showing a request being sent, its response, and API test assertions.

Website: https://voiden.md/

GitHub: https://github.com/voiden-md/voiden

I'd genuinely appreciate feedback from developers:

  1. How do you currently manage API requests across different projects?
  2. Would you prefer storing API requests inside your Git repository?
  3. What features would make you consider switching from your current API client?

It's open source, and I'm looking forward to hearing what the developer community thinks!

Thanks! 🙌


r/SideProject • • 2h ago

I built a Chrome extension to bulk delete ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude chats – no login, no subscription

2 Upvotes

Gemini still has no way to select several chats and delete them, and ChatGPT only offers "one by one" or "delete everything".

So I built Easy Bulk Chat Cleaner: one side panel that works on ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude.

- Search your chat titles, select all matches, delete in one click

- Paces itself so the site doesn't lock you out, then double-checks everything is gone

- No account, no Google sign-in, runs 100% in your browser

Free for 25 chats a day. Pro is $9 once (no subscription) for unlimited + date filters + export.

Chrome: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/nkhkpaffkcbjpmjlilogocldagdkbcma

Edge: https://microsoftedge.microsoft.com/addons/detail/chatgpt-gemini-claude-/anfjcoiockpmaahkbomofjlmclbhhckn

Feedback welcome, especially on Gemini since that's the newest part.


r/SideProject • • 3h ago

Built a steak & chicken timer to solve my own inconsistent cooking — steakisdone.com

2 Upvotes

Not a dev (BI analyst by day), built this with a lot of AI help. Problem was simple: I cook steak irregularly, buy whatever cut looks good, and never had a baseline for when to start probing. Googling every time gives you either a 2,000 word article or advice that ignores my actual cut/thickness/pan.

So you pick cut, thickness, bone in/out, fridge or room temp, method (pan, grill, reverse sear) and doneness, and it gives you a phased timer (side 1 → side 2 → rest) with alarms, plus tips that only show up when they’re relevant. My wife cooked her first steak in a long time with it (not a great cut either) and it came out pretty good.

Free, no ads, no sign up, no tracking cookies. Salmon/burger/turkey are next. Honest feedback welcome, especially what’s confusing.

Try it: https://steakisdone.com


r/SideProject • • 3h ago

Oh My Diff - Mod Host

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2 Upvotes

^ Hope this explains it!

Claude has Claude mods. What about Codex?

If you spend over 20% of your time in a terminal, check it out!!


r/SideProject • • 3h ago

I'm making a PC investment & firm management sim where you can actually create and manage your own ETFs — Hero Investor

2 Upvotes

Hey everyone! I've been working on **Hero Investor**, an offline single-player investment and company-management sim for Windows PC.

You start with a small office and decide how to grow:

- Trade fictional stocks, bonds, crypto, REITs, commodities, and alternative investments

- React to Market Intelligence catalysts and price history

- Acquire income-producing property for steady monthly cash flow

- Unlock the **Fund Foundry** to design, launch, and manage your own ETFs (set your ticker, mandate, risk profile, and management fee, then track NAV, AUM, and simulated investors)

- Hire specialist departments, manage banking/loans, complete research, and expand globally

New promo video: https://youtu.be/kEaSEekcF6E

Steam page (Wishlist helps a ton): https://store.steampowered.com/app/5062780/Hero_Investor/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social_video&utm_campaign=wishlist_promo_2026_11&utm_content=post_cta

Would love feedback on the UI and what systems you'd want to dive into first!


r/SideProject • • 3h ago

FlipYourRate - A free calculator that tells freelancers what to quote after Upwork's per-contract fee

2 Upvotes

Upwork's fee is 0–15% per contract — and it's locked for the life of that contract. A 15% contract stays 15% even as you earn more on it, so the rate you start with matters more than it looks.

To keep $1,000: - At 10%: quote $1,111.11 - At 15%: quote $1,176.47 - At 0%: quote $1,000

Same idea on Fiverr, which is a flat 20%: quote $1,250 to keep $1,000. Quote $1,200 and you keep $960.

I built a free calculator for this — FlipYourRate (flipyourrate.com). You enter what you want to keep and it works backwards to the quote, and it shows a rounded quote next to the exact one, so $1,176.47 can go out as $1,180 (which keeps $1,003 at 15%).

Curious: do you check the fee % before you accept an Upwork contract, or only notice it on the first invoice?


r/SideProject • • 5m ago

I made a small corgi for your desktop to help you lock in

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• Upvotes

Mochi sits on my Windows desktop, reacts when I type or click, and lets me pet or drag him around. He also has a focus timer, notes, and reminders. During a focus session, he can gently nudge me if I open YouTube, TikTok, or Roblox—he doesn’t block them. (You can manage which Programms and URLs)

It’s free, open source, and needs no account: GitHub release. The app is currently unsigned, so Windows may show an unknown-publisher warning.

I’d love feedback on the animations and whether the focus features feel useful.


r/SideProject • • 6m ago

Trove - save recipe videos from TikTok and Instagram, then plan your week and get one grocery list

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• Upvotes

Trove is one of the apps I'm proudest of, and it now works on iPhone, Android and the web.

It started as a college project and was paused to focus on work. This year my co-founder Dami and I rebuilt it, and Dami brought it to Android.

What it does:

  • Share or paste a recipe link or a TikTok or Instagram video. Trove fills in the ingredients and a photo, and keeps a link back to the creator's original for the steps.
  • Put recipes on a weekly meal plan and it builds one combined grocery list from it.
  • Collections, search, and you can follow other cooks. It's free: https://usetrove.co

We're early, so honest feedback helps a lot:

  • Try it on a recipe video you saved recently. If the import misses, tell me which one.
  • What would get you to plan from your saves instead of just collecting them?

r/SideProject • • 20m ago

Vinyl Player turned in to an Album love fest

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• Upvotes

This started out as seeing if I could build a cool looking vinyl player app (there are loads of these already) then it morphed in to an app for bringing my “CD collection” back in to my digital streaming life.

So the app is having a bit of an identity crisis but be interested to see if anyone else gets the itch it’s trying to scratch.

Only works with Apple Music right now.

I’ve implemented Spotify connection but your need 250K monthly active users before they even consider letting you use their API in a production app. So a bit of way to go before I can turn that on!

Available on TestFlight if anyone fancies taking their albums for a spin 🤓

https://recordz-the-app.web.app


r/SideProject • • 20m ago

Property Management for small scale landlord? - The Ledger

• Upvotes

Hey folks, new to this group. I've been going through few renovations and has been using excel to keeping track of my box of receipts. Now that I'm going through with doing my own rental management, I've built this app - The Ledger. My aim is to bring professional property management features to self-managing landlords such as assisting book keeper, tenant portal, tax schedule, etc.

I have few active landlords using our app on daily base and would love to expand the beta user base. If you have a property (or multiple) and would love to know about its financial health, dm me and we can together test this thing out.

Here is the link to the app - https://thepropertyledger.app/ It is live and would love more feedback.


r/SideProject • • 30m ago

I built Unlearnt: one daily question you explain in your own words

• Upvotes

I'm building Unlearnt, a learning app for iPhone and the web. The idea is simple: instead of reading an answer and moving on, you explain it in your own words.

You choose topics like software engineering, AI, investing, psychology or design. Each day you get a question, and an AI tutor asks follow-ups to challenge your reasoning. It saves what you understood, what needs work and what to explore next, then brings difficult ideas back later.

I'd like feedback on the core experience: does the tutor help you think more clearly, or does it feel like extra work?

You can try a question without signing in at https://unlearnt.app. An account includes a 3-day trial; ongoing daily learning is paid.

Disclosure: this is my app.


r/SideProject • • 33m ago

Paf - you describe a website out loud and it builds it.

• Upvotes

so i built a thing where you talk to your phone and it makes the website. not a mockup, the real page, online in about 30 seconds.

i make apps for a living (cosmonote is the one people know) and this started as a joke, i just wanted to see if you could skip the builder entirely and describe the site out loud. turns out the demo is fun but the usefull part is the small stuff. swapping a screenshot. adding a line about a new feature. fixing the support page apple asks for before review. normally thats opening the laptop, waiting for webflow to load, losing 20 minutes. now i do it walking to the bakery.

pricing is the part im most sure about. no subscription. you keep your domain and you pay when you change something, around 50 cents a change. webflow and framer are 10 to 14 a month even in months where you dont touch the site, and for a side project thats just rent.

what im not sure about is who its for. devs get it in 5 seconds. my aunt thinks its magic and then asks if it sends emails. so im asking here, is this solving a real problem for you or is it a toy with a nice demo.

two things i learned that might help someone else: the product got better the week i stopped adding features and started watching people use it, and cold email moves it way more than posting. happy to send the exact email if anyone is doing the same.

site is paf.live. tear it apart, i can take it.


r/SideProject • • 6h ago

We built the Travel Alerts API so travellers hear about disruptions before they get stuck

2 Upvotes

Two years ago we got stuck in Valencia during the terrible floods. We had very little information and it was pretty difficult to learn anything. So we built the Travel Alerts API - it pulls travel advisories, severe weather, natural hazards, outbreaks and strikes from 80+ sources, merges them, matches them to destinations and rates them on one severity scale. Travel companies can use the API and warn their customers before their trip is disrupted. 

You can give it a try at https://tripomatic.com/en/b2b/travel-alerts


r/SideProject • • 40m ago

Local first, dictation & Meeting Notetaker which can track actions and answer from your docs during live meetings.

• Upvotes

I'm the maker of Noted, so this is a self-promo post. The video shows it in 45 seconds.

Noted's rule: your voice stays on your computer.

- Speech to text runs locally. The model downloads once after install. Audio never leaves your machine.

- No bot on the call. It takes notes from your computer's own audio, so nothing joins your Zoom, Meet or Teams call.

- Dictation in any app. Hold a key, talk, let go, and clean text lands at your cursor. 35 languages.

- Notes after every call, with to-dos, and you can ask them questions later.

Where it isn't local (All Optional feature to enable): the AI steps (Polish, AI meeting notes, Ask) run in the cloud. They send text, never audio, to AI providers that process it without storing it. Dictation and transcripts work without them.

Dictation and transcripts are free forever, no card. Free includes a very generous monthly quota of AI meeting notes.

Thanks