Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?
It may be passive or active or maintenance mode of income. Just something created by you and your sole passion that have worked out for quite some time and maybe still going on.
447 comments
Probably not relevant to the younger set here on HN: I became obsessed in the late 90’s with using a camera to photograph subjects and events that are hard to observe with the naked eye. (Examples include: spotted bats photographed in flight, or red tree voles that only live at the tippy top of Doug fir trees, or nocturnal genets photographed in arboreal habitats). I loved the challenge of the work.
I grew up poor. So I had to figure out how to finance this work up front. It was a true obsession and I would have probably gone completely broke if not for the fantastic interest my work generated. I was licensing the work for good $$$.
Cut to now: I’m still fascinated with this type of photography. But my work these days involves social media content generation. Since I hate being the center of attention, I’m lucky that my clients just want content (and leave me out!).
But this early work just keeps selling. The subjects were so difficult to capture that I guess others have not really pursued the same path? I’m probably just a lucky fool.
If I were to die tomorrow, my family would still have good income from just this early work. I just can’t believe how this played out for me. I’d like to think it was a clever strategy. But no.
Coming from a family riven with poverty, addiction, and early death - I’m just astounded. I’ve already outlived every male member of my family in the last three generations. I hope to set my child on a different path thanks to this lucky break of timing + opportunity.
I grew up poor. So I had to figure out how to finance this work up front. It was a true obsession and I would have probably gone completely broke if not for the fantastic interest my work generated. I was licensing the work for good $$$.
Cut to now: I’m still fascinated with this type of photography. But my work these days involves social media content generation. Since I hate being the center of attention, I’m lucky that my clients just want content (and leave me out!).
But this early work just keeps selling. The subjects were so difficult to capture that I guess others have not really pursued the same path? I’m probably just a lucky fool.
If I were to die tomorrow, my family would still have good income from just this early work. I just can’t believe how this played out for me. I’d like to think it was a clever strategy. But no.
Coming from a family riven with poverty, addiction, and early death - I’m just astounded. I’ve already outlived every male member of my family in the last three generations. I hope to set my child on a different path thanks to this lucky break of timing + opportunity.
What a very appealing tale. Perhaps because it doesn't involve tech, much of which is so sterile by comparison. Or perhaps to me because I had related interests in my youth - I did a lot of wildlife & macro photography, spent countless hours out on cold nights etc. I kind of let go of it for very accidental reasons, so your story has a kind of stochastic butterfly wing flavor to me. I ended up the opposite way - late 50's, poorer than ever, without $$ and on the verge of homelessness. But I take genuine vicarious pleasure in your trajectory.
> I’m probably just a lucky fool.
Lucky, probably. Fool, less likely. But in any case, "luck" falls where it will, and better to a photographer of bats and voles than a fintech spiv or arms dealer or .. many other things.
> I’m probably just a lucky fool.
Lucky, probably. Fool, less likely. But in any case, "luck" falls where it will, and better to a photographer of bats and voles than a fintech spiv or arms dealer or .. many other things.
This is so cool. How long did it take you to get some of highly sought after photos?
You remind me of Maurice Frydman .. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Frydman
Sounds like a very simple idea. But, no many consider to monetize it.
Can you link to a sample (with a watermark or some protection of course)?
Did you market the photos yourself or use an agency?
https://www.newaudiotechnology.com/
A shared friend introduced me to someone who claimed to be a struggling Hollywood genius. We were all drinking at some university party. He told us about all the cool shit he would do if only technology wasn't so bad. So I built a tool to solve his issues. To my surprise, he used it on the Expendables 3 blurays. Later, the audio crew for George Lukas' Red Tails praised the tool in an interview. Hollywood guy got grammy nominated. I got paid first for development and then licensing fees. But I mostly like it not for the financials, but because this way my software made it onto a few magazine covers :) I collected all of them.
A shared friend introduced me to someone who claimed to be a struggling Hollywood genius. We were all drinking at some university party. He told us about all the cool shit he would do if only technology wasn't so bad. So I built a tool to solve his issues. To my surprise, he used it on the Expendables 3 blurays. Later, the audio crew for George Lukas' Red Tails praised the tool in an interview. Hollywood guy got grammy nominated. I got paid first for development and then licensing fees. But I mostly like it not for the financials, but because this way my software made it onto a few magazine covers :) I collected all of them.
I'm a bit confused - this doesn't look like a quick tool built to solve one issue - this links to what appears to be a whole company with many sophisticated products. You did this all yourself?
Wow I didn't expect this to get so much attention.
Yes, I built all these products.
The tools have a shared C++ core library and then I did the DAW integrations and platform-specific GUIs with JUCE, which is a cross platform C++ toolkit popular with audio people.
The original issue that I solved was simply mixing a large number of inputs down to something like 22.2 cinema surround based on mathematical formulas. Instead of the user dialing in 24 knobs, they type in XYZ coordinates and the math decides those 24 knobs for you.
Later versions then added animation, control surfaces, the headphone surround sound, and MPEG-H export for live TV.
All the initial release versions were 1 programmer x 3 years. By now, I've moved on and nowadays they have a small team to do maintenance, support, upgrades, etc.
Yes, I built all these products.
The tools have a shared C++ core library and then I did the DAW integrations and platform-specific GUIs with JUCE, which is a cross platform C++ toolkit popular with audio people.
The original issue that I solved was simply mixing a large number of inputs down to something like 22.2 cinema surround based on mathematical formulas. Instead of the user dialing in 24 knobs, they type in XYZ coordinates and the math decides those 24 knobs for you.
Later versions then added animation, control surfaces, the headphone surround sound, and MPEG-H export for live TV.
All the initial release versions were 1 programmer x 3 years. By now, I've moved on and nowadays they have a small team to do maintenance, support, upgrades, etc.
Wow, 22.2 is pretty crazy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/22.2_surround_sound
When you say you can input XYZ coordinates - I couldn't help but wonder, is this sort of thing ever hooked up to motion tracking?
When you say you can input XYZ coordinates - I couldn't help but wonder, is this sort of thing ever hooked up to motion tracking?
Back then, people used it for live art performances, so I added a protocol to stream in the positions real-time. The ARRI mixing desks have the same protocol, so capturing motion data into your DAW is definitely doable.
This used to be the way. Now it takes a whole team to put a textbox on a Web app.
No. It's just what we chose - http://www.radicalsimpli.city/
I have never seen this chart before today http://www.radicalsimpli.city/Complexity2005_2021.svg. I have seen it three times in the space of an hour on different websites.
I recall I have seen it also on Unpoly presentation which was on HN first page the same day.
The good thing is, there is a bit of a resurgence of the solopreneur spirit.
Exactly. You’ll need an entirely remote design team (to reduce costs ofc) to make sure it’s mobile.
or one ChatGPT
Oh my gosh! I was a happy user of Hajo Headphone Enhancer for years until he dropped off the Internet and his software wasn't updated for newer macOS versions. Now I see that you have licensed it and are reselling it under Spatial Sound Card - L.
It was a tremendous pain to get installed, and the documentation on your site is insufficient (I had to open the driver installer app inside the main app bundle manually, in the terminal to see the output with the error message, then google the error message to find out where the System Preferences request was), but I'm really excited to hear the fullness of the sound again!
Initial notes: Idle CPU while playing through SSC is about 1-2% less than without, and the "Energy Impact" of SSC is ~6.7 compared to Spotify's ~3.0. I don't think I'd call it particularly "light", but I love the sound! I'm rocking Reykjavik, but New York also sounds good in my headphones.
It was a tremendous pain to get installed, and the documentation on your site is insufficient (I had to open the driver installer app inside the main app bundle manually, in the terminal to see the output with the error message, then google the error message to find out where the System Preferences request was), but I'm really excited to hear the fullness of the sound again!
Initial notes: Idle CPU while playing through SSC is about 1-2% less than without, and the "Energy Impact" of SSC is ~6.7 compared to Spotify's ~3.0. I don't think I'd call it particularly "light", but I love the sound! I'm rocking Reykjavik, but New York also sounds good in my headphones.
Actually, Apple first denied to renew the signing certificate I needed to update the .kext kernel extension that is necessary to make the Hajo Headphone Enhancer work. That's why updates got delayed while I was still hoping to resolve that.
Then, like a year later, it became clear that I would need a full rewrite to make things work again because there was no way Apple would allow me to keep using the old APIs. I took a critical look at the sales numbers (like $6k over 3 years for the Hajo's Headphone Enhancer product) and decided that writing an Apple-only kernel driver from scratch would not be financially viable.
Since I was also the person that built the original Windows-only Spatial Sound Card app, I offered the burning Mac app ruins to them ;) But actually merging both products was done by my successors.
Then, like a year later, it became clear that I would need a full rewrite to make things work again because there was no way Apple would allow me to keep using the old APIs. I took a critical look at the sales numbers (like $6k over 3 years for the Hajo's Headphone Enhancer product) and decided that writing an Apple-only kernel driver from scratch would not be financially viable.
Since I was also the person that built the original Windows-only Spatial Sound Card app, I offered the burning Mac app ruins to them ;) But actually merging both products was done by my successors.
This is a great example of why I frequent HN. The vast range of users makes this site so rich.
fxtentacle, I remember chatting with you briefly earlier this year about all the projects you had worked on, and you didn't even mention this one. You are one interesting dude.
Does HN have some kind of discord channel or similar?
This would be the closest thing to one: https://discord.gg/Wp2PSCgH
Sorry, that is not supposed to be an open server, and posting the link in clear is a way to invite spammers and bots... Also, it's not supposed to be an unofficial HN discord. It's just a place for randos to talk about stuff.
My bad, sorry if you got kicked, but please send me an email if want in.
(I am the one who created the server and only admin. I do not have enough bandwidth to manage an open server.)
My bad, sorry if you got kicked, but please send me an email if want in.
(I am the one who created the server and only admin. I do not have enough bandwidth to manage an open server.)
Amazing!
Is the Spatial Sound Card L a bit like a software version of the Sound Blaster 16bit cards? Does it affect performance much on Mac and PC?
I played the original Thief using a Sound Blaster card and still remember the audio giving me goosebumps!
Is the Spatial Sound Card L a bit like a software version of the Sound Blaster 16bit cards? Does it affect performance much on Mac and PC?
I played the original Thief using a Sound Blaster card and still remember the audio giving me goosebumps!
That's great that your software was able to help someone and that they were able to use it successfully in their work. But remember, the true value of what you've created goes beyond just the financial gain or the recognition you may have received. The real reward is the knowledge and satisfaction that comes from creating something that can have a positive impact on others!
this is super cool! thanks for sharing!!
congrats, you are living the dream!
I had partnering with a marketing agency for awhile doing implementation of their designs in WordPress. After a few years of clients breaking their sites doing upgrades and other ad-hoc questions/enhancement requests coming via email, I got tired of sending $100-200 invoices, so I started selling "WordPress Maintenance" as a product. It's not fun or sexy, but don't underestimate the number of organizations willing to pay $3K/year to be able to email you for advice, install plugins, add custom post types, and keep things up to date. I've got ~12 clients now (started with 4 in 2017) and it's an "easy" $30K every year.
FWIW, I work exclusively with local clients. Local clients, in my experience, are more willing to pay more to local people.
FWIW, I work exclusively with local clients. Local clients, in my experience, are more willing to pay more to local people.
For kicks I once saved a local company I was working at about $30k by installing a wordpress caching plugin.
Their website went down when they got some international attention, and the consultants they hired designed a "solution" which involved big dedicated machines to host their (essentially text+image) wordpress site. The site wasn't my job at all, but when I overheard the price (and read their engineering plan) I asked for admin access and told them 10mins later to fire the consultants.
The director of engineering (an awesome guy) advised that I register a business and not use my name, then he hired me under pseudonym as their new consultant and I billed them at twice the rate they were paying me during the day for a few hours here and there at night (in retrospect, a total steal for them as I was an intern..)
Their website went down when they got some international attention, and the consultants they hired designed a "solution" which involved big dedicated machines to host their (essentially text+image) wordpress site. The site wasn't my job at all, but when I overheard the price (and read their engineering plan) I asked for admin access and told them 10mins later to fire the consultants.
The director of engineering (an awesome guy) advised that I register a business and not use my name, then he hired me under pseudonym as their new consultant and I billed them at twice the rate they were paying me during the day for a few hours here and there at night (in retrospect, a total steal for them as I was an intern..)
That director of engineering sounds SO cool. What a chill dude.
Ya most fun workplace due to it being basically 15 best friends who've worked together for many years. Even the CEO was their buddy from college.
Now I'm in big tech and while it's astronomically better for my career, I absolutely loathe it socially. Not sure it's worth it (holistically), and look forward to someday joining a local medium sized company with average achievers + personalities.
Now I'm in big tech and while it's astronomically better for my career, I absolutely loathe it socially. Not sure it's worth it (holistically), and look forward to someday joining a local medium sized company with average achievers + personalities.
That's awesome! I'm still in undergrad and naturally I want that big FAANG+ payday, but, I think building a company or just working with people I really like would be much nicer. But now that you've seen both sides, do you see your self moving?
Yes, waiting for a promotion and maybe some stock vesting, then I can't wait to move.
As much as I love money, I'm financially stable enough. Going to force myself to prioritize other things. Good luck.
Yeah, my dad left a very very lucrative SWE role to work as an entry level NASA employee because he loves Space so much. Honestly, he seems pretty happy with the shift.
What's your responsibility of things go south and the wordpress gets hacked? Do you have liability insurance or any other protections in place?
Anyone providing professional services should have liability insurance.
Furthermore, unless a service provider has been acting negligently or has given some sort of guarantee like "With my services, your WordPress instance won't be hacked.", they usually can't be held responsible for actions and outcomes that are out of their control.
Furthermore, unless a service provider has been acting negligently or has given some sort of guarantee like "With my services, your WordPress instance won't be hacked.", they usually can't be held responsible for actions and outcomes that are out of their control.
Specifically, I believe you are looking for E&O (errors and omissions) insurance. Make a mistake doing something, or mistakenly not do something, and it will cover your liability up to whatever coverage you buy.
As you say, willful negligence, malicious acts, false advertising and fraud are of course not covered.
As you say, willful negligence, malicious acts, false advertising and fraud are of course not covered.
Any tips on how to find clients? Many websites are flooded with ultra-low cost developers.
Which is why local businesses still want someone they know and can see/trust.
Suing lawyers as side income.
we all know most lawyers are scummy using all sorts of deceit to gain advantage.
However in the increasing documented world, it is a matter of digging(using text search) to find fault with the offending lawyer's deceit and then file a DIY action in court.
I am involved in estate litigation since 2016 where I discovered collusion by many lawyers with the estate administrator to defraud the estate. Our laws for anti corruption are stringent in my country where a lawyer causing a beneficiary damage as the estate's lawyer is liable for 20 yrs imprisonment and 5x penalty fine for the gratification received.
I am involved in estate litigation since 2016 where I discovered collusion by many lawyers with the estate administrator to defraud the estate. Our laws for anti corruption are stringent in my country where a lawyer causing a beneficiary damage as the estate's lawyer is liable for 20 yrs imprisonment and 5x penalty fine for the gratification received.
Don't you think this might not be a safe side income for you?
It is as safe as filing any valid cause of action in law. Submissions in court is not much different than presenting for a budget in large corporate. Law is not mysterious, it is just plain ability to find case laws that fits your particular sets of circumstances (authorities) - what we devs call pattern matching. Like chess,prepare your defenses while you plan your offensive. Playbook is just like MCO("chess") but be prepared to stay motivated for the long haul.
I think the question was more about any out of court consequences – 20 years imprisonment is a lot, and seems you're dealing with people who aren't particularly law abiding to begin with. Aren't you worried of someone trying to go after you?
I agree there are elements of risks in such activism. Like reporters bringing the corruption to light exposes the reporters to retaliations. It is a lot less risky than being all in as a startup founder or diving to 150 ft below surface with a 45 min tank. The Professional indemnity insurance comes into play to compensate. The jail time element is incentive towards settlement or compensation.
You could get powerful enemies, and also risk losing a lot on any particular case. Best of luck.
I have to ask though, do you think “most lawyers” fit your description? I would hope they do not.
I have to ask though, do you think “most lawyers” fit your description? I would hope they do not.
yes, the possibility of making powerful enemies (the Bar) but like any activism - "having skin in the game", the law exist to be relied on. 95 to 98% is my personal observation. My own sister(Yale sheepskin) included. I am in tech solutions not reliant on the Court circuit to earn my income. I do see an opportunity for a Notion based litigation tool for time saving to easily organize and retrieve the myriad of documents in a case. coupled with case law access and template - A DIY engine for Litigant in Person saving hundreds of thousand in legal fees. AI vs weasels. Game on.
How much time per week do you spend on that?
It doesn't really seem like a side thing to my I don't know the law eyes.
It doesn't really seem like a side thing to my I don't know the law eyes.
Courts are very slow moving. The cartel known as the Bar makes it difficult for litigant in person.But once you have to tools (case law database access) and templates for the documents to file it is like writing up aproject proposal in corporate office. The digitally filing process is quick(after you physically present yourself at a court to hand over the CDRom to the court registry and filling in paper forms). The cartel(Bar) in my country however prevents litigant-in-person access to the digital filing system(reserved for licensed practitioners only) I do not bill the estate for my hours so I have no idea but it can be absorbing as a chess game.
Don’t doxx yourself but can you link to an example, public case? One you weren’t involved in maybe?
Can you elaborate more how such fraud happens? Also, how would you even get access to court record for these estates? Would these records not be private to the party at hand?
Fraud happens when someone does something dishonest to gain unlawful enrichment mostly by fraudulent misrepresentation. The administrator may embezzle and hide the accounts for example, then the scum lawyer try to dissipate all assets in dishonest assistance when exposed the lawyer and administrator had corruptly abused their position of trust. As beneficiary we can file suit for accounting of the estate. Non accounting usually a big red flag. (applies to most countries) - disclaimer - I am not a lawyer. Comments here not legal advice to be taken in any form or shape. YMMV.
So you have to be a beneficiary to file? I can't imagine that happening more than two or three times in your life... are you helping others with their cases?
In my country, we do not ,as I am told, have courts that allow 3rd party lawsuits, so this knowledge cannot be leveraged to represent others to sue by absolute assignment of rights("chose in action"). I am one of few that I am executor of both my parents estate and may become administrator for my grandmother's estate. The asymmetrical financial power of the misbehaving Personal Representative of an estate (having resources of entire estate to resist removal) is something that can be solved by 3rd party financing. Framework of transparency in estate administration may be a digital solution where the court supervise the administration of an estate digitally in fine grain and in realtime instead of beneficiary initiated lawsuits. There is a need for professional estate administration or avoid probate process altogether. Most executors are once in lifetime newbies and are easy targets of scummy lawyers to manipulate into unnecessary and prolonged litigation (milking the estate) by colluding lawyers.
Wow. Did you go to uni to study law I take it? Or was this all DIY?
Logic 101, yes, CS,EE, yes, law no. Maybe I shall do night school on law. I started small win because forced into litigation but first appearance in court ever beat a 15yr exp litigation lawyer on rules of court(civil procedure). Some/many lawyers are amazed by ctrl-f in pdf reader or browser so I can search through entire rules of court in 1 second while they are still flipping pages. small wins fuel more research. I believe high cost of litigation is a life threatening risk so all must learn a bit of law. Or build a AI powered DIY tool for litigant in person.
I actually have a few:
1) Board member (advisor really) of a crypto/blockchain company. They pay me $5k per month to basically answer questions and help solve certain issues that might arise. There's also regular meetings but all in I spend 4 hours per week max.
2) Small contractor jobs. I was a contractor and home builder in a previous life. These days, I do side jobs both for the extra income and as a way to relax from my regular tech job. I build decks, sheds, small patios, and some indoor remodeling stuff. All of it is really basic because I have no interest in large jobs that would take a lot of time. A 10x12 shed will net me around $6k and I can build it in a weekend. A similar sized deck I'll charge $25k. Small patio pours I'll net $4k. During Christmas season (right now) I also hang lights. I'll charge between $1500 - $2500 and net most of that. Takes me around an hour for a normal two story house.
3) Tech consultant. I help administer various Wordpress and other sites for clients. Basic stuff like plugins, changing font, layouts, etc. Super easy and I get paid a monthly retainer.
4) I work two six-figure engineering jobs. Neither is super difficult which gives me time to do the other things and still have free-time to spend with my family, friends, and hobbies.
5) Rental income. I built a few single family homes and apartment buildings (12 units per building). Nets very good income but can also be demanding because I prefer to do most of the management work myself. Just sold one 12-plex for $1.6MM in August and am sitting on the others.
1) Board member (advisor really) of a crypto/blockchain company. They pay me $5k per month to basically answer questions and help solve certain issues that might arise. There's also regular meetings but all in I spend 4 hours per week max.
2) Small contractor jobs. I was a contractor and home builder in a previous life. These days, I do side jobs both for the extra income and as a way to relax from my regular tech job. I build decks, sheds, small patios, and some indoor remodeling stuff. All of it is really basic because I have no interest in large jobs that would take a lot of time. A 10x12 shed will net me around $6k and I can build it in a weekend. A similar sized deck I'll charge $25k. Small patio pours I'll net $4k. During Christmas season (right now) I also hang lights. I'll charge between $1500 - $2500 and net most of that. Takes me around an hour for a normal two story house.
3) Tech consultant. I help administer various Wordpress and other sites for clients. Basic stuff like plugins, changing font, layouts, etc. Super easy and I get paid a monthly retainer.
4) I work two six-figure engineering jobs. Neither is super difficult which gives me time to do the other things and still have free-time to spend with my family, friends, and hobbies.
5) Rental income. I built a few single family homes and apartment buildings (12 units per building). Nets very good income but can also be demanding because I prefer to do most of the management work myself. Just sold one 12-plex for $1.6MM in August and am sitting on the others.
I know this has been upvoted to the top, but this is the most matter-of-a-factly description of superhuman productivity I have encountered.
Can you elaborate a bit on how you get so much stuff done?
What do you see 'regular people' (or HN folks at least) complain/discuss where you just shrug and wonder why it seems so hard?
Can you elaborate a bit on how you get so much stuff done?
What do you see 'regular people' (or HN folks at least) complain/discuss where you just shrug and wonder why it seems so hard?
I have no social life. Without diving super deep into my past or anything, I just prioritize things and go do it. Have no interest in movies, TV, concerts, bars, or anything else really. I suppose I inherited it from my parents who are workaholics. Also, grew up poor and never want to experience that again so there's probably a bit of a deep-seeded fear in the back of my mind that going broke and losing everything is always possible. Also, I really only sleep 3-4 hours a night and if I'm not doing something productive I feel unsatisfied and generally melancholy. I also only eat one meal a day, sometimes two which combined takes around an hour to prepare, cook, and eat. So that leaves me roughly 18-19 hours per day to work. And in all my work, I automate absolutely anything and everything that can be automated.
There's probably a bit of underlying depression involved where I feel like if I slow down all those mental worries and fears will manifest and send me down a dark path which want to avoid at all costs.
I try not to judge other folks because everyone has different priorities in life. Mine is working, but others may want to travel, try different beers, play sports, have dinner with friends, etc. I can never stop thinking about projects I want to do so I really don't enjoy a lot of socializing.
More specifically - my two jobs are typical 8-4 hours. Before and after I do whatever maintenance is required for the websites I admin. The crypto/blockchain company will have meetings in the evening, occasionally on the weekends. I have friends and family assist with managing my properties and I pay them very well for their help because some properties are located in another state that they're closer to. This mostly leaves weekends available for some contracting projects in my neighborhood (new development, wealthy folks who don't want to do any manual labor!). Additionally, I'm able to check on my properties, do walk-throughs with tenants, repairs (normally plumbing related - sinks, faucets, toilets, boilers), as well as move-ins and move-outs. If it's an emergency I have contacts for electricians, plumbers, HVAC, etc. who can get over there when I can't. My biggest gripe is with modern appliances. Normally use GE appliances, but the quality has gone down-hill, tried Samsung and same thing. I'm spending more to put in higher quality products like Bosch or Miele when possible.
There's probably a bit of underlying depression involved where I feel like if I slow down all those mental worries and fears will manifest and send me down a dark path which want to avoid at all costs.
I try not to judge other folks because everyone has different priorities in life. Mine is working, but others may want to travel, try different beers, play sports, have dinner with friends, etc. I can never stop thinking about projects I want to do so I really don't enjoy a lot of socializing.
More specifically - my two jobs are typical 8-4 hours. Before and after I do whatever maintenance is required for the websites I admin. The crypto/blockchain company will have meetings in the evening, occasionally on the weekends. I have friends and family assist with managing my properties and I pay them very well for their help because some properties are located in another state that they're closer to. This mostly leaves weekends available for some contracting projects in my neighborhood (new development, wealthy folks who don't want to do any manual labor!). Additionally, I'm able to check on my properties, do walk-throughs with tenants, repairs (normally plumbing related - sinks, faucets, toilets, boilers), as well as move-ins and move-outs. If it's an emergency I have contacts for electricians, plumbers, HVAC, etc. who can get over there when I can't. My biggest gripe is with modern appliances. Normally use GE appliances, but the quality has gone down-hill, tried Samsung and same thing. I'm spending more to put in higher quality products like Bosch or Miele when possible.
You’re one of these special lucky people who only needs 4 hours sleep. I have a friend like that and he uses his extra time to complete video games and be a dad/husband. I’m more of a 8-9 hours person myself so I’m super jealous
Thanks for elaborating - and reminding me there are no magic tricks; it's about the effort we put in (which you pretty much max out).
It seems you will eventually accumulate enough assets to pay for a comfortable lifestyle indefinitely. I wish you well and that you can use that to enjoy life on your terms.
It seems you will eventually accumulate enough assets to pay for a comfortable lifestyle indefinitely. I wish you well and that you can use that to enjoy life on your terms.
married? ex-wife? kids? age? :D
Thank you for your open and honest replies about your hyperproductivity and optimization. There is an expression, "the days are long, the years are short." Do you see yourself building toward a point in older age where you can either relax, or focus on something that you consider a major achievement? Of course, that could very well be creating a comfortable existence for your family, which it seems like you've already done.
Yes and no. I want a solid nest-egg in the event that something happens and prevents me from working. No interest in traveling or doing anything else at the moment but of course things can change and as I get older my train of thought will probably change as well so I try to be cognizant of that. In building some level of wealth, I'd consider it to be an achievement and follow-up achievement is using whatever funds I have to help others because I don't care for things other than tools, computer parts, and things like microcontrollers (Arduinos and RPI's).
Sounds extremely corny but I lost my best friends a few years back and their families are not well off financially, one in particular is struggling so I help them as much as they will let me because they're in their mid 60's and have always treated me like family. Another friend wanted to start a remodeling company so I helped him with that. I think these are the kinds of that brings a level of satisfaction and joy rather than buying new cars or taking vacation - for me at least.
Sounds extremely corny but I lost my best friends a few years back and their families are not well off financially, one in particular is struggling so I help them as much as they will let me because they're in their mid 60's and have always treated me like family. Another friend wanted to start a remodeling company so I helped him with that. I think these are the kinds of that brings a level of satisfaction and joy rather than buying new cars or taking vacation - for me at least.
Could you describe #4 in more detail? From adding this all up, I figure you must be working 30-35 hours a week between those two jobs, so less than 20 hours a week each. What is the process by which you limit your capacity to only fill a small number of hours? Do the teams believe you to be slower than you are? Is this an explicit understanding that you'll only work half time?
I have never had a job where there is not more than enough to be done, such that I could always fill more hours than I have with useful work.
I have never had a job where there is not more than enough to be done, such that I could always fill more hours than I have with useful work.
Yeah it's right around 30-35 hours per week. Not to toot my own horn but I am very good at what I do, which is software & data engineering. Most importantly, both are jobs that have a large and talented support system of fellow engineers, scrum masters, product owners, and management. In fact, that's precisely why I took these two. My previous jobs were extremely stressful and left me no time for anything outside of my immediate work and I ended up switching jobs last year as a result.
Both employers allow me a lot of leeway and flexibility so long as I can continue to deliver products on schedule, which to this day, I have never been late. So number of hours worked is fairly inconsequential to actual work that is done in both jobs.
Both employers allow me a lot of leeway and flexibility so long as I can continue to deliver products on schedule, which to this day, I have never been late. So number of hours worked is fairly inconsequential to actual work that is done in both jobs.
I'm sorry but I still don't get it. I've never had a job where being very good at it left a lot of free time during which to be very good at another job. It just left free time to move more things along more quickly or improving things. Like, I think mechanically I understand what you're saying; I think you're saying that each week or couple weeks or month or whatever, you commit to projects sized to fill about 50% of your time, and then you finish those commitments. But if I were your manager or tech lead or teammate and I knew you were employed full time at the company, I would instead want you to commit more than 50% of your time, like improving things or doing more projects or and same projects faster or helping other people with their projects or any number of other things, but not just, "welp, I got my tickets done, that's it for me!". So I still don't really get it, are you working part time at these companies, or are your managers happy to pay you for a full time job despite you working half time, or do they think you're actually filling all your time?
Without getting too specific - company A pays me to fulfill contracts we bid on within government entities. There's a ridiculously ludicrous amount of red-tape that translates into down-time for someone like me. I do one of three things: software dev, data engineering, or ML modelling. Only one of those three domains because the way this company works, everything is compartmentalized so there are specific folks for specific tasks. I'm a senior/lead so I do my part and pass it to the next fella.
Company B is more end-to-end full stack dev work. I just happen to know this domain very very well, along with the libraries, tech stack, and business goals involved in it which translates into rapid development on my part supported by mid and junior level engineers.
Also, having been burned by companies in the past, I no longer make it a priority to "go the extra mile", I do exactly what is expected of me to do and generally no more or less. Although, I am a stickler for documentation so I do write up a lot of our code-base, architecture, and other things.
The last couple of companies I worked for were fairly bad in terms of quality of life so I've moved around a bit until I found jobs that were a good fit for me. The last two years especially have been somewhat of a blessing because engineers are in high demand and I played it to my advantage.
I'm employed full-time at both companies, both know that I am doubly employed and have no issue with it as they are more concerned about project/task completion rate rather than hours on the clock. Which I would argue is how it should be at most companies. Additionally, I work from home.
Also, having been burned by companies in the past, I no longer make it a priority to "go the extra mile", I do exactly what is expected of me to do and generally no more or less. Although, I am a stickler for documentation so I do write up a lot of our code-base, architecture, and other things.
The last couple of companies I worked for were fairly bad in terms of quality of life so I've moved around a bit until I found jobs that were a good fit for me. The last two years especially have been somewhat of a blessing because engineers are in high demand and I played it to my advantage.
I'm employed full-time at both companies, both know that I am doubly employed and have no issue with it as they are more concerned about project/task completion rate rather than hours on the clock. Which I would argue is how it should be at most companies. Additionally, I work from home.
The reason I keep having this discussion with you is that it's interesting!
I agree that work being accomplished is what matters, not hours. But you are clearly not working full time, you could clearly accomplish more for each of the companies within the boundaries of a single full time workload, hours aside, because you do indeed accomplish more than what you're accomplishing at each company individually.
But from your description here, based on the expectation situations with the companies, what you're describing here is just two part-time jobs that are well-paid, and I certainly don't begrudge you that!
I agree that work being accomplished is what matters, not hours. But you are clearly not working full time, you could clearly accomplish more for each of the companies within the boundaries of a single full time workload, hours aside, because you do indeed accomplish more than what you're accomplishing at each company individually.
But from your description here, based on the expectation situations with the companies, what you're describing here is just two part-time jobs that are well-paid, and I certainly don't begrudge you that!
I mean if you can negotiate well (& are absolutely amazing at your job), you might be able to convince them that they either pay you full time even though you only work part time, or they pay you more than full time (i.e. give you a big raise) if they want you to work longer, which would result in >100% output for the current position... which they might not need. The guy sounds like a f'ing machine (in a good way), so probably he has big leverage in his negotiations...
Yeah that's basically where I landed on this discussion. There isn't really a "pay you full time" vs. "pay you part time" - there is just what you're being paid and the kind of work you're putting in. It's totally plausible to me to work part time for the same amount of pay as your peers make working full time, which I think is exactly what the OP is doing. But what was confusing to me is calling that "full time work" because it really isn't; it's just well-paid part time work.
Pretend he’s an offsite consultant. Now does it make sense? His employers are aware he’s making them substantial money and it’s likely they’re aware he left his last, much more demanding job, for being too stressful. So they know if they put more pressure on him than he feels like dealing with he’ll leave. Whether he’s deceiving the two proper jobs he has as an employee or not is a separate matter but they have no leverage over him either way.
I understand it for contract work, yes, but full-time salaried work is different, for exactly this reason; the expectation implicit in the relationship is that you are working full time, not just on a contracted project basis.
He negotiated different expectations. He was explicit about wanting a job with different expectations than the usually implicit ones and if at any point any of the parties find it no longer to their liking they can just end it.
If you don’t like the usual game you can make your own new game with your own rules if you can find someone else to play with you.
If you don’t like the usual game you can make your own new game with your own rules if you can find someone else to play with you.
Yeah like I said in another comment after getting more info, these are just well paid part time jobs, which is fair enough.
How so hard to understand? There’s an acceptable level of work at a company and this guy is meeting it without having to use 40 hours a week.
I kinda get where they’re coming from. Those kinds of companies are really rare. Generally management wants to squeeze as much out of labor as humanly possible, to the point where they demand exclusive access to one’s entire labor availability.
The fact that xxEightyxx has found not one, but two companies willing to pay six figures for a functionally part-time employee is pretty mind-boggling.
The fact that xxEightyxx has found not one, but two companies willing to pay six figures for a functionally part-time employee is pretty mind-boggling.
The rarity of these companies varies widely on sector. I agree that it will be difficult to find typical tech startups that wont try to squeeze the maximum amount of time out of you.
If you want high chance of relaxed workloads, look for large corporations that exclusively contract with government out of a large budget. For example, the defense industry (e.g., the few companies designing and manufacturing planes, radars, avionics, communication equipment, guidance systems) is the biggest supplier of these type of roles that I know of. The pay in these roles is usually market competitive or better. At least from my experience, only about 20% of time or less is actually spent "working on something", much of which is sitting in irrelevant meetings. I would only recommend it if you are purely looking to collect an easy paycheck and you have a high tolerance for boredom, bureaucracy, internal politics and incompetence at all levels.
Post-covid remote work that much of government and contractors have moved to (permanently?) has likely also made it significantly easier to have multiple "full time" jobs. Management does not care about anything in this sector except that hard deadlines are met (the real deadlines, very rarely even gets close), soft deadlines are missed (used to justify "needing" more money), and nothing is completed too quickly (they want to give the illusion that hard work is being done).
If you want high chance of relaxed workloads, look for large corporations that exclusively contract with government out of a large budget. For example, the defense industry (e.g., the few companies designing and manufacturing planes, radars, avionics, communication equipment, guidance systems) is the biggest supplier of these type of roles that I know of. The pay in these roles is usually market competitive or better. At least from my experience, only about 20% of time or less is actually spent "working on something", much of which is sitting in irrelevant meetings. I would only recommend it if you are purely looking to collect an easy paycheck and you have a high tolerance for boredom, bureaucracy, internal politics and incompetence at all levels.
Post-covid remote work that much of government and contractors have moved to (permanently?) has likely also made it significantly easier to have multiple "full time" jobs. Management does not care about anything in this sector except that hard deadlines are met (the real deadlines, very rarely even gets close), soft deadlines are missed (used to justify "needing" more money), and nothing is completed too quickly (they want to give the illusion that hard work is being done).
> The fact that xxEightyxx has found not one, but two companies willing to pay six figures for a functionally part-time employee is pretty mind-boggling.
There’s an entire internet subculture of people devoted to doing this. Check out r/overemployed. And there are far, far more people who do similar things entirely above board as consultants and contractors.
There’s an entire internet subculture of people devoted to doing this. Check out r/overemployed. And there are far, far more people who do similar things entirely above board as consultants and contractors.
Working by project with set deliverables as a consultant/contractor makes perfect sense to me. What makes less sense is doing so as a full time employee.
Basically, this is just not what salaried full-time positions are. Hourly positions pay you for your hours worked, part time positions pay you for part of your productive working time, but full time positions pay you to work full time, not part time. But I think I get it now from OP's further explanations, these are just part time positions that are in the books as full time.
A salaried role is paid the same regardless of how long one works. A rationally run business should care about what's produced, not the amount of labor-hours it takes to produce it. Developer productivity varies wildly, so in a fair labor market, time worked and compensation should vary with developer productivity (sometimes compensation is correlated with time worked, but generally at diminishing marginal returns).
Of course there is a dynamic between the business and the employee when it comes to their expectations of each other. All else being equal, a business would like to get more output per dollar spent, and an employee would like to get paid more in total and work fewer hours. Nowhere in the goals of this dynamic does hours worked come into the picture. What does happen is that businesses believe they would get more output per dollar spent if they can get a salaried employee to work more hours, so they pressure employees into doing so. People generally like to be in charge of others, so un-enlightened managers force employees to be at the office because they like seeing them there.
Enlightened managers care first about cultivating great relationships, secondly about the total output of an employee, and therefore not at all about hours worked. Marginal productivity per hours worked eventually goes negative as hours worked increase, and in my opinion the point at which it becomes negative is a lot lower than most people believe (probably ~20-30 hrs/week over the long term).
Besides, highly productive developers are in very high demand. You're just shooting yourself in the foot if you don't give them a fair deal, because they'll go somewhere else, unless they're on a work visa in which case they'll remember if you don't treat them well.
Please do note that this argument applies mostly to salaried employees in knowledge-work.
Of course there is a dynamic between the business and the employee when it comes to their expectations of each other. All else being equal, a business would like to get more output per dollar spent, and an employee would like to get paid more in total and work fewer hours. Nowhere in the goals of this dynamic does hours worked come into the picture. What does happen is that businesses believe they would get more output per dollar spent if they can get a salaried employee to work more hours, so they pressure employees into doing so. People generally like to be in charge of others, so un-enlightened managers force employees to be at the office because they like seeing them there.
Enlightened managers care first about cultivating great relationships, secondly about the total output of an employee, and therefore not at all about hours worked. Marginal productivity per hours worked eventually goes negative as hours worked increase, and in my opinion the point at which it becomes negative is a lot lower than most people believe (probably ~20-30 hrs/week over the long term).
Besides, highly productive developers are in very high demand. You're just shooting yourself in the foot if you don't give them a fair deal, because they'll go somewhere else, unless they're on a work visa in which case they'll remember if you don't treat them well.
Please do note that this argument applies mostly to salaried employees in knowledge-work.
> Besides, highly productive developers are in very high demand. You're just shooting yourself in the foot if you don't give them a fair deal, because they'll go somewhere else
Ok, but "we expect you to work full time when we hire you for a full time job" is a fair deal. It is not "unfair" to hire people full time rather than part time.
Ok, but "we expect you to work full time when we hire you for a full time job" is a fair deal. It is not "unfair" to hire people full time rather than part time.
i find this....doubtful. sorry i'm just not one to believe everything i read online from anonymous people.
4) do your employers know that you are working another full time job?
Have you found the magical eighth day of the week??
Have you found the magical eighth day of the week??
Yes both are aware and are not concerned so long as I continue to produce results.
WRT #1: How does one get a board position for roughly $1k/hour?
A fair bit of luck really. Met the CEO at a specific crypto-development conference back in 2016 and we hit off and he gave me an offer right then and there. Initially, had to prove my worth for the first 2 years and when my full-time work and other life events started getting in the way I gave him my two weeks notice and he countered with more money and less day-to-day work so long as he could keep me on "retainer" which he did by creating a board and placing me on it. There's a few other folks on the board which I'm quite certain earn more than I do because they're former Googlers/Apple employees and I have never worked for a FAANG company. Company has taken a big hit over the last 1.5 years due to the poor performance of cryptos recently and waning interest from our existing and potential client base.
Beware of board member liability for that crypto stuff.
Regarding 3, are you interested in another client? If so let me know how you’d like to connect.
Not OP, but also run a tech consulting firm. Email is in bio, happy to talk.
I want to do #5 so badly but don’t have millions in cash - how do you arrange financing?
There's many ways - traditional banking being the route I took. Initial sunk-cost was $350k, interest rates were low, and my loan amount was small all things considered. I had most of the cash on hand and collateral in the form of a house. I did all the building and excavation myself, the only things I subbed out were plumbing, electrical, HVAC, and some drywall because I really don't like drywall.
Also fortunate because the last few years has seen a huge run-up and appreciation in property in my area specifically where the median house price 10 years ago was around $250k, it's now just under a million for a run-of-the-mill 4 bed, 2 bath, 2200sqft home. The buyer was a small investment company from out-of-state which is really unfortunate because I was hoping to sell to someone local but given the offer they made me, no one could match or even come close.
Also fortunate because the last few years has seen a huge run-up and appreciation in property in my area specifically where the median house price 10 years ago was around $250k, it's now just under a million for a run-of-the-mill 4 bed, 2 bath, 2200sqft home. The buyer was a small investment company from out-of-state which is really unfortunate because I was hoping to sell to someone local but given the offer they made me, no one could match or even come close.
You sound like a person of renaissance
My favorite so far was a company I founded about 20 years ago with a friend who worked in the film sound industry. He had an idea for a hyper-niche tool for automatically syncing changes from video to sound (industry term is "conforming"). He'd approached a couple people/companies he knew that made tools in adjacent spaces but got turned down with "that's impossible" or "it's not worth it". I had no experience in the space but I got intrigued just from a "can it be done" perspective and coded it up. Once written it required very little maintenance, it was just available on our website for download and we used a shareware service to deal with licensing and sales. Only marketing was word of mouth. Every time someone bought a copy the shareware service would send a text, so I set the text alert sound for their number to be the cash register sound. It was a small addressable market so didn't sell all that often but it was always a little dopamine boost to hear the "ka-ching" come out of my phone. Most sales only netted me a couple hundred bucks, but every once in a while a big player (like a movie studio) would pick up a bunch of copies at once. Eventually sold it off to a competitor and collected a small royalty stream for another few years.
When I was in college I sold discarded text books on half.com. This isn’t my best income stream, but in many ways it was my favorite.
After the Spring 2000 semester, I noticed that the bookstores had junk book bins. Students would dump into the bins any books that the bookstore would not buy back. Anyone was welcome to rummage through the bin and if they found something interesting they could keep it.
The bookstores wouldn’t buy books back if they knew that a new version had been released. They of course wanted to avoid being stuck with useless inventory. I wondered if these books had residual value elsewhere. I collected a few and took them home and started looking up them up on half.com. Sure enough, all of them had listings and lots of them were listed for 10’s of dollars!
For the next few days I made a continuous circuit around all the bookstores, loading my car with any books I found in the bins, and dumping them in my living room. At night I would list the day’s haul. Because my inventory was free, I always listed $1 lower than the cheapest listing.
I now had an inventory of several thousand books and a very irritated set of roommates, including my future wife. All I had to do was sit back and wait for classes to start somewhere in the world where one of these books might still be in use.
Within a week orders started to roll in. Soon I was heading to the post office daily with a huge load of books. Things would quiet down whenever a there was a lull in sessions starting. I’d replenish inventory as the various summer sessions completed.
Fall semester generated a huge bump sales and I was able to get a huge inventory of books when the semester ended. Unfortunately that proved to be the last semester of junk book bins. The stores got wise to what the kid in the beat up Honda was up to and started collecting the junk books for themselves.
I continued to sell what books I had and that went on for the rest of the time I was in school. After graduation my wife demanded that I chuck the rest. She’d had enough of random stacks of old textbooks.
After the Spring 2000 semester, I noticed that the bookstores had junk book bins. Students would dump into the bins any books that the bookstore would not buy back. Anyone was welcome to rummage through the bin and if they found something interesting they could keep it.
The bookstores wouldn’t buy books back if they knew that a new version had been released. They of course wanted to avoid being stuck with useless inventory. I wondered if these books had residual value elsewhere. I collected a few and took them home and started looking up them up on half.com. Sure enough, all of them had listings and lots of them were listed for 10’s of dollars!
For the next few days I made a continuous circuit around all the bookstores, loading my car with any books I found in the bins, and dumping them in my living room. At night I would list the day’s haul. Because my inventory was free, I always listed $1 lower than the cheapest listing.
I now had an inventory of several thousand books and a very irritated set of roommates, including my future wife. All I had to do was sit back and wait for classes to start somewhere in the world where one of these books might still be in use.
Within a week orders started to roll in. Soon I was heading to the post office daily with a huge load of books. Things would quiet down whenever a there was a lull in sessions starting. I’d replenish inventory as the various summer sessions completed.
Fall semester generated a huge bump sales and I was able to get a huge inventory of books when the semester ended. Unfortunately that proved to be the last semester of junk book bins. The stores got wise to what the kid in the beat up Honda was up to and started collecting the junk books for themselves.
I continued to sell what books I had and that went on for the rest of the time I was in school. After graduation my wife demanded that I chuck the rest. She’d had enough of random stacks of old textbooks.
Yes, take the free books meant for poor students and sell them! (It's smart, but I think it is morally wrong.)
Somebody stole my calculus textbook and sold it to the bookstore. This textbook cost over USD 200 new iirc. I would have probably paid the thief more than what the bookstore paid them for my used book.
to me it sounds like they were serving the interest of poor students by distributing cheap books to where there was demand. Otherwise those books could have been left in the bin gathering dust
They would have just thrown them in the dumpster. The point of the bin was to stop people from filling the trash cans with their used books.
I used to sell on half.com . My dad was a college professor and would get free sample textbooks from the publishers that wanted him to consider them for his classes. He'd give them to me to sell
But my most memorable sale was to see the name of a classmate on my half.com portal. I just handed him the book in class one day instead of having to take it to the post office.
I'd also buy deeply discounted old editions from the school bookstore to resell. They still had resale value because not all schools would update to the latest book right away.
But my most memorable sale was to see the name of a classmate on my half.com portal. I just handed him the book in class one day instead of having to take it to the post office.
I'd also buy deeply discounted old editions from the school bookstore to resell. They still had resale value because not all schools would update to the latest book right away.
Wow, what a scrappy story! Thank you for sharing and happy that you got rid of the remaining books to marry your wife!
that's interesting, so different locales around the world would operate on different editions. So in the locale you picked up where the old editions were useless they found a home elsewhere in the world. Cool stuff.
I'm a mechanical engineer (satellites currently, launch vehicles and satellite payloads previously).
On the side I sell budget star tracking astrophotography mounts I designed and build in my basement. I also do a few consulting gigs each year. These efforts combined bring in an extra ~25k annually. My plan is to develop two more space-related products, hire a tech, and transition to more of an oversight and design role rather than the one guy running the whole thing.
For the record I don't think most people should do this, it is not a balanced life to work this much, generally speaking. But for me it's a worthy discomfort to relieve financial pressures from student debt and being the only breadwinner of a young family. Plus it's fun stuff, I get to design cool products which is what I do for fun anyway, I just usually stop at the level of prototype when it's just for me. ;)
On the side I sell budget star tracking astrophotography mounts I designed and build in my basement. I also do a few consulting gigs each year. These efforts combined bring in an extra ~25k annually. My plan is to develop two more space-related products, hire a tech, and transition to more of an oversight and design role rather than the one guy running the whole thing.
For the record I don't think most people should do this, it is not a balanced life to work this much, generally speaking. But for me it's a worthy discomfort to relieve financial pressures from student debt and being the only breadwinner of a young family. Plus it's fun stuff, I get to design cool products which is what I do for fun anyway, I just usually stop at the level of prototype when it's just for me. ;)
I'm in the same situation that you were in, and I'm looking for an extra revenue stream.
Built a hobby informational web app back in 2005 related to a collectible item I was interested in. It basically tells you if your X is considered common or rare (potentially valuable). Determining that is nuanced and people don't want to figure stuff out on their own, so my web app became popular.
At this point it has earned over $400k USD lifetime with 75% of that being in the last two years. 100% Adsense. The audience who find/use my site are good candidates for high-dollar ads, which is why it has done so well. New data (a few rows in a table) needs to be added once every few months, but it takes < 1hr. Realistically I should invest in blog/content but I don't really find it interesting any more.
Following the "make niche complicated data easily parsable" concept I built another web app in 2018 for a different hobby. For example if the hobby was "phones" and the physical dimensions/specs of "phones" was very important to choosing it, my web app would let you visually compare any two "phones" side-by-side at the correct dimensional scale.
It apparently solved a problem and traffic grew organically. After years of work this web app should get close to 6 figures annually in 2023 - earned via affiliate sales of "phones" and accessories. It's is a much more active endeavor, but if I walked away for 6 months I bet revenue would stay near flat. It fills my time and I find it interesting.
I'm working on web app #3 now which is tangentially related to the "phones" concept.
At this point it has earned over $400k USD lifetime with 75% of that being in the last two years. 100% Adsense. The audience who find/use my site are good candidates for high-dollar ads, which is why it has done so well. New data (a few rows in a table) needs to be added once every few months, but it takes < 1hr. Realistically I should invest in blog/content but I don't really find it interesting any more.
Following the "make niche complicated data easily parsable" concept I built another web app in 2018 for a different hobby. For example if the hobby was "phones" and the physical dimensions/specs of "phones" was very important to choosing it, my web app would let you visually compare any two "phones" side-by-side at the correct dimensional scale.
It apparently solved a problem and traffic grew organically. After years of work this web app should get close to 6 figures annually in 2023 - earned via affiliate sales of "phones" and accessories. It's is a much more active endeavor, but if I walked away for 6 months I bet revenue would stay near flat. It fills my time and I find it interesting.
I'm working on web app #3 now which is tangentially related to the "phones" concept.
If you are actually generating that much on adsense I think you'd likely make 20-30% more if you moved your ads to a high quality agency like adthrive or mediavine (those 2 are the only ones I'd firmly recommend over adsense). I'm sure you'd be approved by at least one of them based on the description of your site.
I used to use adsense on all my side sites too and just focus on the content and UX, but once you reach a certain volume (which you are well above), you are leaving a lot of money on the table not investing the effort into improving your ad monetization.
I used to use adsense on all my side sites too and just focus on the content and UX, but once you reach a certain volume (which you are well above), you are leaving a lot of money on the table not investing the effort into improving your ad monetization.
Thanks. I'll look into those. I get a few pitches per week from ad agencies but don't know which are legitimate or worth it. It's doing so well that I'm paranoid about touching anything revenue related.
Just stick with adthrive or mediavine and you'll be fine. Many others are scammier (though in fairness they'll all probably outperform adsense).
You can search Reddit and you'll see the same advice over and over again: Mediavine/adthrive are the best.
I can't give you first hand advice on mediavine but one of my sites is on adthrive and I can confirm it's very good! Outperforming adsense by around 50% (though this will vary based on your specific niche/topic).
But my advice is also to learn about the ad ecosystem yourself. Once you reach a certain level of revenue you just have to learn about it, it's going to delivery a very high ROI as compared with other things you can do.
You can search Reddit and you'll see the same advice over and over again: Mediavine/adthrive are the best.
I can't give you first hand advice on mediavine but one of my sites is on adthrive and I can confirm it's very good! Outperforming adsense by around 50% (though this will vary based on your specific niche/topic).
But my advice is also to learn about the ad ecosystem yourself. Once you reach a certain level of revenue you just have to learn about it, it's going to delivery a very high ROI as compared with other things you can do.
May I know the name of the phone size comparing app? That sounds very interesting!
PhoneArena has a good one: https://www.phonearena.com/phones/size
Sure if you give me a way to contact you.
Can you send this to me as well? Interested to see it. Email is [email protected]. Thanks.
Very interested in this too. Would love to see the app myself. My email is in my bio, thanks!
I’m quite interested too — my email is my username , with the domain in my profile’s “about”
I'd love to check out the web app too. My email is [email protected].
Wrote a book, published nine years ago.
I earned back my advance after about five years and have been receiving royalty checks ever since.
This year, it surpassed 100,000 copies sold.
Just a little note for other would-be authors ... it's never been easier to self-publish -- but getting a book deal with a traditional publisher still has substantial upsides, particularly on the distribution side. There are exceptions (e.g. if you expect digital versions to constitute the vast majority of sales). But by and large, you're better off getting a book deal if you can.
I earned back my advance after about five years and have been receiving royalty checks ever since.
This year, it surpassed 100,000 copies sold.
Just a little note for other would-be authors ... it's never been easier to self-publish -- but getting a book deal with a traditional publisher still has substantial upsides, particularly on the distribution side. There are exceptions (e.g. if you expect digital versions to constitute the vast majority of sales). But by and large, you're better off getting a book deal if you can.
> Wrote a book, published nine years ago.
This might work for some writers and books, but not for others.
There was this one Tweet that went into detail about what some trial documents revealed about a particular publisher: https://twitter.com/aprilhenrybooks/status/15662306587665039...
> In the Penguin Random House/S&S antitrust trial it was revealed that out of 58,000 trade titles published per year, half of those titles sell fewer than one dozen books.
There were also articles that disagreed with the claim: https://countercraft.substack.com/p/no-most-books-dont-sell-...
Which also had some discussion on HN, where some people suggested that it was somewhat true, while others explored other aspects of it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32794673
But even the article itself refers to more claims like that, with many suggesting that in writing, like many other industries, there will be a few very successful books/projects, and many that will fall by the wayside (honestly, I'd say the same about most things, from making SaaS products, to game development and art/music). Here's a humbling article that someone wrote: https://hughhowey.com/most-books-dont-sell/
I guess what I'm trying to say here: don't write a book hoping to earn a lot of money. Write a book because you find the experience interesting or fun, and just because you want to write (and publish) a book.
This might work for some writers and books, but not for others.
There was this one Tweet that went into detail about what some trial documents revealed about a particular publisher: https://twitter.com/aprilhenrybooks/status/15662306587665039...
> In the Penguin Random House/S&S antitrust trial it was revealed that out of 58,000 trade titles published per year, half of those titles sell fewer than one dozen books.
There were also articles that disagreed with the claim: https://countercraft.substack.com/p/no-most-books-dont-sell-...
Which also had some discussion on HN, where some people suggested that it was somewhat true, while others explored other aspects of it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32794673
But even the article itself refers to more claims like that, with many suggesting that in writing, like many other industries, there will be a few very successful books/projects, and many that will fall by the wayside (honestly, I'd say the same about most things, from making SaaS products, to game development and art/music). Here's a humbling article that someone wrote: https://hughhowey.com/most-books-dont-sell/
I guess what I'm trying to say here: don't write a book hoping to earn a lot of money. Write a book because you find the experience interesting or fun, and just because you want to write (and publish) a book.
If you don’t mind sharing, what do the advance and royalty terms look like for a first time author? And how many copies does it take to “break even” on the advance?
what kind of book?
Details are in my bio, but it's a pop-science book for new parents. It got a big publicity boost when Parents magazine ran excerpts, and a gigantic publicity boost when "The Big Bang Theory" wrote an episode where my book was a central plot element.
Hah! I saw your comment and was intrigued since I have been looking for a Christmas present for my brother and his 7-month old son. Then I looked at your bio and realised it was the book I'd bought for him last Christmas.
Thanks, it's such a great book!
Thanks, it's such a great book!
I love the BBT show, well the early seasons more than the later ones, but still it's an amazing feat to featured in a world-wide blockbuster loved by geeks :-)
ps. Most pharmacy university students were closely familiar with the show, there was an abundance of references during classes.
ps. Most pharmacy university students were closely familiar with the show, there was an abundance of references during classes.
The title is fantastic.
Presumably the first one on his profile page.
My partner and I created a very successful business in the UK out of selling mushroom grow kits and microscopy spores.
We didn’t think there would be any market here because there weren’t any UK shops doing it. Then a couple of years later it took off and growing mushrooms became cool.
In this time we learned how to run a webshop and navigate an industry where every payment processor dropped us - to the point where we only accept cash, bank transfer and crypto.
Our Woocommerce shop was built on pure passion for mushrooms and a crazy late night idea. The kinds you usually just leave as an idea. Now it has consumed our lives and we have multiple employees.
Our business continues to grow with recent months bringing in around £60K/month in revenue.
I had never known what it was like going to a supermarket and not having to add the cost of everything in my head. But with the money, I learned the most valuable lesson - it could all go tomorrow and I would be totally fine with it.
We didn’t think there would be any market here because there weren’t any UK shops doing it. Then a couple of years later it took off and growing mushrooms became cool.
In this time we learned how to run a webshop and navigate an industry where every payment processor dropped us - to the point where we only accept cash, bank transfer and crypto.
Our Woocommerce shop was built on pure passion for mushrooms and a crazy late night idea. The kinds you usually just leave as an idea. Now it has consumed our lives and we have multiple employees.
Our business continues to grow with recent months bringing in around £60K/month in revenue.
I had never known what it was like going to a supermarket and not having to add the cost of everything in my head. But with the money, I learned the most valuable lesson - it could all go tomorrow and I would be totally fine with it.
This is one of those business ideas that I must have had around the same time, but never pursued because I was studying; figured engineering would make me more more than selling mushroom growing kits and spores ever would.
I had a large setup in my shed for a few years. Lots of labor getting the substrate boiled and bagged, but once that was done it was easy. Figured that surely there was legs to selling the means of production directly to consumers instead. Who could have guessed it would take off like it has. Now you can even find the grow kits in TK Max and the like as Christmas presents. The market seems pretty saturated now so I'm sure the boat has long sail for me. I'm glad it's worked out for you, if not a little envious.
I had a large setup in my shed for a few years. Lots of labor getting the substrate boiled and bagged, but once that was done it was easy. Figured that surely there was legs to selling the means of production directly to consumers instead. Who could have guessed it would take off like it has. Now you can even find the grow kits in TK Max and the like as Christmas presents. The market seems pretty saturated now so I'm sure the boat has long sail for me. I'm glad it's worked out for you, if not a little envious.
I dare you to try it and see. You might be surprised! Competition is healthy and we don’t personally feel like we have enough of it yet :)
I’m curious, why did every payment processor drop you? Did they see “mushroom” and assume you were selling psilocybin mushrooms or something?
Maybe. When Shopify blocked us, the representative kept insinuating that the microscopy spore syringes we sell could be injected into the arm. This was in 2019. It’s absolutely absurd but that was what we were up against.
It’s a high risk industry, no doubt there have been plenty of scammers out there but the fact we sell magic mushroom spores for the microscope is enough to be alienated by every card processor and their insurers.
It’s fine though, we make it work - it hasn’t stopped our growth and we’ve amassed enough trust from customers to pay via the other methods!
*Edid: Shopify, not PayPal said that about spores into the arm, not Stripe!
It’s a high risk industry, no doubt there have been plenty of scammers out there but the fact we sell magic mushroom spores for the microscope is enough to be alienated by every card processor and their insurers.
It’s fine though, we make it work - it hasn’t stopped our growth and we’ve amassed enough trust from customers to pay via the other methods!
*Edid: Shopify, not PayPal said that about spores into the arm, not Stripe!
For "microscopy". Sure, sure. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more.
They make £60k pcm in cash, bank transfer, and crypto from it - they must be?
No. Absolutely not.
But you literally are, you just said you sell them. You sell magic mushroom spores and kits for growing them
We sell products which are related to all things mushrooms. There’s equipment, supplies you name it. Our grow kits are for growing shiitake, lion’s mane, king oyster or just about any gourmet mushroom which is legal to grow. Our microscopy spores are a product which are strictly sold for microscopy use. We love mushrooms and all things about them. But illegality is a red line, whether immoral or not.
I think we can see why the payment processors stepped back now.
We spent a long time analysing the terms and conditions and we couldn’t find anything that applied to our business. Asking directly where we broke terms was no hope, because none of which they cited applied to us either.
We wouldn’t go back to card payments if we could. We save a fortune by paying 0% processing fees, have more control and are protected by a regulated UK bank instead of companies like Stripe or PayPal. We are very lucky!
We wouldn’t go back to card payments if we could. We save a fortune by paying 0% processing fees, have more control and are protected by a regulated UK bank instead of companies like Stripe or PayPal. We are very lucky!
Bro, you're selling drugs on a "for science only!!!!" basis that is purely a fig leaf. IDK the controlled substance laws around Psilocybin but this is definitely a gray area at least.
Maybe take some time to read before making silly accusations like that.
Well, I googled the phrase "microscopy spores" and the first hit was a webpage that first defines the term to mean "observe under a microscope" then warns customers that the cultivation of psychoactive mushrooms is illegal in many places in the world. So at the very least, your competitors are pretty much implying that one _could_ use "microscopy spores" for cultivation, and I imagine the majority of customers are expecting to do so.
And hey, maybe you in particular have cracked the code in how to ship spores in syringes that only inject into slides and not say, a prepared cultivation point. But I am 0 percent surprised payment processors noped out.
And hey, maybe you in particular have cracked the code in how to ship spores in syringes that only inject into slides and not say, a prepared cultivation point. But I am 0 percent surprised payment processors noped out.
I don't however, it's not my cup of tea, but since when are payment processors, which are into money, into applying cultural norms?
Since forever. There are a few reasons why - one is cultural the other is risk. On the cultural side industries that are "controversial" tend to be avoided. Payment processors don't like to be associated with porn, gambling, drugs etc. because of potential negative PR. If you're a payment processor and trying to land big conservative clients, having press about how you support the porn industry doesn't do you any favors.
The other side is risk, meaning industries that have an above average chargeback (fraud) rate. Many times these industries overlap - porn for instance. Lots of stolen credit card numbers are used to by porn, but also legitimate purchases can easily end up as a chargeback. The classic example is that someone buys porn on their credit card and then their partner finds out. Instead of admitting they bought porn, they claim someone must have stolen their credit card to save face.
The other side is risk, meaning industries that have an above average chargeback (fraud) rate. Many times these industries overlap - porn for instance. Lots of stolen credit card numbers are used to by porn, but also legitimate purchases can easily end up as a chargeback. The classic example is that someone buys porn on their credit card and then their partner finds out. Instead of admitting they bought porn, they claim someone must have stolen their credit card to save face.
I’d upvote this if I could. Chargebacks aren’t impossible after paying via bank transfer - it might be called another name, but it has been done before to us by a scammer (but we can dispute and fight it). And one time after a customer added an extra 0 to their transfer and immediately tried to get their bank to claw it back without contacting us.
But we basically never had issues with chargebacks. Even when we used PayPal and Stripe for two years, we only had two chargebacks and we disputed one of them and won through PayPal as we proved it was fraudulent.
But we basically never had issues with chargebacks. Even when we used PayPal and Stripe for two years, we only had two chargebacks and we disputed one of them and won through PayPal as we proved it was fraudulent.
Ah, for a second there I thought psilocybin mushrooms were legal in UK (as they are/were in NL) and I would have really wanted to buy one of your kits. Maybe if the laws change feel free to let us know ;)
If the laws change, feel free to let us know too - we would love making ten-fold the sales by producing and selling magic mushroom grow kits! ;)
But in all seriousness, psilocybin was banned in 2005 in the UK. We have only sold products which were to be used to help cultivate psilocybin mushrooms to one single customer - an organisation with a special license to do so provided by the Home Office in the UK.
But in all seriousness, psilocybin was banned in 2005 in the UK. We have only sold products which were to be used to help cultivate psilocybin mushrooms to one single customer - an organisation with a special license to do so provided by the Home Office in the UK.
I'm sure this is a very naive question but... are we talking hallucinogenic mushrooms or the "normal", tasty kind?
I'm guessing the former since payment processors kept dropping you?
I'm guessing the former since payment processors kept dropping you?
Gourmet tasty ones. If you are into looking at magic spores under a microscope, we also do those too. The microscopy scene in the UK is huge.
That's absolutely mad
what’s the site?
Working at a FANG in software development has been pretty outstanding income wise.
Much better than hustling a few different freelance/contracts/side hustles for me at this point in my life.
Much better than hustling a few different freelance/contracts/side hustles for me at this point in my life.
Same. The amount of overhead involved in any side hustle is just too high compared to getting stuff done as an employee. even volunteering as anything but unskilled labor is a hassle.
There's no overheads as a employee but too many in solo endeavours? Did you get that the right way around?
Replying to remind myself to check back here, because I agree with giaour and I'm curious where the misunderstanding is.
Being an employee is simple - do (good-enough-to-not-get-fired) work, get paid. Entrepreneurship requires you to identify a target market, figure out a product that would work for it, create that product, market it, actually sell it, ship it, do the associated financial admin, and probably a bunch of other stuff I'm not thinking of. The amount of potential gain-per-effort is higher than in employment - but the amount of work you have to go through in order to get to that point is also higher.
Being an employee is simple - do (good-enough-to-not-get-fired) work, get paid. Entrepreneurship requires you to identify a target market, figure out a product that would work for it, create that product, market it, actually sell it, ship it, do the associated financial admin, and probably a bunch of other stuff I'm not thinking of. The amount of potential gain-per-effort is higher than in employment - but the amount of work you have to go through in order to get to that point is also higher.
Yep! To contract, I have to find clients, solicit project work, write invoices, keep after clients for payment; in general, I have to do all the extroverted business shit I became a software developer to avoid doing.
As an employee, I can work on problems I identify, invest time in mentoring colleagues, spend time building a skill that will be of long term but not immediate benefit to my employer, etc: stuff nobody would pay a contractor to do.
As an employee, I can work on problems I identify, invest time in mentoring colleagues, spend time building a skill that will be of long term but not immediate benefit to my employer, etc: stuff nobody would pay a contractor to do.
Depends on how much you want to do it. If you wanna do full time consulting, sure that's the case.
But a part-time consulting gig on the side, when you've been working for 10+ years and have a solid network? In that case, you can often find opportunities in your network, if you're looking.
Basically, if anyone you know is taking a C-level position in a funded startup, for example, they might very often need help with all sorts of different things and would be willing to pay.
Similarly, any time someone reaches out on linkedin with a job, tell that you're happily employed on not planning on moving, but that you would be interested in helping them on a part-time consulting basis. Done.
But a part-time consulting gig on the side, when you've been working for 10+ years and have a solid network? In that case, you can often find opportunities in your network, if you're looking.
Basically, if anyone you know is taking a C-level position in a funded startup, for example, they might very often need help with all sorts of different things and would be willing to pay.
Similarly, any time someone reaches out on linkedin with a job, tell that you're happily employed on not planning on moving, but that you would be interested in helping them on a part-time consulting basis. Done.
No extra overhead as an employee.
yep, ditto : save in earnest, in stock and 401k, and dividend stream from the shares alone can be very useful as a side cashflow.
What are you invested in that dividends net you meaningful cashflow?
S&P 500 indices pay 1.56%, so after a couple of years if Faamng salary is $400k that can make it savings that's $6k residual growing each year.
S&p dividend indices are 2.54%, utility indexed 2.85%
S&p dividend indices are 2.54%, utility indexed 2.85%
if faamng salary is supposedly that high, that's like a shocker, and probably massive hyperbole, unless something bizarre happened over the last 5 years.
that said, total comp could be pretty high like that quite plausibly.
It's not hyperbole, although prior to 2022, getting $400k total compensation as a senior meant working at a handful of companies, even ones like Google and Microsoft weren't paying out that much unless it was through stock appreciation.
total comp is possible, but salary? that's weird
i expect this to be total comp, weighted towards RSUs; with a 1 year vest; that employees diversify rapidly.
well timed (fortunately) tech sector for several years.
Left my job in 2014. Tried a few things that didn't succeed before selling programming ebooks came to my rescue (2018). From the danger of draining out my savings completely, I'm now earning more than double my needs (which isn't really that much for my modest lifestyle, living alone in a developing nation - $150/month).
What's more, my ebooks are all free to read online. Only PDF/EPUB are sold, and I've always given them away for free during launch week.
List of my ebooks: https://learnbyexample.github.io/books/ (topics include Regular Expressions, Linux CLI tools, Python and Vim)
What's more, my ebooks are all free to read online. Only PDF/EPUB are sold, and I've always given them away for free during launch week.
List of my ebooks: https://learnbyexample.github.io/books/ (topics include Regular Expressions, Linux CLI tools, Python and Vim)
Is this a side hustle or your main source of income?
$150/month seems less even for a developing nation (I might be wrong though)
$150/month seems less even for a developing nation (I might be wrong though)
Main source of income. I've now saved enough for 3 years if ebooks stop selling (which is a real possibility - most of my readers are from America/Europe/Australia and they would be able to subscribe to AI tools instead of learning from books). I'll probably try in-person local tutoring, look for other options, etc.
And $150/month really provides a comfortable living for me in the outskirts of a city :)
And $150/month really provides a comfortable living for me in the outskirts of a city :)
150$ from "thin air" every month is nice addition in developing nation. Not something what would change the lifestyle but something what you can easily spend on things you like - books, courses, etc.
It can be enough to change the lifestyle. I'm working with a charity where we're increasing people's income by $90 a year and that makes a significant difference to their lives
Currently reading computing from the commandline, want to use it as a teaching aid in a series of videos.
It’s definitely not my passion but in 2013 I built a WordPress plugin around the API of a popular newsletter service and it’s been paying my bills ever since.
Still going strong at €36K per month excluding VAT.
There was (and still is) a huge market where non-technical people are looking for a GUI around something a programmer would find very simple (and usually too boring to work on). More so if the tech surrounding it is not particularly sexy, as is the case for WordPress and PHP.
Ps. In case anyone is reading this, I am open to selling. I spent about 4 hours a week on it and the rest is handled by 2 freelance people costing about €1K / month each. Contact me for details if interested and willing to pay in the ballpark of €1.6M.
Still going strong at €36K per month excluding VAT.
There was (and still is) a huge market where non-technical people are looking for a GUI around something a programmer would find very simple (and usually too boring to work on). More so if the tech surrounding it is not particularly sexy, as is the case for WordPress and PHP.
Ps. In case anyone is reading this, I am open to selling. I spent about 4 hours a week on it and the rest is handled by 2 freelance people costing about €1K / month each. Contact me for details if interested and willing to pay in the ballpark of €1.6M.
Totally underrated in my opinion. WordPress is a huge market meaning distribution of scale and PHP is still a very popular language. Kudos to you for nailing this.
Congrats!
I would be interested in the M&A idea. I'm managing director of a B2B SaaS company, which is owned by a European private-equity fund. So I would have access to capital to finance such a transaction (without taking a cut on it!).
My email address is in my profile, or feel free to send me yours.
I would be interested in the M&A idea. I'm managing director of a B2B SaaS company, which is owned by a European private-equity fund. So I would have access to capital to finance such a transaction (without taking a cut on it!).
My email address is in my profile, or feel free to send me yours.
I'm interested! Email in my profile.
How did you came up with the idea?
Scratched my own itch. Was freelancing for clients back then, just putting together simple WordPress websites. A lot of them needed a newsletter sign-up form and wanted something that kept them on their own sites.
So I built a generic "newsletter sign-up" plugin and then noticed that a lot of my users were using Mailchimp, so then I built one tailored for Mailchimp too.
So I built a generic "newsletter sign-up" plugin and then noticed that a lot of my users were using Mailchimp, so then I built one tailored for Mailchimp too.
Put it up on microacquire!
That looks neat! Any (personal or third-hand) experience with it? I received some quotes from business brokers over the last few years but at 12.5% fee and a 3.8x multiplier it was almost never worth it for me.
Microacquire is considerably cheaper and I love that they have the option to just list it yourself. Thx for the suggestion!
Microacquire is considerably cheaper and I love that they have the option to just list it yourself. Thx for the suggestion!
My cofounder and I have bootstrapped two software products that are generating revenue today with minimal involvement on our side.
The first product is a B2B onboarding platform. This product generates approx. $100k/year.
Our second product is a microsaas that turns google drive folders into a hosted, searchable wiki with one click. This product is making $2k/month.
Both products require minimum support and continue to sustain themselves.
One thing to note is that we did work full time on both of these products for like 1.5 years during the pandemic. At the time, it was definitely not the best income stream we had created but became so after we both got "real" jobs again.
The first product is a B2B onboarding platform. This product generates approx. $100k/year.
Our second product is a microsaas that turns google drive folders into a hosted, searchable wiki with one click. This product is making $2k/month.
Both products require minimum support and continue to sustain themselves.
One thing to note is that we did work full time on both of these products for like 1.5 years during the pandemic. At the time, it was definitely not the best income stream we had created but became so after we both got "real" jobs again.
That's impressive, how did you go about marketing those?
The b2b saas was a grind tbh. Lots of cold emailing directors & VPs. Classic top down sales motion.
For Kbee, I actually wrote up our journey here: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/our-journey-from-idea-to-p...
Would love to know what you think and if you have any follow up questions :)
For Kbee, I actually wrote up our journey here: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/our-journey-from-idea-to-p...
Would love to know what you think and if you have any follow up questions :)
How do you find companies for cold calling? Where do you find phone numbers?
I didn’t do cold calling though maybe I should have. Instead, I trawled LinkedIn and used tools like hunter.io to find email addresses and then cold emailed folks.
Fwiw, Apollo.io seems to do a good job surfacing contact info as well.
Fwiw, Apollo.io seems to do a good job surfacing contact info as well.
What’s the name of the Google drive folders product?
https://kbee.app
Please let me know if you have any feedback on it!
Please let me know if you have any feedback on it!
Great landing page. Did you create that yourselves? The one thing I seem to struggle with is creating a nice looking landing page - it's just not something I'm good at. If you used a third party, any chance you'd say who that was?
Co-founder here. We originally made the landing page in Webflow. This worked ok but had some negative SEO benefits because our main app was forced to be on a subdomain.
We remade the page using a Tailwind template, which coincided with migrating our app to Tailwind. I highly recommend just using a template unless you are a designer, plenty of free or low cost ones out there. I like these: https://cruip.com/
Most important thing is having a good CTA, value props, and testimonials. Took us a lot of work to refine these.
We also worked with a graphic designer to make the art assets / logo / etc. I'm sure she would be happy to have more clients, DM me (see bio) for info.
We remade the page using a Tailwind template, which coincided with migrating our app to Tailwind. I highly recommend just using a template unless you are a designer, plenty of free or low cost ones out there. I like these: https://cruip.com/
Most important thing is having a good CTA, value props, and testimonials. Took us a lot of work to refine these.
We also worked with a graphic designer to make the art assets / logo / etc. I'm sure she would be happy to have more clients, DM me (see bio) for info.
I really appreciate the detailed response and the advice. Thank you!
It auto-pops up a sign in link to Google when I visited it on Firefox, and it looks like it does the same on Chrome except Chrome blocks the pop up. Definitely fix that because I got a real sketchy feeling when it asked me to sign in upon immediately entering the page, not even clicking anything.
I think there was an update either at google or firefox recently because a ton of websites have started behaving like this for me seemingly out of the blue.
thank you for the feedback! we will address!
if you block `play.google.com` they disappear :)
Damn, great landing page! Took me 2 seconds to understand your product and its value!
Typo on "..and *everythign* in-between!"
Software consulting. You’d be surprised how many little businesses out there have a need for custom software. I make about $60-70k/year in my spare time (maybe 10 hours/week) doing everything from adding features to legacy products, building brand new applications and even simply conducting technical interviews. It’s also pretty nice to work on something besides the usual thing at work, experiment with new/different tech and also get paid handsomely for it.
How do you start this? It can't be as easy as a website and some online ads right.
Mostly word of mouth. Friends, past and present colleagues, etc. I even went part time at a job once instead of leaving altogether for another full-time job. It helps to have a good reputation. Often those positive relationships pay off over time without any solicitation whatsoever.
This
That is awesome. Although I'm surprised you can just pickup a new client, bang out a new feature, and finalize everything in 10hrs. Seems like there would be a lot of overhead getting started and whiping your hands of it.
Usually they’re longer-term relationships than 10 hours. I’ve spent anywhere between 3 weeks and 2 years working with the same client/project. Sometimes I’ll have multiple going, but usually can set the expectations such that I don’t have to pull many 20-hour weeks on top of my day job.
+1. JW what rate do you charge and whats your stack? I do about $60k/yr at 8-10hrs per week at $130/hr. Not sure if I am under charging.
If you bill more than me, any advice on how to find bigger clients?
If you bill more than me, any advice on how to find bigger clients?
I’ve done anywhere between $125-200/hr depending on the kind of work. Also have done some work for lump sums (working on one of those right now), but honestly try to avoid those despite what others in this thread are saying. It can be a pain to collect sometimes, but you simply have to be willing to halt work if payment isn’t made timely enough. I’ve got exposure to a lot of things but usually end up working with .NET in some capacity.
Why on earth do you bill by the hour? You should be doing fixed fee based on value.
Good luck holding the bag when your client changes/misunderstands requirements.
You just set milestones every couple weeks of effort and invoice at the end of each one, and withhold delivery of the finished product until full payment is received… if a client doesn’t want to pay or is too difficult, fire the client and move on. And don’t give clients net30 terms or something ridiculous if you’re a solo contractor. Invoice due on receipt.
If you have the full scope / visibility and large enough margins but if you don"t.
The milestones become another form of hourly/daily/weekly plus you have the added responsibility of meeting goals or you do not get paid. Hourly provides pay for time spent.
The milestones become another form of hourly/daily/weekly plus you have the added responsibility of meeting goals or you do not get paid. Hourly provides pay for time spent.
This is basically my feeling as well. It also establishes way up front, “This is how much my time will cost you.” That ultimately pressures clients to be prepared for meetings and not ask for frivolous crap. They can judge the output based on the cost for themselves, and honestly for some clients it’s well worth it. For others (especially software shops) they’ll tend to try and replace me with a FTE, but my perspective on it is that I’m happy to help them fill in the gaps while they needed me.
1/ I had a bad experience when I was younger where I overestimated my skills and underestimated the project. Resulting in a very low paying contract. This wouldn't happen today, but I still have scars.
2/ Currently, I work at a contracting company. Their work is erratic. Between bug fixes and new features with constantly changing roadmaps, I think it would be hard to translate shifting requirements to fixed fee.
2/ Currently, I work at a contracting company. Their work is erratic. Between bug fixes and new features with constantly changing roadmaps, I think it would be hard to translate shifting requirements to fixed fee.
I do that same thing. Earning around $100 an hour, and I can do as many hours as I want, whenever I want to. I do this on top of my full time job, so I usually do a few hours at night or a weekend day here and there. That's similarly in the $60-70k extra per year.
What I do is embedded software for medical devices though, so beyond building there's a lot of documenting, reading documentation adhering to standards.
What I do is embedded software for medical devices though, so beyond building there's a lot of documenting, reading documentation adhering to standards.
I'm looking to do exactly this. I'm currently doing embedded software for aerospace, so somewhat similar with regards to documentation and standards (it's critical software, just not human safety related). Can you share how you found the work?
I'm also curious to know how you can do small quantities of hourly work in this field rather than take on projects that would require much larger time commitments. Are you just consulting as a domain expert or something?
I'm also curious to know how you can do small quantities of hourly work in this field rather than take on projects that would require much larger time commitments. Are you just consulting as a domain expert or something?
Over the last 2 years, I made ~$30k/year on projects that could be completed in a weekend (10 hours/week max).
It was fun to work on something outside my day job but it required some judiciousness to ensure I could meet my set time limits.
I found taking on bigger projects + a demanding day job pushed me to burnout pretty quickly.
It was fun to work on something outside my day job but it required some judiciousness to ensure I could meet my set time limits.
I found taking on bigger projects + a demanding day job pushed me to burnout pretty quickly.
Definitely takes some discipline. I’ve found the stress more bearable as time goes on, but it’s definitely a thing, and having a demanding day job can make it worse. Taking a month off here and there from side work can go a long way, though, as can taking a week off the day job to finish a side project ;)
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My fiancee sells self-made art somewhat successfully for the last 9 months. I contribute by managing communication with buyers through FB Marketplace, Craigslist, and while we tried Etsy, it didn't do that well. We specifically target the mid-range market which means we price below top artists on Etsy/Instagram, but above cheap prints and generic Ikea style art.
It definitely requires a lot of physical work on her part and our spare bedroom is basically a pile of canvas, paint, plaster, and other supplies, but it has generated over $10,000 in revenue. We could optimize more and she could make prints of some of her better paintings, but she does it for fun and most of the money she uses for shopping (and I spend my share on triathlon gear!)
It definitely requires a lot of physical work on her part and our spare bedroom is basically a pile of canvas, paint, plaster, and other supplies, but it has generated over $10,000 in revenue. We could optimize more and she could make prints of some of her better paintings, but she does it for fun and most of the money she uses for shopping (and I spend my share on triathlon gear!)
That's awesome! Good on you both.
I have a friend who sells Christmas ornaments on Etsy and makes ~$5k every holiday season.
https://bennuaine.com/
I was inspired by "do things that don't scale".
My business creates European hand-blown titanium crystal stemware for whisky and spirits.
This started as my quarantine project and has grown fairly rapidly relative to my expectations. The product is very expensive to produce because each glass is made entirely by hand in Europe but the results are pretty beautiful. It's not a golden ticket financially but it's very stable and healthy.
Most rewarding is the community of spirits enthusiasts and professionals who I've been able to connect with.
I was inspired by "do things that don't scale".
My business creates European hand-blown titanium crystal stemware for whisky and spirits.
This started as my quarantine project and has grown fairly rapidly relative to my expectations. The product is very expensive to produce because each glass is made entirely by hand in Europe but the results are pretty beautiful. It's not a golden ticket financially but it's very stable and healthy.
Most rewarding is the community of spirits enthusiasts and professionals who I've been able to connect with.
I love the video. I'm not into whisky, but you would have got me if I was. That's fantastic!
Thanks! I have a little video experience, but it was mostly my girlfriend. We wanted something just a bit kooky.
To date the best one i created was a specialized billing/inventory system for an injectable class of mental health drugs for community clinics in Mississippi. I did it on the side while fully employed (heh the advantages of youth and no family). Mississippi's medicaid system couldn't handle the coding and so it was paper and it took forever for pharmacies to be reimbursed and so no pharmacy would dispense the drugs. I developed it with a pharmacist friend of mine (former boss) who took on the expensive risk of stocking the drugs and then he paid me probably $75k over about a year to work on it with him. It made him a lot of money and when he eventually sold his pharmacy he wrote me a check for $50k. I have the email i sent to him announcing the system was live framed and hung on my wall.
i was pretty naive then, i wish i could do the whole thing over.
i was pretty naive then, i wish i could do the whole thing over.
>i was pretty naive then, i wish i could do the whole thing over.
Do you mean that you would have done the financial details differently? Like, be paid per filled prescription?
Do you mean that you would have done the financial details differently? Like, be paid per filled prescription?
The rxs were $4-5k a pop so we couldn’t let the clinics lose anything. I came with an idea of putting nfc stickers on the boxes and then we distributed android small form factor tablets with a mobile app I wrote to all the clinics. They would use those and check in/out of inventory and recording an administration was all done through touching the box to the tablet. Now I have the connections and know how to apply that to a much larger audience. At the time I was just like “this is pretty cool right?” with no idea of how much money the setup was worth to other industries. (This was like 8 years ago or so)
HN will hate this, but I was curious about web3/crypto and wanted to build something to understand how it all worked. This was inspired by moxie's post [1] (don't echo other people's opinion because you see them repeatedly, rather build something and make your own opinion).
Ended up being a very interesting project which also led to earnings around 10eth (~12k today). Took around 2 months. https://blockchainsmokers.xyz
[1] https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html
Ended up being a very interesting project which also led to earnings around 10eth (~12k today). Took around 2 months. https://blockchainsmokers.xyz
[1] https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html
Love the moxie :b -- what did you learn?
What parts of web3 deserve their day in the sun and which are utter BS?
What parts of web3 deserve their day in the sun and which are utter BS?
I made about $10,000 over a few years on Fiverr doing voiceover work. Then the algorithm changed and poof, no more orders, ever again.
Interesting, can you elaborate?
When I started my "gig", I just kind of threw it out there. I fairly quickly started getting a lot of orders every week. Over time I had a few really good regular customers, my orders were about half from them and half from random one-offs.
A couple years into it I started reading in the forums about changes to the search algorithm and how it was hammering people and killing their existing gigs. It was all speculation since it's not transparent. Shortly after that, I started to notice the random one off orders completely stopped. I was still getting orders from my regulars, but over time their business started to drop off. A lot of those customers were using my services to fulfill orders on their own gigs (lots of whiteboard animation videos, things like that). So I imagine some of them also dropped off due to the algorithm and I went with it.
When they were gone, it was over. I'm left with a gig with over 500 completed orders with a perfect 5 star rating, that never gets seen by anyone.
There isn't much in the way of SEO you can do - you have your gig description and you can add some keywords. There is a system for buying ads - I tried that out, but it didn't lead to any clicks.
A couple years into it I started reading in the forums about changes to the search algorithm and how it was hammering people and killing their existing gigs. It was all speculation since it's not transparent. Shortly after that, I started to notice the random one off orders completely stopped. I was still getting orders from my regulars, but over time their business started to drop off. A lot of those customers were using my services to fulfill orders on their own gigs (lots of whiteboard animation videos, things like that). So I imagine some of them also dropped off due to the algorithm and I went with it.
When they were gone, it was over. I'm left with a gig with over 500 completed orders with a perfect 5 star rating, that never gets seen by anyone.
There isn't much in the way of SEO you can do - you have your gig description and you can add some keywords. There is a system for buying ads - I tried that out, but it didn't lead to any clicks.
>I'm left with a gig with over 500 completed orders with a perfect 5 star rating, that never gets seen by anyone.
So if you're not getting orders with what seems like a very strong rating, who is?
So if you're not getting orders with what seems like a very strong rating, who is?
Yeah would love to hear about when + how it changed
Exercising options in a startup that I was convinced wasn't going anywhere but had great tech, and would be a decent acquisition within a year or two.
Turns out, they shook off both their doldrums and their VC-fueled overambition and started throwing off cash. The first dividend check alone quadrupled my investment cost, and they're still going strong.
Turns out, they shook off both their doldrums and their VC-fueled overambition and started throwing off cash. The first dividend check alone quadrupled my investment cost, and they're still going strong.
Since most tech companies don't pay dividends, I'm very curious as to which company you're referring to.
A small tech company whose founders decided that they preferred to take cash out of their startup rather than pursue a VC-desired exit.
In other words, they converted their startup into what is sometimes known as a "small business".
In other words, they converted their startup into what is sometimes known as a "small business".
Back in my studies a class mate asked to help him with coding assignment. I did and got 10 units of local money. Then another friend asked the same. The word started to spread, prices increased and algorithmic coding assignments become my source of income.
After couple of years I have had all more than a half of assignments solved which were given by lecturers from 1st to 3rd years of studies. If anybody contacted me, there was a high chance I have already solved exactly that problem and simply needed just copy the code and collect money. It was a good life since I really enjoyed solving those tasks.
That was a shady thing - I literally helped to cheat the system. But these were times in our market.
Despite that this "job" lasted for couple of years only, the best income was that it pushed my coding experience years ahead compared to my peers. I was way more better than most of them. At least at coding :-)
That was a shady thing - I literally helped to cheat the system. But these were times in our market.
Despite that this "job" lasted for couple of years only, the best income was that it pushed my coding experience years ahead compared to my peers. I was way more better than most of them. At least at coding :-)
I built a social media analytics API. At its peak, it brought in about $23k/mo, with server costs at about $3k/mo. When I got a job at Instagram, they decided it was a conflict of interest and told me to sell it, which I did for a very healthy six figure sum.
I know Meta pays a lot, but did you ever consider an alternate path where you didn't take that job and instead grew the service out further? $23k/month is good money.
I thought about it, but I hadn't originally built it to make money. It was a weekend hack project that I never expected to do that well, and suddenly the prospect of centering my life around a product I didn't really feel passionate about felt like a nightmare. I had a lot of anxiety about whether my external dependencies I'd built on top of would continue to work, and reached the point where a large payoff was worth it to de-risk myself from $23k/mo becoming $0/mo with no exit.
You couldn’t sell it then accept the position?
Aside from my full time career as a programmer, the best side income stream I've built has been my book I wrote[0] to help software engineers develop the soft-skills that are necessary to reach a senior level position.
I spent 4 years on and off writing and preparing the book for publication, and it's been bringing in a steady stream of income since it was published in October 2022.
[0]: https://www.holloway.com/b/junior-to-senior
I spent 4 years on and off writing and preparing the book for publication, and it's been bringing in a steady stream of income since it was published in October 2022.
[0]: https://www.holloway.com/b/junior-to-senior
Does the purchase also include an offline/PDF version?
I have created a software agency 4 years ago. we are full remote and 5 fulltime and 7 partime workers (some working students included). I pay myself 70k p.a. and reinvest the rest into the company. it is growing around 100% in revenue each year.
in the beginning I asked myself whether it's worth it not to just develop for a big company, but now it pays. I don't even have to work the full 8 hours a day.
Quick question: what software „stack“ do you use to manage a fully remote team? What erp (if you have any), project tracking, cloud storage, chat, etc. I am really interested in logistics of running such a company. Thank you for your time!
im glad you asked: we try to use Foss as much as possible. I have a Kubernetes cluster in hetzner with split horizon DNS (for DNS I use googles DNS solution), for VPN I use openvpn. for Chat we use Mattermost. for video chat First jitsi then discord (jitsi is hard to selfhost). for project management Gitlab professional. we use notion for documenting as much as possible but we want to switch to outlined soon. dockermail for email (but not yet automated forwarding and filtering). file transfer with Nextcloud. tracking time with toptals toptracker. docker remote workspaces with kasm (we require working with Linux OS only so if you don't bring Linux, then you have to use our docker workspace).
we get that question a lot and are currently working on a simple solution to create such an environment with a few clicks (powered by helm and the cloud of your choice)
Wow, thank you for such a detailed answer, much appreciated! Maybe, if you find a minute, a couple more:
1. why such a focus on foss? You like tinkering, supporting foss or its a money saver?
2. why switch from notion to outline?
Surprised how few of these answers involve automating revenue, mostly selling continued labor
Currently the best I've made is from iOS apps with little to no server backend, or async server-sync'd offline-first local DBs tolerant of downtime to minimize on-call requirements. I make money through recurring IAP, and offer student etc. discounted rates without any verification to capture more sales. These apps grow organically when I don't put time into them actively.
Currently the best I've made is from iOS apps with little to no server backend, or async server-sync'd offline-first local DBs tolerant of downtime to minimize on-call requirements. I make money through recurring IAP, and offer student etc. discounted rates without any verification to capture more sales. These apps grow organically when I don't put time into them actively.
I'm trying to get into this. Have a ton of ideas for apps that I know I would myself find useful, just don't know if they would ever be noticed by anyone else but me. any tips?
I targeted a niche (Japanese language learning) with communities that already exist and discuss resources intensively. Then I built what they're looking for (and what I could tell from other language communities that they would like but aren't actively asking for) and went to those existing communities where people already are to introduce it. I also actively respond on Twitter, Reddit, other niche forums etc. and plug my couple apps in non-intrusive ways when relevant. My users also recommend the apps within these communities. Some journalists and competitor publications also mentioned/reviewed my apps which helped, without me pitching them. I think the niche I chose to start with is particularly good because it is full of many tech-oriented people who already share and discuss resources, and has people who are fatigued with overly-configurable setups and are looking for easier solutions.
I have plans for pushing this much further (getting people to spread word of mouth more actively, virality elements, interesting ways to share content) but this was enough to get going and quit my job.
I also put keywords of some loosely competitive apps and former dead apps or Android-specific apps that people will still look for into iOS app store keywords so that my apps show up in search results. Technically not allowed but it is the norm and I see competitors do it with mine.
I also try to leverage everything I do in multiple ways, so that I have features I can reuse across other apps, a common foundation, etc. I'll start documenting these practices in the open under indiedevstack.com but haven't set that up yet.
I have plans for pushing this much further (getting people to spread word of mouth more actively, virality elements, interesting ways to share content) but this was enough to get going and quit my job.
I also put keywords of some loosely competitive apps and former dead apps or Android-specific apps that people will still look for into iOS app store keywords so that my apps show up in search results. Technically not allowed but it is the norm and I see competitors do it with mine.
I also try to leverage everything I do in multiple ways, so that I have features I can reuse across other apps, a common foundation, etc. I'll start documenting these practices in the open under indiedevstack.com but haven't set that up yet.
I've had quite a few:
1. Selling domain names. This was when I was in college and somehow traded my way into mid-high five-figure domain names. I turned over $100k in profits in a year, and then 2008 happened and all markets collapsed.
2. Starting a D2C brand. Shipping is automated via a third-party provider. Sourcing is easy since I have a very reliable supplier. All marketing is through word of mouth. I get around 300 orders on Amazon monthly, some 100 on our website, and land the occassional business order that gets me around 2,000 orders extra per year. Not a huge money maker, but pays my mortgage for practically 2-3 hours of work/month.
3. I ran an informational website about music production (I produce as a hobby). Somehow, a few of my articles became popular and I landed a ton of good links. Google loved my website and I was pulling in mid four-figures in affiliate checks every month. That went on for years even when I stopped working on the site.
1. Selling domain names. This was when I was in college and somehow traded my way into mid-high five-figure domain names. I turned over $100k in profits in a year, and then 2008 happened and all markets collapsed.
2. Starting a D2C brand. Shipping is automated via a third-party provider. Sourcing is easy since I have a very reliable supplier. All marketing is through word of mouth. I get around 300 orders on Amazon monthly, some 100 on our website, and land the occassional business order that gets me around 2,000 orders extra per year. Not a huge money maker, but pays my mortgage for practically 2-3 hours of work/month.
3. I ran an informational website about music production (I produce as a hobby). Somehow, a few of my articles became popular and I landed a ton of good links. Google loved my website and I was pulling in mid four-figures in affiliate checks every month. That went on for years even when I stopped working on the site.
How do you stay engaged when ‘easy money’ rolls in nicely, month after month after month? I am in a similar situ and sometimes it feels easy to lose focus and play all the time.
How did you sell them?
I have a bunch of domain names but never figured out a way to sell them.
I have a bunch of domain names but never figured out a way to sell them.
https://sedo.com/us/ is the largest listing site I know of, if you want to sell at a fixed price.
https://uk.auctions.godaddy.com/ is the largest auction site. If you're looking for a quick sell, this is the place.
https://uk.auctions.godaddy.com/ is the largest auction site. If you're looking for a quick sell, this is the place.
Currently, I'm mostly using Dan.com. My earlier successes were largely trading on domain name forums (DNForum, NamePros) but they've been dead for quite a while.
Not my highest paying role but I write material related to Computer Science. I've written chapters of books, online revision material, online CPD courses etc. So far it is all related to Computer Science education - the books are school textbooks, some CPD is aimed at trainee (or pre-trainee) teachers, whilst other bits are aimed at existing teachers to help upskill them. Most of the work is for well known publishers/training providers etc on a freelance basis.
I enjoy the work. I'd love to start writing/creating CPD etc for other audiences but need to figure out how.
I enjoy the work. I'd love to start writing/creating CPD etc for other audiences but need to figure out how.
How did you get started in this kind of role? Did you first create your own content and then publishers reached out because of it?
Many years ago I saw a fairly dodgy looking ad asking for someone to write revision material for GCSE IT. I emailed to find out more, found out it was for BBC Bitesize (very popular free internet based revision guide in the UK) and spent the summer writing it. Being able to name drop the BBC helped get further jobs and I've send some cheeky cold-calling emails to see if companies are looking for writers etc. Sometimes they are, often not.
I'm always on the lookout for freelance work. Should anyone need a writer with technical knowledge then my email is in my profile!
I'm always on the lookout for freelance work. Should anyone need a writer with technical knowledge then my email is in my profile!
I built a web-based game that integrated into a popular MMO. The game was free to play but I monetized through an affiliate agreement with the MMO company.
Eventually they realized they could just copy the game and run it inside the MMO itself, so they terminated the partnership. At the end it was grossing 20k/month, but it literally consumed every moment of my free time so in some ways it was a relief to shut it down.
This was early in my career so I learned an incredible amount about scaling, catching, etc. that I was able to leverage at future jobs.
Eventually they realized they could just copy the game and run it inside the MMO itself, so they terminated the partnership. At the end it was grossing 20k/month, but it literally consumed every moment of my free time so in some ways it was a relief to shut it down.
This was early in my career so I learned an incredible amount about scaling, catching, etc. that I was able to leverage at future jobs.
I sell public domain art prints on Etsy.
Haven’t done anything on it beyond fulfilling orders for years - I found a really high-quality printers who do the production and shipping - but it’s probably good for an extra £100-300 a month, depending on how Etsy’s algorithm is feeling at the time.
I could probably sell more if I put more effort into it, but it’s nice as a very low-effort, if small, income stream.
Haven’t done anything on it beyond fulfilling orders for years - I found a really high-quality printers who do the production and shipping - but it’s probably good for an extra £100-300 a month, depending on how Etsy’s algorithm is feeling at the time.
I could probably sell more if I put more effort into it, but it’s nice as a very low-effort, if small, income stream.
Passive investing with savings from my tech job. My wife and I earned around 150k per year for 10-12 years but lived happily off of 40-60k per year for that time. The difference went into savings and retirement accounts and now we live off that nest egg and do what we want. I started a business teaching whitewater kayaking, packrafting, and swiftwater rescue which really took off during COVID but honestly the nest egg is what allowed me to do it pretty risk free.
Free daily sudoku websites monetized with (a few) ads have provided steady income for nearly 20 years now and require very little maintenance:
https://samurai-sudoku.com
https://sudokuprintables.org
https://fiendishsudoku.com
https://extremesudoku.info
For a while after the dot com bust I sold music CDs via Amazon and also refurbished docking stations and power adapters for laptops.
https://samurai-sudoku.com
https://sudokuprintables.org
https://fiendishsudoku.com
https://extremesudoku.info
For a while after the dot com bust I sold music CDs via Amazon and also refurbished docking stations and power adapters for laptops.
None of my “passion projects” have paid nearly as well as my $dayjob’s IPO. Went from highly in debt to multi-millionaire over the course of about 6 hours one day last year.
I published a few smutty short stories and a couple of apps that I’d made for my kids, all of which together might have netted me a few thousand in total. No marketing or anything.
I published a few smutty short stories and a couple of apps that I’d made for my kids, all of which together might have netted me a few thousand in total. No marketing or anything.
IPO, smutty short stories, and kids' apps. You win the most-well-rounded award! ;)
I am curious how your current life compares to the pre-IPO one. Is it universally better? Is there anything poor people don't know or misunderstand about being rich? (I am more in the poor camp.)
I used to be in the poor camp. Like, frequently borderline homeless and living at my aunt’s house in a camper in their driveway.
It’s not universally better than when I was merely well paid and affluent, even if heavily in debt. But not having to worry about whether to buy food or pay rent is quite a huge difference. My kids will never know the struggle I did. I can’t say whether that’s good or bad. I have a more well rounded perspective than most other techies
It’s not universally better than when I was merely well paid and affluent, even if heavily in debt. But not having to worry about whether to buy food or pay rent is quite a huge difference. My kids will never know the struggle I did. I can’t say whether that’s good or bad. I have a more well rounded perspective than most other techies
Thanks for replying! If you don't mind sharing, do people (family, friends) ask you for money now more than before and is it a problem for you?
Not really, but that's because most don't really know the extent of our wealth. They know we've purchased a couple of rental properties and have a wealth management account. One family member, my sister-in-law, has always been irresponsible with her money, and has always asked us to bail her out (e.g. to remove a tree and repair the roof it fell on, because she didn't have enough to cover it, in spite of the fact she earns nearly 6-figures in a very inexpensive part of the midwest). My brother has never asked me for money even though he is currently burning through his savings after having been laid off.
All in all it seems you have been very fortunate and are in a good spot now. I am happy for you. And thanks again - I have never communicated with a millionaire before : - )
Working full time. I haven't been able in a decade to get anywhere near close to living wage with my 'side gigs'.
My YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/cgpgrey. Started it with the idea that it could bring attention to some other professional projects, but it turned out that YouTube was actually the career.
Wow, I didn't know you were on HN!
I (mostly) like it better than reddit, but _shhhhh_ don't tell reddit.
Once you go hack, you never go back.
I do enjoy your videos, especially the rules for rulers one, which I often think about when I need to humanise politicians. It's inevitable that they end up compromising every moral fibre of their being on the way to power, so I shouldn't be surprised or outraged.
I do enjoy your videos, especially the rules for rulers one, which I often think about when I need to humanise politicians. It's inevitable that they end up compromising every moral fibre of their being on the way to power, so I shouldn't be surprised or outraged.
As someone who has been subscribed for years and loves their top sneaky stamp. I really appreciate your content and content like yours, where you present interesting information that I am honestly curious about but don't have the time to do the deep dive myself.
Keep it up, and enjoy some nature walks!
Keep it up, and enjoy some nature walks!
Thanks!
I built a license-based self-hosted analytics platform (https://uxwizz.com), the revenue varies, earning around $1500/mo on average without any real marketing, I like building it more than marketing it.
Started it 9 years ago, still working on it.
Started it 9 years ago, still working on it.
The easiest money I ever made was doing affiliate marketing for a domain name registrar. They would pay you $20 every time someone signed up for their free domain name promotion. I just posted on /r/freebies every week for two months. Made a few thousand dollars until the registrar realized how much they were overpaying the affiliate marketers, and they stopped doing the free domain name promotion.
macOS apps which I share at https://lowtechguys.com/ bring me $7k/month on average at the moment, and it keeps growing.
It started in 2017 when I shared the first free and open source version of Lunar (https://lunar.fyi/), an app for controlling monitors.
At that time, there was only a command line for doing this stuff (https://github.com/kfix/ddcctl) and I wanted a more visual way of changing the brightness. So I learned Swift, learned how to bridge the ddcctl C code and call it from Swift, then made a rough interface and published it: https://www.producthunt.com/products/lunar#lunar-5
It turned out people did have a need for this and asked if they could donate. I set up a Buy me a Coffee page and in 4 years collected about $5k in donations. That's a lot of money for a Romanian.
When Apple Silicon appeared, Lunar didn't work anymore because the whole hardware arrangement and drivers were different, and there was no documentation on how to send I²C data. I took the plunge and quit my stressful job, bought an M1 MacBook and reverse engineered the I²C communication: https://alinpanaitiu.com/blog/journey-to-ddc-on-m1-macs/
Then published Lunar 4 as a Free version with a Pro paid upgrade. I was reluctant with this, didn't think anyone would buy it, but to this day I'm able to be unemployed and put my ideas into practice because of it.
It started in 2017 when I shared the first free and open source version of Lunar (https://lunar.fyi/), an app for controlling monitors.
At that time, there was only a command line for doing this stuff (https://github.com/kfix/ddcctl) and I wanted a more visual way of changing the brightness. So I learned Swift, learned how to bridge the ddcctl C code and call it from Swift, then made a rough interface and published it: https://www.producthunt.com/products/lunar#lunar-5
It turned out people did have a need for this and asked if they could donate. I set up a Buy me a Coffee page and in 4 years collected about $5k in donations. That's a lot of money for a Romanian.
When Apple Silicon appeared, Lunar didn't work anymore because the whole hardware arrangement and drivers were different, and there was no documentation on how to send I²C data. I took the plunge and quit my stressful job, bought an M1 MacBook and reverse engineered the I²C communication: https://alinpanaitiu.com/blog/journey-to-ddc-on-m1-macs/
Then published Lunar 4 as a Free version with a Pro paid upgrade. I was reluctant with this, didn't think anyone would buy it, but to this day I'm able to be unemployed and put my ideas into practice because of it.
I spent last month trying as many things as possible to see what was most desirable. Best paying ended up being trading time for money. In order of most money made:
• workshops • custom illustration packs • microcoaching • online courses • ebooks • merch on Etsy • Upwork gig
I’ll be working on converting residue from time-for-money projects into products. For example, I’m turning my workshops into online courses, my illustration packs into icon bundles to sell as digital products, microcoaching as asynch videos, online courses transcribed into ebooks, and concepts from all of them into merch (coffee mugs, journals, t-shirts) with an ability to mix and match bundles
I started all of this when I got laid off. I ended up needing flexibility to take time off to help my family so can’t see getting a full time job anytime soon. I’m also done working 60-80 hour weeks for startups and can’t figure out a job that pays enough that’s low stress. So scrambling to make this work
• workshops • custom illustration packs • microcoaching • online courses • ebooks • merch on Etsy • Upwork gig
I’ll be working on converting residue from time-for-money projects into products. For example, I’m turning my workshops into online courses, my illustration packs into icon bundles to sell as digital products, microcoaching as asynch videos, online courses transcribed into ebooks, and concepts from all of them into merch (coffee mugs, journals, t-shirts) with an ability to mix and match bundles
I started all of this when I got laid off. I ended up needing flexibility to take time off to help my family so can’t see getting a full time job anytime soon. I’m also done working 60-80 hour weeks for startups and can’t figure out a job that pays enough that’s low stress. So scrambling to make this work
Curious about micro coaching - can you explain a bit more about how this works?
To make a long story short … I built a delivery service that unexpectedly went semi-viral. Within a matter of hours we went from 2-5 orders per day, to 10, 20, 30, 40 … I had a small crew, and it got to the point where I was ordering Ubers and handing the drivers wads of cash to make the deliveries. Somehow we managed, and I eventually shut the service down to pursue a more interesting opportunity. It was a wild ride, and I learned more about business in those 2 short months than the 10 years prior.
I developed a Shopify app that solves a niche problem. It has grown slowly over 4 years.
Current income at 80k/year with relatively low maintenance. I have a full time job as a software engineer on the side.
Current income at 80k/year with relatively low maintenance. I have a full time job as a software engineer on the side.
I've recently been considering building a Shopify app(product renting) but I can't figure out if there is a demand. A similar app has <10 reviews. Do you have any advice?
Reddit has a good Shopify community - ask them if they’re familiar with the concept.
You can also do a 7 day trial of SEMRush and do some competitive research on the app’s domain.
See if they’re ranking for any keywords/how much search traffic the keywords have.
You can also do a 7 day trial of SEMRush and do some competitive research on the app’s domain.
See if they’re ranking for any keywords/how much search traffic the keywords have.
How have you stumbled upon this niche and recognized a need for this?
That was also my question
I make around 200-300 USD per month through https://gifmemes.io. Basically zero maintenance, but I'll add user generated templates one of these days. Will be nice to "automated" content generation in addition to "automated" income generation.
Just wanted to reply that I love your site. Every 6 months or so, I forget what it's called but the demo of Jack Sparrow and the rotoscoped chase sequence always brings me back! I'll scour HN for a while hope I remember.
After my most recent forgotten event, I did bookmark it and now I have this comment. Hopefully I can remember now. :)
After my most recent forgotten event, I did bookmark it and now I have this comment. Hopefully I can remember now. :)
Improving myself and changing jobs so far as proven to pay the most.
Otherwise I wrote a book (real world cryptography) which is selling really well. Not going to replace a full time job though.
Otherwise I wrote a book (real world cryptography) which is selling really well. Not going to replace a full time job though.
https://maxrozen.com
I run a SaaS, and nothing makes money as easily as that React blog.
Essentially, you write content once, and a single email can pitch it to a whole new group of potential customers at nearly zero additional cost to you.
(of course, it took a year of blogging regularly to reach that point, but now if I write another book it gets additional sales at no additional cost to me, which feels wild compared to running a SaaS)
I run a SaaS, and nothing makes money as easily as that React blog.
Essentially, you write content once, and a single email can pitch it to a whole new group of potential customers at nearly zero additional cost to you.
(of course, it took a year of blogging regularly to reach that point, but now if I write another book it gets additional sales at no additional cost to me, which feels wild compared to running a SaaS)
How do you get new contacts that you can pitch in a single email? Is it organic newsletter signups or something else?
A few years ago I was frustrated with how difficult it was to setup a solid React.js stack with auth, payments, etc so I built a codebase generator at https://divjoy.com
It does around $5-10k a month. Fairly passive. A few hours of support a week. Was full-time on it for the first few years, but decided to join a company recently and keep growing this on the side.
It does around $5-10k a month. Fairly passive. A few hours of support a week. Was full-time on it for the first few years, but decided to join a company recently and keep growing this on the side.
I have businesses which gave me a taxable income of $4 million. Mostly passive. All of them are tech businesses. Started off with a few foundational ideas I came up with through trial and error over 10 years.
Amazing! Care to elaborate more?
I won't give away the exact niches but they are in the universal, evergreen problems: wealth, health and love.
I charge really high around $300 per month. That way you cut through the b.s. and it is clear you are delivering value or not. Also helps with the marketing as I can get more per customer than I spend on acquiring them.
Usually saas businesses all seem to charge really low like $10 / month for some reason. That is a mistake in my opinion.
There are lot of wealthy people in the world for whom $300 and even higher is nothing if it totally solves a problem.
I also provide human customer support because of that high price point so they like it if they have a problem.
Then I hired managers for each business who manage it for me and now it is almost a replicable model that I can use when starting any business.
I charge really high around $300 per month. That way you cut through the b.s. and it is clear you are delivering value or not. Also helps with the marketing as I can get more per customer than I spend on acquiring them.
Usually saas businesses all seem to charge really low like $10 / month for some reason. That is a mistake in my opinion.
There are lot of wealthy people in the world for whom $300 and even higher is nothing if it totally solves a problem.
I also provide human customer support because of that high price point so they like it if they have a problem.
Then I hired managers for each business who manage it for me and now it is almost a replicable model that I can use when starting any business.
Thanks for sharing. Seems like you've found your product-market fit!
I do agree that many SaaS services are underpriced (and many overpriced). SaaS entrepreneurs should take a bit more risk and try pricing their products at the higher end - even if its for an experimental duration.
I do agree that many SaaS services are underpriced (and many overpriced). SaaS entrepreneurs should take a bit more risk and try pricing their products at the higher end - even if its for an experimental duration.
Are the manager roles full time positions or is it something that I could do on the side to learn from your experience?
They are all full time positions now.
I am available for fulltime job. Somewhere I can reach you?
All are Saas?
Started an open source project that was used by a fair number of startups. One of them eventually hired me for full-time dev work and others paid for short term consulting work. Also had an Amazon wishlist with token Items of appreciation (mostly beer). That generated a fair number of deliveries. Eventually bought a dedicated large fridge for it. Got out of it after after a few years tho.
My PhD was in image processing - never really got to use it in any day job, but I published an iPhone app that back in the day that would read a sudoku puzzle and solve it. That led to a few side gigs and I’ve done off and on consulting jobs in the image processing space over the years.
Most problems tend to be amenable to “classic” techniques (eg OpenCV) and if you can get involved early enough there are a lot of affordances that can be added to make things a lot simpler (e.g registration marks).
I’ve also got a small YouTube channel that brings in a bit of revenue from ads and sponsorship.
Most problems tend to be amenable to “classic” techniques (eg OpenCV) and if you can get involved early enough there are a lot of affordances that can be added to make things a lot simpler (e.g registration marks).
I’ve also got a small YouTube channel that brings in a bit of revenue from ads and sponsorship.
Can you share the link to your youtube channel?
Sure - http://youtube.com/atomic14
And if you want a cool demo, try this on your phone and point it at a sudoku puzzle: https://sudoku.cmgresearch.com/
And if you want a cool demo, try this on your phone and point it at a sudoku puzzle: https://sudoku.cmgresearch.com/
https://bigpicture.io/
I was trying to build a B2B sales/marketing app and all the ML stuff we wanted to do required business data, which was too expensive for us. Long story, but after a cofounder blow up, a failed acquisition, then covid being the final straw, I started poking around during lockdown on how to get business data at scale.
I ended up building an API to look up any business by domain/name, which has been particularly popular for fintechs. It's more or less fully automated now and is a nice income stream.
I was trying to build a B2B sales/marketing app and all the ML stuff we wanted to do required business data, which was too expensive for us. Long story, but after a cofounder blow up, a failed acquisition, then covid being the final straw, I started poking around during lockdown on how to get business data at scale.
I ended up building an API to look up any business by domain/name, which has been particularly popular for fintechs. It's more or less fully automated now and is a nice income stream.
very cool, how do you get the data, crawling or some external sources ?
also how did your customers found you ?
also how did your customers found you ?
Aside from my regular job, life modeling.
Not a huge income generator (around $19,000 total over the last 5 years), but the pose research, networking, booking sessions, actually doing the modeling, and reporting on / posting the artwork from my sessions on my social media is pretty much a "sole passion" for me.
Not a huge income generator (around $19,000 total over the last 5 years), but the pose research, networking, booking sessions, actually doing the modeling, and reporting on / posting the artwork from my sessions on my social media is pretty much a "sole passion" for me.
That’s awesome. Do you have a link to your social media?
pose research?
Yes! The human body has the potential to do a tremendous variety of poses.
To keep it interesting for me and my artists, I regularly scan the Instagram posters I follow, as well as other sources (like classical art sites), and save interesting ones I'd like to try.
Then I run a slideshow of the poses on my home TV. I'll take a moment to look as I pass by while doing chores, or I'll spend some dedicated time actually doing the poses for timed intervals.
To keep it interesting for me and my artists, I regularly scan the Instagram posters I follow, as well as other sources (like classical art sites), and save interesting ones I'd like to try.
Then I run a slideshow of the poses on my home TV. I'll take a moment to look as I pass by while doing chores, or I'll spend some dedicated time actually doing the poses for timed intervals.
https://scrapingfish.com
A SaaS we developed with my cofounder. Started at the beginning of this year and been growing steadily. We are involved daily in user support, marketing and development.
We attribute the growth to a couple of very successful blog posts which made it to the front page of HN.
Thank you HN!
A SaaS we developed with my cofounder. Started at the beginning of this year and been growing steadily. We are involved daily in user support, marketing and development.
We attribute the growth to a couple of very successful blog posts which made it to the front page of HN.
Thank you HN!
Kept at embedded engineering personal projects through some years working as a backend web developer, and finally got a chance to interview for a big tech job and landed it! I am much happier now and I have no urge to do side projects as I scratch that itch at my day job. My desk is covered in electronics again!
What kind of embedded projects have you made in your personal time before? I'm a backend engineer and I like to build embedded stuff as well for fun. What are some differences between your two jobs? Do you think embedded stuff will get boring at some point where your hobby becomes a chore?
I have a few ongoing projects - one is a music block toy for my kids (assemble blocks together that makes a song), another is a IoT shelf which syncs inventory. Someday I'd like to also make a large scale pen plotter.
Embedded software is obviously a lot like backend in the day to day, write code, design docs, etc, but instead of trying to keep up with all the things like serverless functions, Kubernetes, Cassandra, etc etc we get to think about things like microcontroller peripherals (timers, serial data, power management, interrupts) and supporting a variety of hardware configurations with testable code.
It isn't a chore yet! My only problem is as a staff engineer only half my time is spent actually doing coding!
Embedded software is obviously a lot like backend in the day to day, write code, design docs, etc, but instead of trying to keep up with all the things like serverless functions, Kubernetes, Cassandra, etc etc we get to think about things like microcontroller peripherals (timers, serial data, power management, interrupts) and supporting a variety of hardware configurations with testable code.
It isn't a chore yet! My only problem is as a staff engineer only half my time is spent actually doing coding!
Starting https://pdf2qrcode.com
It does not bring in a whole lot, but I like having a side hustle.
It does not bring in a whole lot, but I like having a side hustle.
That site's awesome. Simple focused product. It's clear what it does. It's clear what it costs.
only thing i'd suggest is that you add more examples of what where people can put those QR codes. I think most folks in the US don't "get" QR codes, or how they could benefit from them. Also it'd be good google food.
probably a description of how easy it is to scan them on iOS and android. I think a bunch of folks still don't know it's built into the phone apps.
only thing i'd suggest is that you add more examples of what where people can put those QR codes. I think most folks in the US don't "get" QR codes, or how they could benefit from them. Also it'd be good google food.
probably a description of how easy it is to scan them on iOS and android. I think a bunch of folks still don't know it's built into the phone apps.
i really like this, great example of a small side hustle.
I built an Add-In for Microsoft Word for creative writers that counts occurrences of different types of words and displays each occurrence next to the sentence it occurs in for context. The copy on the website describes it differently, but it's basically just a list of lists with a good UI - nothing complex about it, no AI or ML.
It covers word and phrase frequency, adverbs, dialog tags, etc.
I spent a good bit of time working on it years ago alongside my full time jobs, but haven't touched it in years. It still brings in about $1000 a month.
I Google every one who buys it and they're all published writers or run editing shops.
It covers word and phrase frequency, adverbs, dialog tags, etc.
I spent a good bit of time working on it years ago alongside my full time jobs, but haven't touched it in years. It still brings in about $1000 a month.
I Google every one who buys it and they're all published writers or run editing shops.
Not spammy but actually useful SEO optimized informational websites. Easy long term revenue, some have paid out well over $5k an hour, in income for the amount of time I put into them.
And apps on various app stores.
And apps on various app stores.
Where do you source your content from?
Create it. Otherwise it’s just SEO spam, IMHO.
Never meant in that way. Do you create it? Got someone to do it for you? Also, how do you pick topics for websites?
I usually write it myself based on topics I am learning about or already know about. Or topics where good qualities of reference data is available for free use that can be spun or joined.
Review sites also do very well. Build enough of them, create a PBN and sell links as a secondary revenue source.
Review sites also do very well. Build enough of them, create a PBN and sell links as a secondary revenue source.
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I read all the comments, the most popular income stream in the comments is to get a FAANG gig. Pow. Done.
FAANG jobs have some of the highest salaried positions available but even those will reach a cap because of limited leverage. One way to leverage salaried roles is to move into management where you can leverage your team's hours to accomplish more and move beyond a single IC salary. Otherwise, you have more leverage by owning a business of some kind.
Built a qr code generator website 15 years ago and it paid me $750 a month in AdWords revenue. Gold.
My blog is a fantastic income stream. It makes about $250 per month off of Patreon and ads. It's nowhere near enough to quit my day job, but after tax burdens it pays for the hosting costs and all my video games. It's pretty great!
In the 2000 I used to write a windows tool. It was making me some pocket money until I stopped it in 2015.. I stopped it because it was in the end kinda high maintenance (support mails = time) and I needed to pay taxes, so I basically got 0 or needed even to pay to keep this alive. But until then it was a nice source of passive income. I wish I could make more of these tools. It was nothing big but I spent at least 1 year developing it (I was still learning so I think I could make this in 6 months or less nowadays)
Being able to go work everyday and exchange labor for money. When the pay/shit factor starts going in the wrong direction, getting another job.
When the company disappears from under me, calling people in my network and finding someplace else that will give me money for my skillset and experience.
There is way too much emphasis on trying to find a “side hustle” and starting a company when the best statistical path forward for most developers is to “grind LeetCode and work for a $techCompany” (tm r/cscareerquestions)
I’m old enough and experienced enough to make FAANG money without having to jump through those hoops. But I still give that advice to anyone in the field.
When the company disappears from under me, calling people in my network and finding someplace else that will give me money for my skillset and experience.
There is way too much emphasis on trying to find a “side hustle” and starting a company when the best statistical path forward for most developers is to “grind LeetCode and work for a $techCompany” (tm r/cscareerquestions)
I’m old enough and experienced enough to make FAANG money without having to jump through those hoops. But I still give that advice to anyone in the field.
Out of curiosity, what industry do you work in that doesn't require the leetcode hoops but still pays as well as FAANG? Or is it just due to your experience and network?
I was a long time (18 year) journeyman enterprise software developer until 2014 by trade.
I then started getting “architect” type jobs as far as responsibility. Where I was brought in when the companies needed to mature their processes. But I was still hands on.
I belatedly discovered the “cloud” in 2017 and in 2018 I was hired at a startup where the then new CTO wanted to be cloud native and was envisioning pivoting the company to selling micro services to support large health care companies apps and websites (that came in handy post Covid). I led the efforts.
Two years later a recruiter called me from Amazon Retail about a software developer position. I had no interest in either working for any large company as a software developer or doing the leetCode monkey dance at 46.
We kept talking and she suggested that I apply for a role in AWS Professional Services consulting in “application modernization” - full stack app dev + cloud + “Devops” + a lot of customer facing/presentation responsibilities.
The rest is history.
I don’t recommend this statistically unlikely route to anyone. 99% of developers should “grind leetCode” and get a good at coding interviews.
Working for small companies, I just happen to have experience from pre-sales all the way to implementation down the stack to cloud infrastructure. Not bragging, I’m just old /s.
I then started getting “architect” type jobs as far as responsibility. Where I was brought in when the companies needed to mature their processes. But I was still hands on.
I belatedly discovered the “cloud” in 2017 and in 2018 I was hired at a startup where the then new CTO wanted to be cloud native and was envisioning pivoting the company to selling micro services to support large health care companies apps and websites (that came in handy post Covid). I led the efforts.
Two years later a recruiter called me from Amazon Retail about a software developer position. I had no interest in either working for any large company as a software developer or doing the leetCode monkey dance at 46.
We kept talking and she suggested that I apply for a role in AWS Professional Services consulting in “application modernization” - full stack app dev + cloud + “Devops” + a lot of customer facing/presentation responsibilities.
The rest is history.
I don’t recommend this statistically unlikely route to anyone. 99% of developers should “grind leetCode” and get a good at coding interviews.
Working for small companies, I just happen to have experience from pre-sales all the way to implementation down the stack to cloud infrastructure. Not bragging, I’m just old /s.
definitely my paycheck from being a full time software engineer
So glad you asked this question, thanks!
One of my favorite projects and one that keeps bringing me joy is my online course on Programmatic SEO.
Created in January 2021, after the initial 5-digit launch sales, i didn't work on the course or make any updates and just kinda left it.
The course has been making >$500/mo in fully passive income. I love it more than the SaaS product I run even though that makes >50x more per month.
Course landing page, for whoever is interested - https://preetamnath.com/programmatic-seo
One of my favorite projects and one that keeps bringing me joy is my online course on Programmatic SEO.
Created in January 2021, after the initial 5-digit launch sales, i didn't work on the course or make any updates and just kinda left it.
The course has been making >$500/mo in fully passive income. I love it more than the SaaS product I run even though that makes >50x more per month.
Course landing page, for whoever is interested - https://preetamnath.com/programmatic-seo
https://apps.apple.com/app/tactris-tactical-puzzle/id1537306...
Simple IOS game, that I wrote during COVID. IDK how, but it's pays for itself (apple subscriptions is 100$/year, game revenue 100$/year)
Simple IOS game, that I wrote during COVID. IDK how, but it's pays for itself (apple subscriptions is 100$/year, game revenue 100$/year)
bought a flat for 120k€ in city center, spent 60k€ to make it nice and cosy and split into 4 rooms.
renting out for 1800€/month now (4 individual rooms)
renting out for 1800€/month now (4 individual rooms)
I sold my last side gig when it got too busy. Land clearing and forestry with heavy equipment- the last year we grossed 250k and 50% profit. Sold the company for 1x annual profit plus assets.
Now I mine Bitcoin. Have iterated through a lot of the challenges mid-size miners face. I’m going to build an online course for others who want to build mining operations at my scale.
starting a micro SAAS on the side (https://margindash.com/)
I'm justing starting out, but my book that I wrote about my psychedelic transformation sold quite well, even to people outside of my circle. I set the price low because I don't want money to be a hinderance to people reading it.
https://neontomo.com/book
this is like asking a fisherman where his best fishing spots are
not really... because you WANT people to hear about your income streams, because that's how you get more income from them.
there are a bajillion worthwhile business ideas... they're a dime a dozen (and that's paying too much). The problem is IMPLEMENTING them, which essentially no-one ever bothers too.
way more folks who hear you idea will say "shit, i wanna use that" than "i'm going to spend a year of my life making an app to compete with that, and then another year marketing it and...."
there are a bajillion worthwhile business ideas... they're a dime a dozen (and that's paying too much). The problem is IMPLEMENTING them, which essentially no-one ever bothers too.
way more folks who hear you idea will say "shit, i wanna use that" than "i'm going to spend a year of my life making an app to compete with that, and then another year marketing it and...."
I heard once, "Ideas are the easy part, execution is the hard part".
>there are a bajillion worthwhile business ideas...
Can you list a few of the best ones for me?
Can you list a few of the best ones for me?
What's the best way to learn to implement ideas (and in a way that leads to a profitable business)?
It might be like asking a fisherman what fish he catches most
The mentality of your statement is the same as when college kids refuse to tell VCs their ideas because they think VCs will steal it.
They won’t steal it but they will float it to their networks for validation and if any of them are looking to pick something up and run with it, now they’ve got the same idea from a known-quantity team.
It absolutely happens.
It absolutely happens.
It may happen but the benefits of being secretive are lower than the benefits of sharing an idea and getting constructive feedback. One of the earliest fallacies I learned as an entrepreneur is that ideas need to be protected lest someone "steal" them or "beat me to the punch." It's just not true.
The benefits of sharing an idea and getting feedback far far far outweigh the minuscule risk that sharing an idea will spark a competitor that will end up outcompeting me.
Now - having said that - posting your ideas in detail on a public thread on Hacker News doesn't necessarily have the same benefits, so I can see the hesitation ;)
The benefits of sharing an idea and getting feedback far far far outweigh the minuscule risk that sharing an idea will spark a competitor that will end up outcompeting me.
Now - having said that - posting your ideas in detail on a public thread on Hacker News doesn't necessarily have the same benefits, so I can see the hesitation ;)
Yeah there is a level of paranoia that can be problematically isolating.
In my experience it really depends on the type of idea, the other types of validation you already have, and your existing relationship to the funding network.
The more moonshot the idea, the more validation you can get outside of funding pitches, and the less cozy your relationship with the (well-networked) money, the more risk you get from sharing.
Many of these companies will pitch the big-picture what and why but not disclose the how, which is the magic. On the other hand, if the what and why are all the value and you share them before you’ve at least somewhat captured them then you risk giving away the opportunity, because the how is just what you’re asking for: the resources.
In my experience it really depends on the type of idea, the other types of validation you already have, and your existing relationship to the funding network.
The more moonshot the idea, the more validation you can get outside of funding pitches, and the less cozy your relationship with the (well-networked) money, the more risk you get from sharing.
Many of these companies will pitch the big-picture what and why but not disclose the how, which is the magic. On the other hand, if the what and why are all the value and you share them before you’ve at least somewhat captured them then you risk giving away the opportunity, because the how is just what you’re asking for: the resources.
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Finally some sense.
launched the Coding Career Handbook here on HN a couple years ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23700486
got decent spike of initial sales but surprisingly it has continued to sell about 3-5k per month since then with not a lot of additional promo work
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23700486
got decent spike of initial sales but surprisingly it has continued to sell about 3-5k per month since then with not a lot of additional promo work
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I have monetized ~50 of my unused domains via a tool I created called Newsy
https://www.newsy.co
All the domains I've purchased over the years, I haven't had time to develop them, but also didn't like the traditional parking pages. Newsy generates a content-aggregation site for given set of keywords related to your domains. It's automated and you can add your own ads.
https://www.newsy.co
All the domains I've purchased over the years, I haven't had time to develop them, but also didn't like the traditional parking pages. Newsy generates a content-aggregation site for given set of keywords related to your domains. It's automated and you can add your own ads.
Basically domain parking under a fancy coat. Honestly, fuck that.
I just realized something like this is probably what happened to my favorite band's website after they disbanded and lost the domain. I was so confused as to why the site became so generic looking. It didn't seem like a fan run page either.
See: https://oceansize.co.uk
See: https://oceansize.co.uk
Dealing MtG[1] cards on eBay.
[1]: Magic: the Gathering.
[1]: Magic: the Gathering.
What a coincidence - that is actually the worst income stream I ever created.
I was working at Software Etc.[1][2] in 1995 and used my employee discount to buy 12 boxes of Fallen Empires. I was certain it would make me (relatively) rich.
Five years later I sold them all on ebay for, basically, even money. FE was so overprinted that it had no value at all and I don't think I would have made any significant money until after 2010.
[1] Southdale Mall in Edina, MN - the first shopping mall.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southdale_Center
I was working at Software Etc.[1][2] in 1995 and used my employee discount to buy 12 boxes of Fallen Empires. I was certain it would make me (relatively) rich.
Five years later I sold them all on ebay for, basically, even money. FE was so overprinted that it had no value at all and I don't think I would have made any significant money until after 2010.
[1] Southdale Mall in Edina, MN - the first shopping mall.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southdale_Center
Fast forward to 2022: Hasbro is printing limited series of various qualities.
For the juicy series, the price basically doubles right after the sold-out.
That’s my definition of easy money.
Hint: the next limited serie is « MtG meets The Lord of the Rings »
Hint: the next limited serie is « MtG meets The Lord of the Rings »
That's awesome! MtG didn't make me any money but it got me into MIT, so I love sharing this story:
I was super into the game in my later high school years (1994-96), right when the market started going absolutely bonkers (relatively speaking). And I discovered a pattern - there was a price guide that got published on Usenet every week, and every card had "low", "average", and "high" prices. But people would only transact at the "high" level, so every week the price guide was updated with the new average and the loop began. Anyway I discovered this loop, started trading actively at tournaments, built up a huge portfolio of cards.....and then had the entire collection stolen from me while I was playing a match.
Anyway, I told this story to my college interviewer who just so happened to be an early Algo trader at a large Wall Street bank, and he loved it and wrote me up a glowing interview recommendation.
(Side note: At one point I had 9 Black Lotuses and was super proud of that...first page of my album. Few Alpha, few Beta, mostly Unlimited, one was signed by Christopher Rush, etc. Ahh memories.)
I was super into the game in my later high school years (1994-96), right when the market started going absolutely bonkers (relatively speaking). And I discovered a pattern - there was a price guide that got published on Usenet every week, and every card had "low", "average", and "high" prices. But people would only transact at the "high" level, so every week the price guide was updated with the new average and the loop began. Anyway I discovered this loop, started trading actively at tournaments, built up a huge portfolio of cards.....and then had the entire collection stolen from me while I was playing a match.
Anyway, I told this story to my college interviewer who just so happened to be an early Algo trader at a large Wall Street bank, and he loved it and wrote me up a glowing interview recommendation.
(Side note: At one point I had 9 Black Lotuses and was super proud of that...first page of my album. Few Alpha, few Beta, mostly Unlimited, one was signed by Christopher Rush, etc. Ahh memories.)
Wow, insane anecdot. Thanks for sharing!
My only anecdot is probably that i exchanged a mox from my very first starter, for a shivan dragon.
Everybody in the shop was shocked. I discovered the reason why much later :)
To continue on the Usenet stuff, my very first contact with the Internet was me on Usenet trying to find a collector set [that I eventually got from the famous Tommi Hovi]. The first international shipping I ever received in my life.
Worth every penny nowadays!!!
To continue on the Usenet stuff, my very first contact with the Internet was me on Usenet trying to find a collector set [that I eventually got from the famous Tommi Hovi]. The first international shipping I ever received in my life.
Worth every penny nowadays!!!
My current job that I started in August of this year.
It is a huge health care org
Happy with the pay
Benefits are top notch: insurance is less than half of what I was paying at previous job.
Traditional pension plan (no monetary input from me) along with retirement health insurance (huge, huge for me since I have chronic health issues)
401K option + matching
tuition reimbursement (I am stoked about this but not sure of when I will take advantage of it)
Lots of free resources (OReilly books, Udemy and Pluralsight)
It is a huge health care org
Happy with the pay
Benefits are top notch: insurance is less than half of what I was paying at previous job.
Traditional pension plan (no monetary input from me) along with retirement health insurance (huge, huge for me since I have chronic health issues)
401K option + matching
tuition reimbursement (I am stoked about this but not sure of when I will take advantage of it)
Lots of free resources (OReilly books, Udemy and Pluralsight)
Startups, and tech in general, are becoming more of a tax than a help.
Just like North America (and largely Europe too) outsourced its manufacturing know-how to cheaper markets, labor, resources, and regulations, we're outsourcing all our business logic, day-to-day functions, and IP to cheaper and cheaper SaaS products. Sure, you can get setup quickly, but it will get torn down just as quickly with deprecations, no support, rising prices, mergers, discontinuations, buyouts, shutdowns etc.
What's happened is that any small/medium business is required to be a mini-tech company to keep the doors open, but paying ever-increasing monthly rent to 15-30 SaaS companies. The tradeoff is that now they don't own or operate their own data, have little control over how it's queried, displayed, or accessed, all while basically getting zero support (i.e. Google, Shopify, SendGrid, Stripe, the list goes on).
I spent 5 years developing an in-house system to run a coffee roaster. All the internal tools, reporting, organic certification, roast logs, traceability, customer service, shipping, wholesale, international, taxes, etc. You name it, any tool we needed, it was built. Prior to this, after 13 years of being in business, they were still wildly unprofitable and doing 600 orders a month. A few years after systematizing the company, now they're very profitable and doing >6,000 orders a month.
Then I spent 5 years taking that knowledge and toolset and built a V2 for an organic farm to logistics and delivery of fresh produce. Again, after 15 years in business and doing 2500 deliveries a month, it was mildly profitable but struggling under the weight, rigidity, and complexity of an outsourced system. I replaced it with my own system and grew it to 2500 deliveries per week (4x).
I then stepped down and started my own company to license out the system I built to run any small or medium organization. They get to own all their data, customize what they want, and I pick up the phone when they need help (crazy idea, I know). Most companies don't need bigger, better, flashier, cheaper software. They're actually happy to pay for systems that will be flexible when they need, and someone to call if required.
All organizations are basically a set of people who need access to customers, addresses, payment methods, products, and orders, with functions to track communication via phone/email, make payment transactions, create/send PDFs, and report on what was/is/will be ordered.
Running a company on outsourced SaaS is financially-cheap, but it's time-expensive, and brittle.
My system now runs many multi-million dollars companies, small and medium scale, across many verticals. Whether it's shipping thousands of packages, delivering thousands of boxes, or running a local subscription bagel delivery service, or shed manufacturer, or running a Home Owner's Association, or running my own tech company, or a fertilizer company, or a youth sports team, or a malting company, or private chef/meal-planning service. They all have the same basic needs.
For some companies, it's my active income, some it's maintenance income, some it's passive. They're all in different seasons, and it fluctuates throughout the year. A couple get busy in the summers, some need special stuff built in the fall for the holidays, some are quiet all year and chug along. But there's always someone to help, something to polish, or some JS dependency to remove :)
Just like North America (and largely Europe too) outsourced its manufacturing know-how to cheaper markets, labor, resources, and regulations, we're outsourcing all our business logic, day-to-day functions, and IP to cheaper and cheaper SaaS products. Sure, you can get setup quickly, but it will get torn down just as quickly with deprecations, no support, rising prices, mergers, discontinuations, buyouts, shutdowns etc.
What's happened is that any small/medium business is required to be a mini-tech company to keep the doors open, but paying ever-increasing monthly rent to 15-30 SaaS companies. The tradeoff is that now they don't own or operate their own data, have little control over how it's queried, displayed, or accessed, all while basically getting zero support (i.e. Google, Shopify, SendGrid, Stripe, the list goes on).
I spent 5 years developing an in-house system to run a coffee roaster. All the internal tools, reporting, organic certification, roast logs, traceability, customer service, shipping, wholesale, international, taxes, etc. You name it, any tool we needed, it was built. Prior to this, after 13 years of being in business, they were still wildly unprofitable and doing 600 orders a month. A few years after systematizing the company, now they're very profitable and doing >6,000 orders a month.
Then I spent 5 years taking that knowledge and toolset and built a V2 for an organic farm to logistics and delivery of fresh produce. Again, after 15 years in business and doing 2500 deliveries a month, it was mildly profitable but struggling under the weight, rigidity, and complexity of an outsourced system. I replaced it with my own system and grew it to 2500 deliveries per week (4x).
I then stepped down and started my own company to license out the system I built to run any small or medium organization. They get to own all their data, customize what they want, and I pick up the phone when they need help (crazy idea, I know). Most companies don't need bigger, better, flashier, cheaper software. They're actually happy to pay for systems that will be flexible when they need, and someone to call if required.
All organizations are basically a set of people who need access to customers, addresses, payment methods, products, and orders, with functions to track communication via phone/email, make payment transactions, create/send PDFs, and report on what was/is/will be ordered.
Running a company on outsourced SaaS is financially-cheap, but it's time-expensive, and brittle.
My system now runs many multi-million dollars companies, small and medium scale, across many verticals. Whether it's shipping thousands of packages, delivering thousands of boxes, or running a local subscription bagel delivery service, or shed manufacturer, or running a Home Owner's Association, or running my own tech company, or a fertilizer company, or a youth sports team, or a malting company, or private chef/meal-planning service. They all have the same basic needs.
For some companies, it's my active income, some it's maintenance income, some it's passive. They're all in different seasons, and it fluctuates throughout the year. A couple get busy in the summers, some need special stuff built in the fall for the holidays, some are quiet all year and chug along. But there's always someone to help, something to polish, or some JS dependency to remove :)
What do you call this kind of all-round software that runs these businesses? Is it just traditional ERP software?
My career.
Not joking just another angle: I worked on that actively.
Not joking just another angle: I worked on that actively.
bought a flat for 120k€ in city center, spent 60k€ to make it nice and cosy and split into 4 rooms.
renting out for 1800€/month now.
renting out for 1800€/month now.
[deleted]
Active income
Fundipedia.com
Totally niche product
Enterprise revenue
Fundipedia.com
Totally niche product
Enterprise revenue
[deleted]
Got a job and then married someone who also has a job. We go to work, make our money, come home and relax.
Same! Except my wife quit her money-making job to take care of our kids full-time. I go to work, come home, and spend time with my family. Every Friday my employer deposits about $1,500 in my account, which represents an income stream of about $6,800/mo, not to mention paying for my health insurance and putting about $100 in my 401k. All I have to do is show up for about 40 hours Monday through Friday.
For a side hustle, we bought a home around 2015 for $125k. We've paid off about $70k of the 2.8% 15-year mortgage and property taxes at $1100/mo, it's now estimated to be worth about $330k. That represents an income stream equivalent to about $2200/mo due to that asset's value rising at about 15% per year. If it wasn't for the fact that I live here, I'd be divesting a lot of my investment in that obvious bubble ASAP. Similarly, my parents built my childhood home nearby in '96 for about $80k, their property is now worth about $750k, you do the math.
For a side hustle, we bought a home around 2015 for $125k. We've paid off about $70k of the 2.8% 15-year mortgage and property taxes at $1100/mo, it's now estimated to be worth about $330k. That represents an income stream equivalent to about $2200/mo due to that asset's value rising at about 15% per year. If it wasn't for the fact that I live here, I'd be divesting a lot of my investment in that obvious bubble ASAP. Similarly, my parents built my childhood home nearby in '96 for about $80k, their property is now worth about $750k, you do the math.
Congratulations on buying your house in 2015, it would be difficult to buy such a property at that price today without some large concessions on location or quality of the home.
However, I do agree with the sentiment of your post. It's a lot easier to live below your means as a way to grow income rather than to stretch yourself to try to make extra money externally. 40 hours at a well played, balanced job with low living expenses is truly a great path.
However, I do agree with the sentiment of your post. It's a lot easier to live below your means as a way to grow income rather than to stretch yourself to try to make extra money externally. 40 hours at a well played, balanced job with low living expenses is truly a great path.
When I do the math, I do not consider my primary residence to be of any numerical value since I do not want to live anywhere else. And even if I did want to live somewhere else, I would have to account for the costs of acquiring a new similar residence, which in a similarly desirable area would have risen just the same in price.
And assuming I needed to live somewhere else, it would likely be because something undesirable has happened to the whole area, so the price at that point would be much lower than whatever it is at times before then.
And assuming I needed to live somewhere else, it would likely be because something undesirable has happened to the whole area, so the price at that point would be much lower than whatever it is at times before then.
You need to put more in to your 401k
You're probably right, on looking up the details it's actually $120 per weekly paycheck, matched by my employer, so it's not so bad as the estimated $100, especially if you assumed that was monthly, but that's still not on-track for my retirement target. I also haven't poured much into the Roth since my eldest was born. But kids are expensive...
(Also, I see I also need to use more of that ~4 weeks of vacation I've saved...)
(Also, I see I also need to use more of that ~4 weeks of vacation I've saved...)
Your comments remind me of Bill Watterson of Calvin and Hobbes fame.
Assuming average 3% inflation, your parents have earned an equivalent of about $3000 worth of today's purchasing power per month on average.
Wouldn’t you have to subtract the cost of the parents’ alternative living accommodations from those “earnings”?
I dont think so because they were able to live in the property while it gained value, so they didn't need to spend on other accommodations. Alternative living costs would factor in towards the decision to sell and what they can get with that value today, but im not seeing how it reduces the earnings.
You would need to subtract the YOY property taxes and maintenence costs (with inflation) to get actual net earnings, though
You would need to subtract the YOY property taxes and maintenence costs (with inflation) to get actual net earnings, though
What is the point of unrealized gains if you can never realize them (spend them)?
One use case is being able to borrow more against the increased value, but I do not think that it is a good idea for 99% of people to use their primary residence as leverage.
One use case is being able to borrow more against the increased value, but I do not think that it is a good idea for 99% of people to use their primary residence as leverage.
[deleted]
If you have kids, you lose "come home and relax" unfortunately.
Just don't have kids!
Yes, unless you love your kids.
No, that's completely false. You can love your kids but still find it non-relaxing to take care of them. Just ask... literally any parent.
Don't ask me... Spending time with the kids, looking after them or not is super relaxing. It's the best bit of life.
I agree that it's the best bit of life. But how on earth you manage to find a crying baby that decides to wake you up in the middle of the night relaxing is beyond me :)
Its ok. They don't want to admit reality. I ahve 3 kids (one is a baby) and I love them to death but crying baby is never fun and certainly not relaxing and I am happy to admit that.
True true. And after they learn to walk you got about two weeks and the learn how to run and then you’re chasing them for 5 years. Mine are 13 and 10 and it’s pretty nice atm. The 10 year old still thinks I hang the moon and the 13 year old is just enough of a smart ass to make me laugh.
hahaha so true. I have a 9 year old, 8 year old and 5 months old (I know I know. Diaper days are back again). The 9 year old already talks like she is 13 and the 8 year usually follows her and well, the 5 month old. Baby doing baby things :)
How old are your kids?
Even when you love your kids, I don’t think caring for them can be described as relaxing.
For almost my entire marriage, my wife has either been at home with our kids or trying to get a teaching job in a saturated market. When she has worked, it was never a big contributor to our income.
She'll be joining the workforce full-time in the next 6-9 months in a new field. I'm psyched for a pretty significant boost to our overall income that we've never had before.
She'll be joining the workforce full-time in the next 6-9 months in a new field. I'm psyched for a pretty significant boost to our overall income that we've never had before.
That’s what most people do, which is fine. However, since I’m only going around once, I’d like to find a different path.
Next level house hacking.
and for the rest of your life...
I created sportsweb.com in 1994 and was featured in the magazine Computer World.
[deleted]
Main Hustle: FAANG
Side Hustle: Rental income
Rental income. Liquidated all assets though. But that was by far the mist stable source of passive income. Minuscule maintenance cost and effort.
Most lucrative: my FAANG job
Most satisfying: my investment portfolio of passive index funds
Most satisfying: my investment portfolio of passive index funds
This is my income situation as well.
Career investments have a higher ROI than side hustles for me.
Career investments have a higher ROI than side hustles for me.
That's surely the case for everybody? I can't imagine bothering to go to work for less money than I'm making in the evenings/weekends - why not do the 'side hustle' full time instead, or use the time for something new, or family, or whatever.
Do you still think index funds like Vanguard Total World is good to invest in now, as you watch stock market slowly losing steam this year?
I do not know, but I am not changing strategy.
This year, just like I did for the past 10, I invested all my paycheck savings into VTI/VXUS despite suffering 6 figures unrealized losses from them. I plan on doing the same next year, and for as long as I am employed/have disposable income. Every spare dollar I find, outside of my emergency fund, gets immediately invested.
This year, just like I did for the past 10, I invested all my paycheck savings into VTI/VXUS despite suffering 6 figures unrealized losses from them. I plan on doing the same next year, and for as long as I am employed/have disposable income. Every spare dollar I find, outside of my emergency fund, gets immediately invested.
Investing if like being a batter where you get to choose when to swing and have an unlimited number of pitches. Just wait for that slow easy one, and hit a home run.
-- poorly paraphrased Buffett quote
Not the GP, but I would say yes. I am 51, and I have seen a few economic boom and bust cycles.
I think you can almost boil it down to: if you think civilization will collapse, then do not buy stocks. If you think it will still be around, buy stocks. Things might look bad over the next few years, but I think things will get better after a while.
I think you can almost boil it down to: if you think civilization will collapse, then do not buy stocks. If you think it will still be around, buy stocks. Things might look bad over the next few years, but I think things will get better after a while.
Yes, because I like buying things for a lower price than a higher price.