5 side project ideas to work on during the COVID-19 lockdowns
Pre Script The virus has stretched the world's resources and has put us in a dire situation. I'm currently working with a group of friends and family to help the marginalized and the daily wagers in India. We provide them with Health and Ration Kits that can sustain a family of 4 for 1 month. In the past 20 days, we have raised over 20000 USD and are on track to reach 2500 families. You can check our transparent systems and learn more at Karuna 2020.
Together, we shall overcome <3
For the rest of us, who might have lost their jobs or contracts, or are pondering over the idea of taking a leap, here is a list of ideas, freshly squeezed from my handwritten notes. If you find any of these interesting and want to collaborate, please feel free to say hi on twitter (my handle is at the bottom of this page).
Without further ado:
Office (https://off.ice)
Problem
Remote work is a lonely affair. Talking about loneliness is taboo.
Solution
Enter off.ice -- Share an office with 6 other remote workers, everything managed by us.
Longform Notes
Problem
Most notes app are desingned to take notes, but not publish them. This leads to two sets of tools, first set helps you think (Notion, Google Docs etc) and the second helps you publish (Wordpress, Ghost).
Solution
Notes editor that lets you publish instantly. Gives a local api that can be consumed by Gatsby and other static site generators. Has a RICH text editor that outputs an open text spec. like Markdown or Org.
Pack
Problem Packing for trips is a tricky affair. One way that I've resorted to in the past is to make packing list on Excel and then put all the stuff in my bag. But still, my packing is not efficient because I cannot forsee the territory I'm visiting. For example, as an Indian visiting Japan, I didn't know how harsh the rains can be.z
Solution An app that takes your desitnation, home, and the duration of your trip and generates a packing list. It also suggests what clothes to put on which day and reminds you to get your laundry done.
Serverless Bazaaar
Problem
Serverless are very well suited to certain use cases like image compression, pdf generation, putting items on a task queue etc, but writing serverless functions from scratch can be time consuming.
Solution
Serverless Bazaar is an open source list of high-quality, well-tested serverless apps, that can be deployed to any cloud in a single click. Each deployment cost 49 USD flat. If it's going to take a developer more than hour to write and deploy a serverless function, then our bazaar model is a no-brainer.
PS: All the functions are open-source and under MIT license, so if you want some function but don't want to pay, you can still go read the docs and figure out how to deploy it on a cloud of your choice.
Airtable but on SQL
Problem
Airtable and other process management systems are really cool if you are an excel user. But what if you use a traditional database?
Solution
An electron/ web app for creating Airtable like processes (forms, kanban, filters, groups) on SQL databases. The local version runs on SQLite and is free forever. The online version can connect to your databases or you can host one on our cloud.