Show HN: Open-Source Alternative to OpenAI Platform, for Local Models 1 year ago
Love that you can pull in other open source plugins. Super cool!
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cvanvlack
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Super interesting.
My family are farmers. I got a PhD in physics, switched to startups and have one successful exit. However family is still a BIG value for me.
I think a lot about the opportunity cost of time and I spent a lot of holidays trying to be thoughtful in the search of a good gift.
A lot of my family realizes the fortunate position we are in. So I have thought a lot about how to share generously, but also authentically, with a keen eye on the fact that time is our only non-renewable resource.
This is why I have focused on gifts as a search/efficiency problem so I can actually spend real time with the people in my life.
Thanks so much for sharing.
Web app made!
Alright, now there's no account creation AND no app download.
I had hoped using Flutter would pay off!
I would only recommend trying on a mobile browser. The swiping doesn't work on desktop yet.
I think I got the web app version working! I had hoped using Flutter would pay off.
Edit: I would only recommend trying on a mobile browser. The swiping doesn't work on desktop yet.
Yeah! I found your thing when I was looking for options in the gifting space.
For me it's the difference between wanting to outsource and wanting to optimize.
I was never comfortable with the outsourcing because I never felt like it would have been "from me".
Instead I wanted to find a much faster way of winnowing through a category to see if there was something that I thought the other person would like.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this.
I originally had generic tags that people could add but no one would ever add a unique tag. It just kept on pushing the suggestions more into the realm of the mediocre rather than into the realm of unique and interesting.
I'm still trying to find ways with the UX to convey "With this design it's not possible for the app to harvest your data".
I think all of us are DONE with tracking and ads. But giving a recommendation is almost impossible without asking about the context and using continual refinement.
I'll keep working on it!
Looking for one to add to the app now. lol
It's lower on the mobile website. Link here: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wk5-TrIPbpk
Yeah, part of the reason I came up with this is that my family keeps asking me about gift ideas for my wife and kids.
I know what they like. I can answer that question.
What I have struggled to answer is what's out there that matches what they like.
Using Firebase for the backend.
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&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&Thank you so much! I will definitely check it out!
Yeah, I'm starting to scrape Etsy (there are definitely some on there already).
Shopify stores seem like another big opporunity. It could potentially be the biggest mall in the world and yet I can't find the Shopify stores in my own area to support local.
100% agree on the reminders. I originally had the gift recipients birthday's in there but that was personally identifiable information so I stripped it. People are already too concerned about data collection. I'll likely add a "When do you want to be reminded about this gift giving date" to avoid that whole issue.
You're welcome!
The framing I have been thinking of is search engines/Amazon are great when you have a keyword.
What seems to be missing is a product discovery engine. How do you search for something that you don't know exists?!
Oooohhh, I am super curious by what you mean by this. How is gifting culture different outside of North America?
I totally respect that.
As I have been talking to people, I have noticed people who are frequently shopping and checking out products are WAY more ahead of the game because they are exposed to more ideas.
I hate shopping so this was my way of trying to quickly get at good ideas while quickly removing bad ideas.
I've been thinking a LOT about the user data collection side. The app is pretty explicit in terms of trying to narrow in on preferences. It's kind of a requirement if you are going to help someone find a unique gift. But it still feels a too much like data harvesting. So how to strike that balance?
Right now I believe I have turned off all ad/app tracking (although I am pretty new at this so maybe I've messed something up. If you know more about this than I do and you see something wrong please let me know). As a user, I only want the information I share to be used for THIS purpose. Not to keep spamming me with more ads.
If I could figure out a way to give you more control over your own data would this still be a flop for you?
Thank you!! There's a lot that's still clunky about it but hopefully I can make it so that it continues to earn a spot on your phone.
Thanks for the website feedback. I honestly just put it there as a placeholder and was working entirely on the app. Then I realized that for showing on HN the website is the right way to go so I tossed something together.
I'll put a .gif higher up in the website flow to highlight the point of the app and show a more recent version.
Not sure if I should do a real demo or stick with the office though. It's pretty hard to beet...
Oh man, this reminded me of something super retro about passing around the same gift: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi9qSKZuvC4&t=1928s
Not sure for the plans for open source.
Technically I am creating an anonymous account using Firebase. I've half built the capabilities to allow people to convert the anonymous account into a real account so that people can use the same account on multiple devices.
The push notifications were so I can send notifications as I add products that match the tags. When someone adds something super specific, there might not be anything in the app that matches it and because we don't have any account creation, notifications were the only way I could think of to let people know of the new stuff.
Agreed on the browser side. I played with it for half a day and it was still buggy so I abandoned it in favor of other items that seemed more useful to people.
Love the idea!
However this will require much more integration to make sure I am showing the right size compared to just scraping. I'll put it on the roadmap!
That's fair! I've used Google for people who I am close to and those listicles have routinely fallen short for me.
I think this is more to try to answer questions like "What do you get for the golfer who has everything".
Then focuses on how to remove categories of items you know they have. E.g. "Golf clubs", "Golf balls", "Golf bags", "Golf Clothing".
Then, the intention is to see what's left over to try to find something unique.
I'll play with Flutter today and see how easy/hard it would be to add web.
I know the formatting will be brutal once you switch to a desktop browser because the whole idiom for interaction changes. Maybe it won't suck too bad though...
Yeah, I can start looking into how to pull that information too.
I know there are even broken links in there as merchants are changing their images/redirects that I haven't purged. All in time!
Thank you for taking the time!!!
Yeah, I got sick of trading cash back and forth with people. It started to seem pointless.
Plus, I have young kids who love birthdays/Christmas and the excitement of watching them watch someone else open a gift is WAY less if it's just an envelope with cash or a gift card! Lol
BEETS, BEARS, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA!!!!!
Yeah, there are lots of places in the app where if something goes wrong, it's a failwhale.
But I figured better to get it out there and if no one cares then why worry about the failure cases?
Thanks for the feedback! No account creation necessary. Just an app download.
I know that with Flutter you can also make web apps so I'll see how hard it is to switch it to a web version to lower the barrier to entry even further.