Ask HN: What are the some passive income strategies you do beside your IT job? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What are the some passive income strategies you do beside your IT job?

#101

Post by KeithBrink » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 1:45 PM UTC

Like some others here, I have an Amazon FBA business but I treat it as my full-time job, even though I've automated a lot of the grunt work and employ a VA for the things that can't be automated.

I did, however, find a little unsolved problem on Amazon that sucks up seller's time, so I built a solution[0] for it with about a month of work, and now it generates >$2k/m with 1-2 hours of customer support work every month.

[0] https://azlabels.com

Re: Ask HN: What are the some passive income strategies you do beside your IT job?

#102

Post by SirLJ » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 2:19 PM UTC

cimmanom wrote: post #56

excalibur wrote: post #34

Being married isn't all that passive, but it is a great income strategy. Having kids is a terrible one.

How is marriage an income strategy?

Great if your better half is a millionaire...

Re: Ask HN: What are the some passive income strategies you do beside your IT job?

#103

Post by mdn0420 » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 3:53 PM UTC

skanga wrote: post #96

mdn0420 wrote: post #18

Rental properties, managed by a 3rd-party professional company.

Manage them yourself. It's not that hard. Otherwise the property management company eats up most of the profits.

My properties are about 1800 miles away :P

Re: Ask HN: What are the some passive income strategies you do beside your IT job?

#104

Post by mdn0420 » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 3:55 PM UTC

actsasbuffoon wrote: post #40

mdn0420 wrote: post #18

Rental properties, managed by a 3rd-party professional company.

This is an interesting idea. Are there any information sources you'd recommend to people who are curious about this strategy?

Yeah, BiggerPockets is a great resource for real estate investing. As with many businesses, it's all about finding the right people and building relationships.

Feel free to message me if you'd like to chat more.

Re: Ask HN: What are the some passive income strategies you do beside your IT job?

#105

Post by jjeaff » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 6:32 PM UTC

astura wrote: post #78

jjeaff wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VOO fees are 0.05% vs 0.09 for spy. But of course fees are effectively much higher if you are paying transaction fees. But vfiax (vanguard) or swppx (schwabb) can't be beat (.04 and .03) when it comes to fees. And it is pretty common for brokers to offer free Mutual fund trades or you can get an account directly with those brokers and trade for free.

Don't forget iShares too, which are usually traded commission free for many brokers (I know for Fidelity and USAA...). IVV has an expense ratio of 0.04% and they have other really low cost ETFs too.

I think there are some additional internal costs with ETFs that cause it to have lower returns over time. At least, I remember seeing some comparison graphs to that effect.

Re: Ask HN: What are the some passive income strategies you do beside your IT job?

#106

Post by prokes » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 9:41 PM UTC

KeithBrink wrote: post #101

Like some others here, I have an Amazon FBA business but I treat it as my full-time job, even though I've automated a lot of the grunt work and employ a VA for the things that can't be automated. I did, however, find a little unsolved problem on Amazon that sucks up seller's time, so I built a solution[0] for it with about a month of work, and now it generates >$2k/m with 1-2 hours of customer support work every mont…

Your label product is the best answer on this thread and ironically there are no comments. Knowing an industry, finding a need and building it is the ultimate passive income business. Don't know much about your market but I think you could increase prices to $0 / $20 / $75 per month.