side_hustle_assignment.markdown

Project 1

Government info scraper/tweeter bot

• What is my 'MVP' for this project? e.g. what is the smallest amount of work I can do on this project to consider it something I can release to the world.

  • This would be a tool that would take direct government data and tweet out the exact data published. An MVP might even just tweet a link and say something like "Health Code Violations for 12/26/16"
  • Outline future iterations for this project
  • Future iterations would contain data analysis, scraping actual numbers and data points from the documents and tweeting out a more thorough analysis.
  • Why do I want to build this side project?
  • Tools like this are gaining traction in newsrooms everywhere and give reporters an extra leg up on data-gathering. News is one of my passions and I'd really like to help out where ever possible.
  • How do I plan to stay on track with completing or working on this project?
  • This is my first goal. I plan on working on it even while doing my job hunt and pushing code as frequently as possible. I plan on laying out waffle cards and mini goals (like the MVP) and setting weekly milestones that I'd like to hit.
  • Is there anyone I would want to get involved in working on or code reviewing this project?

  Sara Simon, Turing grad, has built products like this. I'd like to get her input and see if she would be willing to do code review/mentoring for me, especially since I'd like to build this in Python.

  • How would I get this side project out into the world? Tweet about it? Submit it to ProductHunt? I would like to just start using it. It Tweets for itself. And if it works correctly I'd like to try and sell a specific implementation of it to a local news/radio station.

Project 2

Newsroom Story aggregater

• What is my 'MVP' for this project? e.g. what is the smallest amount of work I can do on this project to consider it something I can release to the world.

  • MVP here is kind of like a google docs clone. It would be a hub for text "documents" that could be easily edited and shared on various social media.
  • Outline future iterations for this project
  • Ideally I would like the web interface to look like an older product I've used called WireReady.It would be a list form of all stories with the ability to "Rip and Read" text from one file to the next. Audio would also be able to be uploaded and played on the fly.
  • Why do I want to build this side project?
  • Much like the Twitter bot, I really want to help out newsrooms. Currently there isn't a good web-based tool that does what some really old and crappy tools do offline. The main thing those old tools don't do is integrate with Twitter/Facebook/Wordpress to help small news teams quickly publish information to a much wider audience.

  • How do I plan to stay on track with completing or working on this project?

    • No Matter how I look at this project, its going to be incredibly complex, I believe. Staying on track will be slower, but will involve aiming for milestones, trying to get code reviews, and having news friends give input on the project.

  • Is there anyone I would want to get involved in working on or code reviewing this project?

  • My friend develops a lot JS (Node) and thinks he knows what tools would be best for this project. He's willing to give code reviews and help keep the project from getting too out of hand.
  • How would I get this side project out into the world? Tweet about it? Submit it to ProductHunt?
  • Again, Ideally this could be sold. Other than that I would submit to something like ProductHunt or try to demo it for the several newsrooms that I know. If it's any good in the end, there are conferences where people still demo the old crappy products.

Projecct 3

React Data visualizer (pretty)

• What is my 'MVP' for this project? e.g. what is the smallest amount of work I can do on this project to consider it something I can release to the world.

• MVP here is basically a static page that shows "analysis" (probably hard coded information) about a certain dataset.

  • Outline future iterations for this project
  • Future iterations would have this doing more of the analysis itself and being more dynamic.
  • Why do I want to build this side project?
  • The main point behind this project is to have something beautiful to show off, honestly. People like pretty things, and nothing I have, or would like to build, is all that pretty. I want to build something in React and take the styling to a next level to prove that I can make pretty things, while being more than just a pretty face myself.
  • How do I plan to stay on track with completing or working on this project?
  • This project is the one that I see myself working on in between the others. It wouldn't have a strict timeline, but like the others would have mini-goals and milestones with personal deadlines. The upside with this is that the MVP shouldn't take too much time, and beyond that it would be fun tweaking of the style.
  • Is there anyone I would want to get involved in working on or code reviewing this project?
  • Sadly I don't know may Front-end driven people out in the "real-world". I know that there are connections here coughLouisacough but I also know how busy people at Turing are basically every day of the week.
  • How would I get this side project out into the world? Tweet about it? Submit it to ProductHunt?
  • This would be a resume piece, and a piece that I would try to update with new and interesting pieces of data to stay relevent with current events.