Show HN: Open-sourcing my failed startup Buzee – A file search application

It would be great if you can share your journey, and why you think it failed? And how you would do it differently if you start today?<p>Also this is not the first time I&#x27;m seeing a universal search startups fail, some even YC backed. It sounds like an interesting idea, but why is it failing, I can&#x27;t seem to figure out, maybe not enough market or adaptation?

Thanks to make this open source! Doesn&#x27;t seem to have any AI enabled search feature does it? Honestly I think you gave up too early, there are solid foundations in the app but definitely needs some more polishing for practical use. I managed to build it on my mac. npm install, npm run tauri build. What is your workflow to add features &#x2F; debug?

I use recoll: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.recoll.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.recoll.org&#x2F;</a><p>Recoll will index an MS-Word document stored as an attachment to an e-mail message inside a Thunderbird folder archived in a Zip file (and more… ). It will also help you search for it with a friendly and powerful interface, and let you open a copy of a PDF at the right page with two clicks. There is little that will remain hidden on your disk.

Won’t let me download? My work environment could really use something like this. Our electronic records are so vast that Windows search no longer works. And they refuse to delete anything. With paper files, after a certain number of years, we knew what to trash. That mentality hasn’t extended to electronic yet. As soon as someone gets nailed in audit discovery, I suppose…

I refuse to use a program named after a Labrador Retriever without seeing a picture of said Labrador Retriever.<p>Here&#x27;s mine in her thieving puppy phase. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;wpJD4SI" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;wpJD4SI</a>

Based on your explanation and my very very limited knowledge of Microsoft SharePoint, sounds you were trying to implement SharePoint!<p>And there&#x27;s a lot of enterprises that use that and pay a lot of money for it! The business side problem i can see is : how do you convince MS focused companies to use your product instead of SharePoint? Could your product be built on top of it?<p>Can you for example also enhance gSuite?<p>Thank you for open sourcing this, so others may learn from you or build upon your work!

The first link, &quot;Download for Windows Download for Mac&quot;, seem to be a broken link to the Releases page. But the real Releases page also doesn&#x27;t have any releases. I also think that a project that has the GUI as its main value add should probably include a screenshot ;)

if you need to do really complicated file search, duckdb has an extension that lets you run SQL on your file system could be an option.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;duckdb.org&#x2F;community_extensions&#x2F;extensions&#x2F;hostfs.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;duckdb.org&#x2F;community_extensions&#x2F;extensions&#x2F;hostfs.ht...</a>

Thank you for sharing your Buzee with the world.<p>(For your next project, may I suggest double checking if the name overlaps with any colorful slang?)

Thanks for making it open-source!<p>btw had a request, I saw your repo lacks proper documentation. We are building an open source ai documentation system, I would love to try if I may have your permission to build docs and create a PR!<p>You can checkout our project here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;git.new&#x2F;akiradocs" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;git.new&#x2F;akiradocs</a>

I dream of a file system that I never have to organize. I just say what I want.

You tried to make a file search utility a startup? Did you sell any copies?

Looks really cool. Maybe the model is “your desktop for free, add other providers like GDrive &#x2F; O365 for money” or maybe you tried that already?

Anyone have suggestions for an app to search across all my stuff? That is, Google Drive, GitHub, GitLab, Box.com and local files?

Sounds like an amazing idea but I installed the windows app from the website and it crashes immediately after opening.

I get a lot of this with spotlight&#x2F;mdfind and it&#x27;s realtime. Trying to understand if I&#x27;m missing a value add.

Why not Alfred or Everything?

Why did you focus on Mac when they already have something that is at least presentable with spotlight&#x2F;mdfind, whereas Windows search is (and always has been) atrocious? Especially in a business context. I see a much bigger market opportunity for a good search tool that is tailored to Windows.

Maybe now you should try to do an app to forget files. Mindfileness.

I&#x27;m sorry, but it looks like you tried to reinvent explorer&#x2F;finder without adding any other useful features. You need to add something besides regular features if you want people to want to pay for it.

&quot;did you try slapping AI on it?&quot;

Please improve the documentation!

Great initiative! It&#x27;s always inspiring to see individuals open-sourcing their projects to benefit the community.<p>At refind.ai (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;refind.ai&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;refind.ai&#x2F;</a>), we’ve been working on a similar challenge of navigating large volumes of documents, but with a more AI-driven and user centric approach. Beyond just search, we focus on transforming unstructured data into structured insights. This includes features like automatic metadata extraction, natural language search, and integrations with external systems like email and CRMs.<p>To those who struggle with file management at scale, especially in environments where tools like Spotlight or Windows Search fall short, I think there’s a lot of potential for tools like Buzee to evolve further. If anyone wants to collaborate or learn more about our approach, feel free to reach out!<p>Best of luck with Buzee’s journey—I’d love to see how the community builds on it!