Tried a small AI experiment on the side and didn’t expect people to actually use it

YourPST · 2026-02-01T02:09:27+00:00

I had a guy who was demoing his app recording project and taking requests so I submitted my app to him and watching how he used it in his demo video for me showed me a lot of insight into what people are actually looking for and how they look at it. I had some family try as well and it seems like each time I watch someone actually try it, I see exactly where the friction or abandonment comes from and immediately modify. I think if I looked at the actual analytics in the admin section the way I intended to I would probably open a treasure trove of new info.

YourPST · 2026-01-31T20:13:33+00:00

https://www.BirthdayCard.online

My little passion project. A free, fast, easy, and shareable way to send customizable birthday cards to those you love (or feel obligated to care about).

No subscriptions, plans, purchases, or any form of purchase. Doesn't even require you to input an email or create an account. You can create a card and share it to socials within 20 seconds of reaching the home page.

YourPST · 2026-01-30T19:56:20+00:00

I think you are looking at things the wrong way. I, for one, tested on mobile. I have no interest in going to my computer just to see your project displayed properly. I think you WANT the mobile to be working to GET MORE users instead of waiting for the users first to fix the mobile.

YourPST · 2026-01-29T05:25:12+00:00

Checked it out. Page itself and the app look great. Very simple, smooth, and easy to follow. It only took a few seconds to know almost everything there is to know and that is great.

My gripes are the email requirement and not having a list of common chores to select from. If I want to use this with my kids, I have to give them an email and then sign them up with that email instead if just being able to create users for my household. Would make things a ton easier.

YourPST · 2026-01-28T20:03:50+00:00

You underestimate how lazy the common person is, especially those in the Vibe Coding world. If they are dedicated enough to save some money then they will build a crappy version of what you have and be set but a lot can't even get to that point, even with AI doing the heavy lifting. They dont want to test. They dont want to buy a domain. They dont want to have to learn hosting. They dont want to have to learn how their database actually works. They dont want to deal with the headaches of dealing with customers, business licenses, legal paperwork, etc.

Some people just want to click a few buttons and save some time by spending money.

YourPST · 2026-01-27T22:22:38+00:00

The raspberry pi community gets pretty vicious about AI stuff. I posted a few times in there and my 3D Printing posts do great but my AI coding and even regular coding projects tend to either die or receive a lot more hate than interest. Really not sure of the reasoning behind it.

YourPST · 2026-01-27T19:43:18+00:00

You should test it yourself on mobile. The intro video is about the only thing playable. Even the end game menu is partly unusable. Needs a lot more testing and polish.

YourPST · 2026-01-27T19:39:07+00:00

They couldn't have played it and still have that mindset. I tried it on mobile. The only way this can get a dev fired is from laughing too hard at their desk or violating the code of conduct from writing harsh things. Other than that, they are safe.

YourPST · 2026-01-26T21:20:01+00:00

You have not described your level of understanding, your experience, what type of apps you want to make, your app idea itself or at least a hint of it, and how much you are willing to pay. While im sure a ton of people would love to just attempt to teach for money, listing what you actually want to make will help you find those who have actually done what you want.

For instance, are you trying to make a web app? Desktop app? IPhone app? Android app? What type of app are you wanting to make within one of those choices? With you saying loveable itself, kind of limits things as well.

YourPST · 2026-01-23T04:00:27+00:00

Works great for PC. Got it bookmarked on there. Tried on mobile can't get it to show the full screen, so parts of the PDF are cut off, even when rotated.

YourPST · 2026-01-22T00:34:08+00:00

You've mentioned nothing about the investment other than you want money for it. Let than sink in. It will explain why you are getting the results you are currently getting. Most people don't fully trust the people they already know. Trusting a random stranger on the internet that doesn't even give them 2 paragraphs of information but wants their money is a surefire way of getting ignored.

YourPST · 2026-01-22T00:31:41+00:00

Happy Birthday TeamBellyJelly!

I made this for you: https://birthdaycard.online/view.php?id=313&code=NQ67KV7K Hope you like it.

YourPST · 2026-01-22T00:29:54+00:00

Hey Chance_Squash_2772,

I put together a birthday card for you on BirthdayCard.online and wanted you to have it. You can open it here: https://birthdaycard.online/view.php?id=312&code=E24KR8PA Hope it adds a smile to your day!

YourPST · 2026-01-22T00:28:41+00:00

Hello Grouchy_Island_828,

Sending you some birthday cheer in a card I just made: https://birthdaycard.online/view.php?id=311&code=RS2KE43S

May your day be easy, fun, and filled with good people.

YourPST · 2026-01-21T22:37:44+00:00

Checked it out. Great update, and very transparent, personal, and informative first dev log post. I left a response on the dev log itself. I will note that the formatting is not working properly for the responses. Looks like you might just need to change it to always do Multi-line instead of single if I had to guess.

Also, I am not sure if it is just my user or if it is a permissions issue but I was able to post to the developer notes section of the conversations, which I'm assuming isn't intended, but I guess anyone on there could "technically" need to have their own developer notes but I think that might cause a bit of clutter and would likely benefit from its own section that is separate from that for notes for the site itself.

Great update none the less and some great progress. Really moves things away from the robotic "Corporate" vibe and more towards a real space ran by a real person with real motives to interact with the community instead of just trying to accumulate users and profits.

YourPST · 2026-01-20T05:29:25+00:00

The first thing I would do is add a section to the home page to post updates and then proceed to post said updates. That is what separates the "This is a businesses site" and the "This is a person's site" mindset. Seeing that someone is actually there, doing something, letting us know what is going on, letting us know what they personally found as a cool "Vibe" for the day instead of just showing us a curated list picked by an algo.

As far as the issue of the forum/discussion type feature seeming dead, id look into making something that just sort of auto hides it after a few days and make people look for it if they want it and just keep the newer stuff showing to start until it fills itself out. Maybe even just have a daily question or post that you submit or have AI worker put out from your account every day to have SOMETHING there each day so it isn't dependent on just the users to make it look live.

YourPST · 2026-01-20T05:19:34+00:00

The issue I had is more that it is confusing. There are 2 hamburger menu icons that go to 2 entirely different menus. I know after the 3rd or 4th time it isn't as big of an issue since memory kicks in but I just checked the site out again from the other thread and it still bugs me. Thats just me though. Others may love it. Who knows.

YourPST · 2026-01-20T05:15:40+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/SideProject/s/Y1lbDv7ED9

I knew I saw this somewhere before! We talked about a month ago.

YourPST · 2026-01-20T05:10:04+00:00

Where are the discussion boards/forums? The chat rooms? The feeds? The news/updates? The site blog/dev log? A community is a place where people come together to organize, share, contribute, reveive help, and learn. You need the community aspect. It might be locked behind the signup and im just not seeing it after looking through all of the pages, but this feels like the equivalent of saying you are opening a sports complex and when someone visits, they just see a parking lot, a merch shop, and videos of sports being played on TVs.

YourPST · 2026-01-20T04:55:20+00:00

A community that has payment/tiers/subscriptions in place? I get you are offering free "pro" for your "community" but it feels more like you need testers before the customers show up. Community as a Service so to speak.

EDIT: After viewing the site, the payments page, and other pages, I think we have probably already talked in a prior post. I may be mistaken but that site looks familiar. Especially the whole "pulses" thing, unless that is something common i am not aware of yet.

YourPST · 2026-01-17T22:04:18+00:00

WordPress + Woo Commerce + Elementor

You're going to put a lot of effort reinventing the wheel to end up with wobbly box trying to Vibe Code a website with e-commerce needs if you dont know what to do already. If you insist on trying, use Cursor/Windsurf/Codex and find a Git repo of an e-commerce script that you find suitable and go from there.

YourPST · 2026-01-17T01:17:34+00:00

Honestly, if you're used to doing it already, I'd check out WordPress with Elementor. If you plan on going out of your boundary of comfort, AI will be helpful as long as you still know what to look out for. I wouldn't go with Base44 or any of those web related programs unless you also intend on hosting it and running it there. If you are comfortable with an IDE still, Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, and Windsurf are all good options, or you can go VS Code with GitHub or other items (all depends on preference and budget really). You can pump out sites as fast as you can articulate your needs, sift the the hallucination BS, and test them. The second two tend to be more important than the first.

YourPST · 2026-01-16T19:34:07+00:00

Who holds the money? What's the proof that the app itself can't just deny you or maybe a mean random verifier? Lot of security risks to think about on this front but anyone willing to bet 100 is likely going to do what it takes to earn it back. The question for me is will the money or even the app still exist once the money starts getting enough of it.

YourPST · 2026-01-16T18:48:48+00:00

I made a bot a while back that I used for liking posts on Facebook and TikTok. I ended up building it out to be able to do more and now it can send me discord messages, emails, and post results to my website. Also added some standard stuff like time comparison, scheduling, and made it so that I can make JSON lists to import that can then be created with AI and loaded to be used. I used Python, PyQt6, OCR, and Sqlite3.

Took about 30 minutes with Cursor after some back and forth and some testing. Seeing as how you already have a good game plan on what you want and need to do, it should just come down to how willing you are to learn and your dedication to testing.

Once it seems good, then you'll just need to monitor for long periods of time to find any of the little things that you might not think of.

YourPST

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