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jason_zigon Ask HN: What are you working on? (March 2025)

I've been working on Zigpoll as a one-man project for a while now: https://www.zigpoll.com/ it has traction and solid growth (~100% YoY for the past 3 years) but the larger the numbers the harder it gets to double each year.

In a past life I would have thought this would be the easy part given the product market fit but it's hard to figure out growth channels that are scalable and cost-effective at this stage. Burning what would otherwise be a large salary month on month in search of growth is mentally taxing when it doesn't deliver. Metrics across the board only seem to tell part of the story so it's tricky to figure out what needs changing and what's worth doubling down on.

If anyone has experience doing this sort of thing - please get in touch!

jason_zigon Claude can now search the web

Curious - does anyone want this stuff?

jason_zigon Does Visual Studio rot the mind? (2005)

are you serious?

jason_zigon When AI promises speed but delivers debugging hell

You still have to become a domain expert to debug it though?

jason_zigon Self-Hostable Form Back End – OSS Alternative to Formspree

Not 100% on the nose with what you're looking for but I built Zigpoll (form builder for on-site surveys and forms) that may useful: https://www.zigpoll.com/

jason_zigon Spotify Shuts Down ‘Unwrapped’ Artist Royalty Calculator with Legal Threats

Might want to take a look in the mirror with regard to tech...

jason_zigon Show HN: Super Snowflake Maker

This is really well made - thanks for sharing (and Merry Christmas)! Small thing: I didn't understand the difference between the white and black options at first. For some reason white was pre-selected so I got confused when nothing was cutting out while drawing for the first time. Maybe a label on hover would fix this while still keeping the clean look?

jason_zigon Show HN: Zigpoll – Contextual Micro-Surveys for SaaS

Fun fact: Zigpoll is a solo project (mine). I hope you think it's cool - I have been cooking it up for a pretty long time!

jason_zigon Ask HN: What have you built with LLMs?

I run a survey platform[0] and I use an LLM to generate insights from open-ended response data. Using it for open-ended response classification as well.

[0]https://www.zigpoll.com

jason_zigon Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

I've been self employed (doing the "solopreneur" thing) for ~8 years now. I wrote a blog post about the early days[0]. TLDR I have been bouncing between eCommerce (Shopify Apps) and software in the music space. Both of those avenues have roadblocks and challenges when it comes to building a future proof solo career: Shopify is a narrow market and changes fast while the music industry is all over the place. So now I'm focused on Zigpoll[1] which will hopefully have some legs take me from solopreneurship to early retirement :)

[0]https://www.zigpoll.com/blog/being-a-solopreneur-part-one

[1]https://www.zigpoll.com

jason_zigon Show HN: Zigpoll – a turn-key survey platform for SaaS and eCommerce

Hey I just revamped the website so wanted to re-post my project Zigpoll to the cool Saturday night users of HN :)

This is a one-person effort that I have been bootstrapping over the past couple of years. Feedback is kind of my thing so please share if you have any thoughts about the product!

jason_zigon Ask HN: Publicly Sharing Revenue?

Free "press" is probably the main selling point for these kinds of "build in public" things. Although I agree with you it's not that compelling... although it's similarly a little tricky to point out the downside (especially considering theres no real validation of the numbers) so kind of a wash imo. Not sure if that validates or invalidates your idea OP!

jason_zigon GPT-4 API General Availability

Run it in the background.

We use it to generate automatic insights from survey data at a weekly cadence for Zigpoll (https://www.zigpoll.com). This makes getting an instant response unnecessary but still provides a lot of value to our customers.

jason_zigon Twitter now requires an account to view tweets

It's funny that creating a twitter clone has been a "hello world" kind of project for most web frameworks over the last 10 years but here we are without any feature-complete alternatives.

jason_zigon [dead]

Great looking project. IMO it's good to see AI being used to teach as opposed to just plucking out the answer or generating a first draft (better if AI can add jobs rather than destroy them!). I hope you're on to something...

jason_zigon Ask HN: Side project of more than $2k monthly revenue? what's your project?

I've been building Zigpoll [1] over the past 4-5 years as a solo project. It's a micro survey platform (Saas) that can live on any website and can be triggered at key moments during your customer journey. I found a niche in post-purchase surveys for Shopify which helped get me over the 2K mark and build a meaningful customer feedback loop I could iterate on to find a tighter product market fit (very meta for a survey platform I know). This took about three years to hit and it helped greatly to be on an app store since it's a full service marketing channel which 1. is my weakest skillset and 2. you want all the leverage you can get if it's a part time project.

The post purchase survey angle is growing steadily but the platform was built to be flexible so I'm looking for other use-cases to focus on what competitors don't currently service for a phase 2.

Also recently it's been a great way to experiment with OpenAI and see what all the buzz is about. So far the ChatGPT API has been very impressive at spotting trends in user-provided data to share with our customers. Honestly this feature alone makes me consider focusing on it full time; but it would be a bit of a leap financially given current circumstances.

TLDR: I recommend building something, keeping your head on a swivel, getting feedback (being on an app store or marketplace makes this easier) and adjusting as rapidly as possible if you want to get paid and have a shot at bootstrapping bigger.

[1] https://www.zigpoll.com

jason_zigon Ask HN: What have you created that deserves a second chance on HN?

Thanks for the feedback! I agree the examples page is dated and, aside from the examples actually not being that useful, the list is too long and too far away. I'll update it soon and will definitely use that example as inspo!

jason_zigon Ask HN: What have you created that deserves a second chance on HN?

Thanks and good eye, you're right - lord knows how long that's been incorrect for!

jason_zigon Ask HN: What have you created that deserves a second chance on HN?

https://www.zigpoll.com

I don't think I made it clear the last couple of submits that it's a purely solo effort which upon reflection is one of the more interesting things about it!

jason_zigon Ask HN: What are you working on this year?

I'm constantly chipping away at Zigpoll (https://www.zigpoll.com).

Flexible surveys are an incredibly broad challenge both from the client side and the analytics/dashboard side. Since it's by nature solving long tail problems the level of complexity is such that you have to have several different user paths which "just work" under the same umbrella. And entering into different markets ensures a constant flow of new features to roadmap. I am focused on e-commerce currently but it could continue to branch out into multiple sectors given enough polish and tighter integrations with relevant third party providers.

jason_zigon Games people play with cash flow

> ...You could just as well bootstrap a tiny, successful internet business selling Wordpress plugins or Shopify themes, believing that ‘startups shouldn’t raise capital’. You would then never need to update your beliefs, because those are perfectly sufficient for a small, independently-run business.

At the scale of a one or two person show the up front costs for building and selling your software are pretty reasonable. This setup rearranges how much cash you need up front to 1. be competitive and 2. win over new business. True this has a cap on it of say... ~1-2M ARR but that's a very reasonable game for a lot of smart people to be playing. I didn't read the original article he's arguing against, but if that's the style business they are discussing then the "don't raise" argument holds up. Frankly given the original article's conclusion of "don't raise money" I suspect they weren't focusing a post-IPO cable business...

jason_zigon Adventures of being a solopreneur. (Part 1)

Thanks! Yeah it's funny how the things you used to think were lame take on a new life when they keep a roof over your head!

DiffLens looks cool - I had no idea github had a AppStore, looks like a good market to corner. Best of luck!

jason_zigon Ask HN: Do you find it challenging to talk to your users?

As a solo founder I have a couple of startups[0] and I built Zigpoll[1] to help with this problem. It lets you embed a non-obtrusive micro-survey / contact us form directly into your website. You can use our javascript API to make it appear based on sign up, time on site, exit intent, etc... it's up to you. You could also email it out to your customers if you prefer.

Also I have to point out there are other competitors in this space you could also use like Drift, Intercom, or even an automated email flow with Calendly for example.

[0] https://www.jqbx.fm, https://www.roseandrex.com

[1] https://www.zigpoll.com

jason_zigon Show HN: I made a website to search for half loaves of bread

Have you tried toasting it when you take it out of the freezer?

jason_zigon Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?

I run JQBX [1]. I have no plans to monetize it but its cool to just have it out there as a thing I made. I really enjoy the community and its a cool way to help with music discovery. It's also really rewarding to provide a meaning experience for some people out there using the web. A nice counterbalance to boring enterprise software!

https://www.jqbx.fm

jason_zigon Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2022 – Show and tell

I build products to help improve my main e-commerce businesses so I think this counts as a side-hustle. The latest (earliest stage one is):

https://www.zigpoll.com

"Bite sized" polling software as a service that I use for post purchase surveys, contact us forms, and email campaigns when I want feedback on what to do next. Most customers are currently through our Shopify App but have a few SaaS businesses that integrated it independently.

jason_zigon I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own

This is great - love the frictionless signup and onboarding experience. I'm planning to teach my niece some basic programming stuff (moving on from scratch) and this seems like a great way to put together some mini-lessons that are quick and rewarding.

jason_zigon Twitch source code and customer data has reportedly been leaked

I'm curious what reaction people have to the info so I made a poll: https://share.zigpoll.com/2kParn8gL6RvpveWu/2qZxbgjD3pu2ATqz...

Personally I'm thinking this is decent PR for twitch since the market is still small and the payouts can be relatively high even in the middle tier.

jason_zigon Apple is sued for telling you that you're “buying” movies

Wait until they hear about NFT's

jason_zigon Show HN: Lofi.cafe

If you have spotify check out JQBX (https://www.jqbx.fm)