zhang s

zhang s

indie maker, building zodiac tools

About

indie maker, building zodiac tools

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Tastemaker
Tastemaker
Gone streaking
Gone streaking
Gone streaking 5
Gone streaking 5

Maker History

  • Zodiac Compass
    Zodiac CompassA free Chinese zodiac calculator
    Sep 2026
  • 🎉
    Joined Product HuntSeptember 26th, 2026

Forums

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1mo ago

Zodiac Compass - A free Chinese zodiac calculator

Zodiac Compass tells you your true Chinese zodiac sign based on the actual lunar new year date of your birth year. Most online calculators get January and early-February birthdays wrong. Includes 12 sign profiles, compatibility matching, five elements, and 2026/2027 yearly forecasts.
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2mo ago

Laid off at 37 after 13 years in software — how do you rebuild as an indie?

Hey everyone. I'm a software engineer with 13 years of experience, mostly backend and architecture work. But honestly, I feel like my career might be ending.

My company is struggling, the economy where I live isn't great, and at 37 I've found that finding a new job is... not realistic anymore. Companies here want younger and cheaper.

So lately I've been trying to build my own thing to get out of this situation. I'm working on a small tool site (planning to launch it on Hypership Day, actually), and experimenting with ad networks for monetization. Small steps.

But I'll be honest: most days I can't see any hope in this. I don't know if I'm on the right path, or just wasting my runway. I don't know what I should do next.

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2mo ago

Has a press release ever actually brought you a customer?

Has a press release ever actually brought you a customer?

For a recent launch I sent a free press release out through a handful of distribution sites. One of them got it onto AP News, a couple hundred local news sites and Google News within a few hours. No journalist wrote about it though, it was all automatic reprints.

What did come back was a bunch of sales pitches, an affiliate network asking to list the product, and a sign-up from a company that found us through ChatGPT. I'd done the same thing for my Mac apps before and got nothing like that, so my guess is people watch those feeds for B2B tools.

Have you tried one for a launch? Did anyone actually reach out because of it?

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