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

[itsmechase]

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!

[johnfink8]

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]

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

I'm looking into the Philly issue.

[adrianwaj]

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]

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]

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.

[itsmechase]

Yeah crypto is a slippery slope. I really do appreciate the ideas. If anything else comes to mind, please let me know. I am considering everything.

[adrianwaj]

Speaking of tinkering, you could have a builds/devices/setups section, with each containing multiple constituent parts (as ingredients) with their being a corresponding recipe for each. So users would be "cataloging their builds."

This is what is lacking here: https://clz.com/ but I think https://hackaday.io already does what I am talking about - a "Github for inventions."

You are welcome to use my domain for that too, but will people go to all the effort to upload their builds? What is the return? Are there IP or safety issues?

Perhaps you could focus on computers, and make it a help/troubleshooting destination, and way for people to be able to recycle things or look to that goal.

Solar and DIY energy builds is another large area. Could also focus on selling or affiliate commissions.

Maybe have a way for the site to load up with data using text files that people can either upload or keep on their own server. So there should be some type of syntax. Laboriously filling out fields is a time-sink in my view. Even signing-up can be seen as a pain. So local-first data entry with a little syncing app that gets the site to come and collect locally whenever its pinged is the goal.

CLZ has syncing with barcode scanning: https://gemini.google.com/share/b7ce6f31fe12

Maybe a way for users to also download the entire site for off-line browsing? Is there a need for that? Keeping the entire site off-line would be interesting in the age of AI vacuum cleaners. "Group Sync" for all the text-content.

Also, see my recent comment about meetups. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48259386 - Park Jams?

[rajveerb]

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]

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

[hashmifarhan]

Really interesting idea. I wonder if stronger personalization or topic-based navigation could help reduce the “where do I start?” feeling for new users.

[itsmechase]

Thanks! And great point. I've been kicking this around a bit. I was thinking that I probably didn't have enough post volume to justify that yet, but I think you could make a case for it on the Ideas tab.

What questions do you think would help determine preference? I'm thinking Software/Hardware and Skills would be the low hanging fruit.

[hashmifarhan]

Yeah, Skills feels like the obvious first step. I could also see tags around intent/goals helping — like people wanting to brainstorm vs people actively looking to build something.

[maryamshafaqat]

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

[itsmechase]

Exactly! Doesn't need to be complicated.

[atmanactive]

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

[itsmechase]

Why's that? Don't use Google auth typically?

[atmanactive]

Exactly. Don't need Google nor LinkedIn as gatekeepers for my life on the internet.

[nickbroom98]

Looks great, will definetly take a look!

[itsmechase]

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]

that's pretty cool will definitely use it!!

[itsmechase]

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 :)