the tale of two side projects
if you're a computer science student, you've likely heard the phrase: "most side projects are just stale github repos, forgotten and unused." for the longest time, i thought my side projects would be no different—just experiments lost in the github void. but then i decided to give in to trends and see if they could spark something new. this is the story of two side projects i worked on recently that taught me a lot about execution, marketing, and the strange power of reddit.
1. gitaura (mid-august): following the twitter trend
it all started in mid-august when a trend blew up on twitter/x—auralized.com by @jaivinwylde. it allowed users to check their twitter profile's aura just by entering their username. sounded fun, quirky, and something i thought could translate into github profiles.
thus, gitaura was born—a web app that analyzes github profiles and generates an aura based on user activity. building the frontend was the easy part—i already knew react and next.js—but building a backend that could potentially handle more than 10 users (my friends, at most) was a whole new beast.
i launched gitaura before the summer break ended, thinking it would at least catch some buzz. but the reality? no traction. my post on twitter/x fell flat, and it didn't help that i had no real reach on the platform.
fast forward to september—almost a month later—i decided to give it one more shot. this time, i posted about it on reddit, and suddenly, gitaura took off like wildfire.
the surge of users from that one post was insane!
2. brat (early august): a rebellious experiment
before gitaura, i had noticed another trend in early august on social media—about something called "brat summer," which revolved around the persona of a rebellious, often misunderstood child. the idea of creating something in this spirit intrigued me.
inspired by @thiteanish’s tweet, i built brat.aroramrinaal.com—a brat-themed personal website and online resume, designed to be revolting but true. the obnoxious colors and over-the-top tone weren’t for everyone, but that was kind of the point.
while brat had a modest, consistent flow of traffic—almost 600 unique visitors in total—it was significant for a quirky project like this.
key takeaways: marketing over code (sometimes)
what i learned from both projects is that building is one thing, but getting eyes on your project is a whole other game. gitaura’s initial failure wasn’t a result of bad code or a broken product. it was a lack of marketing strategy. and when i finally took the leap to share it with the right audience (reddit), the numbers started rolling in.
in contrast, brat’s consistent but lower numbers showed me that not every project needs to “blow up.” it just needs to find the right niche. even though the numbers may not seem like a lot in the grand scheme of things, 600 visitors and 486 active users in one day (as shown in the analytics) is a huge win for me as a student just starting out.
at the end of the day, it’s not just about having a cool idea—it’s about sharing it with the right people.