Tindie: like Etsy for electronics

by anigbrowl • 14 years ago

126 37 14 years ago

emilepetrone12• 14 years ago

I made tindie, so if anyone has any feedback I'm all ears!

srik2• 14 years ago

You can expect more visitors in the next few hours from HN as the day progresses since its almost weekend and all. I would consider those new views pretty valuable. Maybe you could serve a static page untill the 502 situation gets resolved.

emilepetrone12• 14 years ago

And we are back online...Glad I randomly woke up at 3am

f4stjack• 14 years ago

fantastic idea buddy! I do love custom gear and gadgets and now I can buy them!

iamwil2• 14 years ago

Where did you find the people who are working on these posted projects, and how did you get them to post?

I think generally, etsy works because they can sell small runs of handmade things at a premium to cover costs (not the only reason). I'm not sure what the costs are to get small runs of circuit boards made, but it may push up prices of small runs of electronics to be much higher than what we're use to paying--and people generally don't think of electronics as being 'handmade' to justify paying the high premium. It's not a show stopper, but it's something I'd watch out for.

That said, it might work for addons for already made platforms like raspberry pi, arduino, etc. I think it's worth a shot to try it out. Keep us posted of your progress.

emilepetrone12• 14 years ago

Initially, I just threw a post on /r/arduino asking people if they thought it was a good idea, then had a signup form for people to start seeding projects before the site was built.

http://www.reddit.com/r/arduino/comments/rxyjb/would_you_sup...

happimess• 14 years ago

This is an exciting idea, and I can't wait to see what turns up on it.

As for feedback, please give me the option to load as many items on a page as I want.

miles2• 14 years ago

How about adding a "request" feature? For example, say someone is looking for a Kindle DX hacked to accommodate a USB keyboard. It would be nice to allow him or her to post this request so interested makers could jump on it. Perhaps prices or bounties could be offered by both buyers and sellers?

emilepetrone12• 14 years ago

I actually had this up for a month, and it turned into "well go buy it here (insert link)". I thought it would work out like you are thinking but it turned out a bit different in execution

johnohara• 14 years ago

A menu item for software (programs, apps, and sketchs).

9k9• 14 years ago

I must say the site is very slow.

emilepetrone12• 14 years ago

Starting to see this myself. I'll look into making some changes once the traffic dies down. Thanks for the feedback- emile

emilepetrone12• 14 years ago

Sorry gang for the site going down. Working on it now.

emilepetrone12• 14 years ago

back up

marquis• 14 years ago

Will this work outside of the U.S.? I know a number of talented hardware designers in South America, for example.

emilepetrone12• 14 years ago

They can definitely add items and sell on the site. There are sellers all over the US & Europe, but I'm all in favor of South American makers.

Kudos3• 14 years ago

Twitter Bootstrap header cheapens the whole thing for me. It's fine if you're designing the documentation for an open source project. It's not fine for a commercial product.

emilepetrone12• 14 years ago

Understandable.. I used it to get something out the door. For launching a v1 and testing a concept, Bootstrap is pretty amazing. But when I redesign it, I'll definitely move away from the Bootstrap defaults. Thanks for the feedback

kayoone• 14 years ago

the target audience likely arent web developers let alone people that know bootstrap. I think it looks fine.

Kudos3• 14 years ago

That's not really the point. If you build a website then web developers are your peers.

nl• 14 years ago

>user: Kudos

>about: Engineer at Engine Yard Founder of localhostr.com

wget http://localhostr.com

.. .. <div id="wrapper"> <div class="hero-container"> <div id="header"> <ul class="unstyled pull-right" id="top-nav"> ...

That sure looks like bootstrap to me.

While I understand that you said the bootstrap header cheapens the whole thing, I think that criticism is very "inside baseball", and in the wider market no one cares.

(Personally, I like the bootstrap header and I think anything that speeds up time-to-market should be applauded.)

Kudos3• 14 years ago

My comment was not against using Bootstrap to bootstrap your design, it's against using Bootstrap as your design.

greenranger• 14 years ago

Really great idea. I was actually pondering this concept to myself the other day. I had noticed there wasn't really a "go-to" place for people to buy and sell custom tech gear. I mean, I guess ebay would be the default, but ebay is a pile of shit aesthetically.

Good luck on this!

srik2• 14 years ago

There are little things that would eventually be improved I'm sure, but right now the biggest, albeit slightly vague, feedback I got is - "Make it more passionate." Like Etsy does for handmade goods or sparkfun does for its electronic parts; (You're lucky because your target audience is easy to excite). Not like ebay does where they have to deal with a generic store because they dont know what to specialise for. As it is the bootstrap theme looks nifty, but doesnt get me excited as much as it possibly could.

Brilliant idea though. So much potential, great job man :)

emilepetrone12• 14 years ago

Can't agree with this more. There needs to be more indie in tindie. The only problem is time and getting stuff built as fast as possible. But great comment and there definitely be more soul coming to the site.

kefs• 14 years ago

I have to sign-up to buy anything? I can understand for sellers, but buyers?

emilepetrone12• 14 years ago

Hmm interesting point... let me crunch on this one

jonhendry• 14 years ago

I look forward to the Tindie equivalent of Regretsy.com

Tindie: like Etsy for electronics

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