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Ask HN: What are your profitable side projects?

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Re: Ask HN: What are your profitable side projects?

#111

Post by kyriakos »

danpat wrote: post #79
kyriakos wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you should price your service based on your estimated cost +a percentage of profit rather than artificially setting a price.

This approach, while good for setting a lower bounds for what's sustainable, is rarely how you should first price things. I run a small side business. My initial customers I priced like this. After the first year, I realized I was leaving a lot of money on the table - my business was niche and not commoditized, and my customers were willing to pay quite a lot more for the service. I grandfathered in the first year cu…

Thanks this is a great explanation. You actually convinced me.

Re: Ask HN: What are your profitable side projects?

#112

Post by voipspear »

VoIP Spear: https://voipspear.com

VoIP Spear monitors your Internet connection 24x7 for voic quality issues affecting your phone calls. I have about 850 active users though not all are paying users.

I created the site because I work in the VoIP industry and its crazy expensive to do continuous VoIP monitoring. There was no low cost, easy to use option so I decided to do it myself.

Re: Ask HN: What are your profitable side projects?

#113

Post by anthonygore »

jasonswett wrote: post #15

Angular on Rails: https://www.angularonrails.com/ I teach Rails developers how to create Angular + Rails applications. The site has existed since 2014 as an unmonetized blog. In June 2016 I started writing the book, and to date it has made a little over $5,000.

Very cool. How are you driving traffic? I imagine search engine traffic would be fairly low for this kind of niche.

Re: Ask HN: What are your profitable side projects?

#114

Post by bharani_m »

Does anyone have any experience running a donation based or a pay-what-you-want side-project? Was it profitable?

I am asking because I am working on a small side-project called Email This (https://www.emailthis.me). I plan to let it run for free, but if someone is interested they can support the app with a donation.

Re: Ask HN: What are your profitable side projects?

#115

Post by vyrotek »

cdiamand wrote: post #55
Emc2fma wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you market this to get that many visitors?

I actually launched my side project on indiehackers - http://www.oppsdaily.com - a newsletter filled with software opportunities. I posted some of the traffic stats here http://www.oppsdaily.com/blog

This may be the first time I've deliberately signed up for a newsletter. Great idea.

Re: Ask HN: What are your profitable side projects?

#116

Post by stevekemp »

danpat wrote: post #79
kyriakos wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you should price your service based on your estimated cost +a percentage of profit rather than artificially setting a price.

This approach, while good for setting a lower bounds for what's sustainable, is rarely how you should first price things. I run a small side business. My initial customers I priced like this. After the first year, I realized I was leaving a lot of money on the table - my business was niche and not commoditized, and my customers were willing to pay quite a lot more for the service. I grandfathered in the first year cu…

The same result here, I doubled my prices from £0.50 to £1.00 after users told me they would have paid more.

That is hardly a huge increase, and I could probably go higher, but it was a good moment for me.

Re: Ask HN: What are your profitable side projects?

#117

Post by sova »

jazoom wrote: post #98

I've spent a couple of years making https://pricehipster.com It's a very fast product search engine and price comparison website. Search speeds won't be great outside Australia (Australian stores). I am currently making preparations to expand to other countries later this year. It has only become (slightly) profitable just recently.

Yo! Beautiful site Sir. Well done. May its success grow and grow for ya!

Re: Ask HN: What are your profitable side projects?

#118

Post by jazoom »

sova wrote: post #117
jazoom wrote: post #98

I've spent a couple of years making https://pricehipster.com It's a very fast product search engine and price comparison website. Search speeds won't be great outside Australia (Australian stores). I am currently making preparations to expand to other countries later this year. It has only become (slightly) profitable just recently.

Yo! Beautiful site Sir. Well done. May its success grow and grow for ya!

Thank you for the encouragement

Re: Ask HN: What are your profitable side projects?

#119

Post by tamkeenlms »

cdiamand wrote: post #55
Emc2fma wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you market this to get that many visitors?

I actually launched my side project on indiehackers - http://www.oppsdaily.com - a newsletter filled with software opportunities. I posted some of the traffic stats here http://www.oppsdaily.com/blog

I love the idea so much. Good luck :)

Re: Ask HN: What are your profitable side projects?

#120

Post by rlv-dan »

angry-hacker wrote: post #99
rlv-dan wrote: post #16

Desktop utilities: http://www.rlvision.com I've been making freeware and shareware for a long time. Some are shareware and still make some (not much) money. Edit: You might be interested in this retrospective I wrote about my personal favorite utilities: http://www.rlvision.com/blog/16-years-with-flash-renamer-a-d...

Thank you for the tool. Remember using it on Windows when I was young. Is it still possible to make money with shareware?

Everyone today keeps talking about apps and webapps. But there is still a small market for desktop applications. Probably mostly older computer persons who are used to this way of working.
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