A good old fashioned web site which ranks high for a resort town which has a lot of tourists who don't know where to eat so they search in the Google. My next venture is a run on sentence shortening service.
What is a sentence shortening service?
Ask HN: Those making $1,000+/month on side projects - what did you make?
111–120 of 171 posts
Re: Ask HN: Those making $1,000+/month on side projects - what did you make?
#112http://rebrickable.com - a LEGO database that does some number crunching and tells you what you can build by combining parts from all your sets. Lots of user submitted content that is also searched and can be built, everything with instructions.
easily coolest idea in the thread for me (and I posted as well). Nice!
Thanks, it's a lot of fun too :)
Re: Ask HN: Those making $1,000+/month on side projects - what did you make?
#113http://pizzacodes.com My goal was to break $1k / mo by the end of this year. Last month I not only broke that goal, but more than doubled my next highest month.
Is there a mobile app wrapping this that allows clicking the codes within the app?
Do you mean a mobile app for the website? i'm planning to, I just haven't had the time yet.
Re: Ask HN: Those making $1,000+/month on side projects - what did you make?
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I did a 301 permanent redirect (the redirect is still there too), redirecting each page to the correct corresponding page on the new domain. I also told Google about the redirect through the webmaster's console. I am ranking for terms like 'pizza codes', but I'm assuming that's due to my domain name (and the traffic from this is considerably less than I used to receive). I've pretty much just accepted the loss…
Over the last few Google search algorithm updates, exact match domains (EMD's) were devalued. This could be one of the reasons why you are not ranking as highly for the term "pizza codes" while the previous domain was.
The deranking (and domain change coincidentally) were right around that time. Interestingly, I rank higher for 'pizza codes' now, and a lot lower for terms like 'papa johns coupons'.
Re: Ask HN: Those making $1,000+/month on side projects - what did you make?
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I did a 301 permanent redirect (the redirect is still there too), redirecting each page to the correct corresponding page on the new domain. I also told Google about the redirect through the webmaster's console. I am ranking for terms like 'pizza codes', but I'm assuming that's due to my domain name (and the traffic from this is considerably less than I used to receive). I've pretty much just accepted the loss…
Have you considered working with local pizza shops or recruiting a "virtual" sales force to do that for you? Unlike Groupon it wouldn't be about big deals but simply more people calling the local indy than the big chain which pumps the coupons out. So many food websites focus on big cities or daytime office deliveries, but there is a lot of delivery pizza business in the midwest and other more spread out places. For…
You read my mind! That's my next plan for expansion, I'm just trying to decide how to approach it. A lot of the visitors to the site are budget conscious, so I'd really like to have coupons, etc for them (even if they aren't as good, etc), but people have mentioned that they'd love to have more local stores.
My current ideas are:
1. Use the yelp api to add local pizza stores to the current site - this is probably the easiest way to keep the database up to date. I could then reach out to local pizza stores, and try to get some promotions added. The biggest challenge with this is keeping the promotions for local pizza places up to date as a single person working on this.
One idea is to somehow encourage users to 'adopt' a local store, and keep the promotions up to date for that local store. Still trying to decide if there's a good way to do that.
2. Make the local pizza places a separate site / app and push users to use it for just finding local pizza places, less about finding coupons, and run it next to the current site.
Re: Ask HN: Those making $1,000+/month on side projects - what did you make?
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I did a 301 permanent redirect (the redirect is still there too), redirecting each page to the correct corresponding page on the new domain. I also told Google about the redirect through the webmaster's console. I am ranking for terms like 'pizza codes', but I'm assuming that's due to my domain name (and the traffic from this is considerably less than I used to receive). I've pretty much just accepted the loss…
Feel free to shoot me an email at kevin at supremestrategies.com and I'll see if I can root out what might have caused it :)
Will do! I'll send you an email later tonight with more details.
I really appreciate the help.
Re: Ask HN: Those making $1,000+/month on side projects - what did you make?
#117My first software product I launched on the side 5 years ago still makes quite a bit more than $1k/m (and that's in non-recurring revenue). Its best month was more than $15k while I was working full time. I was able to quit my corporate job back in February to focus on some new products.
Can you share what the product is?
Re: Ask HN: Those making $1,000+/month on side projects - what did you make?
#118http://rebrickable.com - a LEGO database that does some number crunching and tells you what you can build by combining parts from all your sets. Lots of user submitted content that is also searched and can be built, everything with instructions.
Really cool!
Re: Ask HN: Those making $1,000+/month on side projects - what did you make?
#119I built and sell a collection of plugins for the Delphi IDE at http://www.twodesk.com . (Yes, people still use Delphi), for a consistent single-digit multiple of $1K each month.
That is AWESOME... back in 2000, I was writing a vertical app for an oil company using Object Pascal/Borland Delphi (it was still Borland... and Kylix... at that point) It got me using Interbase/Firebird/FirebirdSQL for a couple of years. Glad to hear it's still around.
Thanks! I've been doing this since 2002. It's a fun project and a very interesting business to be in.
Re: Ask HN: Those making $1,000+/month on side projects - what did you make?
#120I run http://postertext.com . We design art prints for bibliophiles. All illustrations are made entirely out of text. I've been running it while traveling the world for 3 years non-stop now. Check out my AMA on reddit if you're interested: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1rneli/ive_been_travel...
This is interesting, just requested a book I'd like.