Show HN: A platform to find people to jam on side projects with

Show HN: A platform to find people to jam on side projects with(letsjam.live)

12 points by itsmechase 20 hours ago | 14 comments

I have always found it funny how challenging it can be to find people to jam on side projects with.

There are literally entire sub-Reddits where people post looking for someone to work on a project with. That is super inefficient. There are also newsletters for this (also pretty inefficient).

Let's Jam is my attempt to solve this.

This is NOT a cofounder matching platform. The idea is to connect people with ideas and skills so they can jam on them together. If they end up becoming cofounders, cool, but that is up to them. This is also NOT a place for freelancers to hunt job opportunities. Again, the platform is for people who have an idea or a skill and want to work on something together.

How it works:

> You either a) find a project and request to jam on it with that person, b) post a project and wait for someone to request to jam on it with you, c) claim an idea and wait for someone to request to jam on it with you.

> Once someone requests to jam with you, you'll get an email, and you can vet them via LinkedIn or their past work. If you think they'll be a good fit then accept their request and they'll reach out to you.

> That's it. Simple.

Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

adrianwaj 10 hours ago |

How about a way to signup without Google or LinkedIn? Maybe HN-linked profiles?

Also, I think a domain-name section is a good idea. Some ideas/projects may have them and some won't. Some people may have unused ones to offer. Others may see a domain name and get ideas just from seeing it.

Also, unused social handles would be interesting.

itsmechase 6 hours ago | |

Thanks for the feedback! HN-linked profiles would be really interesting. Let me think about that one.

Domain-name is also interesting. So essentially a hub where people who have a great domain name but haven't started building anything with it yet?

adrianwaj 4 hours ago | | |

yeah - for example, I've got tinkeriDOTng and left some comments about it...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47777609 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47879268 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47685678

I don't even mind redirecting to the site if it helps - that would prove that I actually owned it.

Another idea would be to have pledging.. people send crypto to an address and if a certain amount is reached, it is released to the owner. Well, maybe that is too complex/risky.. and too similar to crowdfunding, so just have people enter an amount, but don't make it binding. That would be good for people who want to jam, but have little to offer except for $.

I think a lot of altcoin owners would contribute to an ecosystem if they thought it'd help their position. So put a large disclaimer that any funds sent are ultimately entirely at the sender's risk - they may get/see nothing in return. Reputation-building and transparency is important here - but a crypto address could be monitored. One problem is people sending funds to themselves.

see: https://www.mysociety.org/2015/02/24/the-story-of-pledgebank...

"Jam pledges and donations" could begin well but end up enshi##ified with scams eventually - even by users who build themselves up to be legit... until their very last project when they bail early with funds. At least with crypto, funds can be returned efficiently. That's important too.

Best of luck with it all regardless.

johnfink8 20 hours ago |

Love the idea (and ideas). Nice clean look, simple navigation, no clutter.

These are going to sound nitpicky, but I'm a dev myself and I know they're easy fixes for high UX gain.

Navigation is a bit annoying, back button drops you at the top of the previous page so you have to scroll down again. Probably the (unnecessary?) loading state, you could just maintain a ref to the clicked-item and scroll it into view on first render.

It says it thinks I'm in Philadelphia, which is about 500 miles off target.

itsmechase 16 hours ago | |

Thanks for the feedback! Just fixed the navigation issue :)

I'm looking into the Philly issue.

rajveerb 20 hours ago |

Reminds me of Travis Kalanick's apartment called "Jam pad".

I was talking to a friend about the same issue and I randomly clicked the new tab to find this at the top :)

I will ask my friend to take a look at this.

itsmechase 18 hours ago | |

Awesome! Great timing. Thank you for passing it along!

atmanactive 9 hours ago |

Yeah, not joining unless I can use my own email and password.

maryamshafaqat 20 hours ago |

This actually makes more sense than traditional cofounder matching. Most people just want someone to build with first.

itsmechase 18 hours ago | |

Exactly! Doesn't need to be complicated.

nickbroom98 10 hours ago |

Looks great, will definetly take a look!

itsmechase 6 hours ago | |

Thank you very much! Please let me know if you experience any issues at all. I want to make sure it's a super smooth experience.

jabeer 13 hours ago |

that's pretty cool will definitely use it!!

itsmechase 6 hours ago | |

Awesome, thank you! Please let me know if you have any issues at all. I am in full-on dev mode making updates to the platform to make it better. You can reach out here or when you sign up just respond to the welcome email. That goes directly to me :)