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Ask HN: Building a side project that makes money. Where to start?

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Re: Ask HN: Building a side project that makes money. Where to start?

#141

Post by simonbarker87 »

simonbarker87 wrote: post #130

My side projects always come from personal needs, in each case I built it to solve my own problem before turning it in to a full product (summaries below). If you are going in with the sole intention of making money then make sure you know that there is a need for what you want to make and that you can get your project in front of people. You don't need to use the latest and greatest tech, in fact, I would urge you d…

Thanks to the person who highlighted a typo on taptimer.com and sent in the contact form about it - no email address supplied so I'm thanking them here.

Re: Ask HN: Building a side project that makes money. Where to start?

#142

Post by grow91 »

I started a side project last year and it's been a fantastic experience. It's an opportunity to "scratch an itch" that the day job can't provide (which for me is doing whatever I want).

I had some frontend dev skills but didn't have the backend chops, so I hired someone on Upwork. I'm pretty busy at work so getting someone else involved is key (If I was by myself I'm not sure I would have stuck with it).

It's been a year and the app is doing about $3k/mo in revenue.

Re: Ask HN: Building a side project that makes money. Where to start?

#143

Post by danielsamuels »

debaserab2 wrote: post #133
danielsamuels wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit and Twitter were big things for me, I announced the initial release on the Rocket League subreddit[1] and then announced updates whenever they were released[2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. I automated daily posts to reddit and Twitter[9] for the "match of the day" (calculated based on a variety of factors). I engaged heavily in the community on Twitter, other fan sites and got my name out there. I gave away the extra (p…

Wow, you've done a great job making this a useful product with meaningful value. There's a user in the Heroes of the Storm (Blizzard moba, same engine as SC2) that did the same thing, except went the completely opposite route and riddled the site with predatory ads (the kinds that produce popunders and play audio on load). The paid option was to get rid of the ads. Most updates to the site lately seem to be to combat…

To be fair I do have ads as well, but it's just Adsense so there shouldn't be any of the bad stuff. Removing them comes with the Patreon membership too.

(Also, thanks!)

Re: Ask HN: Building a side project that makes money. Where to start?

#144

Post by kaskavalci »

joelrunyon wrote: post #75

Listen to http://sidehustleschool.com - it's a story every day about someone who did just this.

I immediately exit websites which want to notify me and ask for my e-mail after 1 seconds I spend on that site. Bad marketing.

Re: Ask HN: Building a side project that makes money. Where to start?

#145

Post by JaumeGreen »

ssijak wrote: post #63
mikekchar wrote: post #25

This is going to sounds like crazy advice, but having worked on many side projects in my life the last thing that's going to let you down is your skills. What you really need is time. Let's say it takes you 400 hours to build your project -- in those 400 hours, you will build up enough skills to get you started (not nearly enough to be good at it, but good enough). So you need to work consistently 1-2 hours a day on…

My biggest problem is in "no need to get fancy". Do not know how to overcome that urge to overengineer everything in the start and how to be satisfied with minimal working thing even if it looks like crap.

I noticed that, as I get older, I tend to have less time, and so I try to optimize my time.

When you don't have an hour a day to work on your side project, but 15 minutes a week, then you do what is needed for it to start working, even if it's not perfect or far from what you wanted.

If you have plenty of time try to make the smallest thing that does approximately what you want. Then iterate over it, but always small but fully functional incremental changes. Don't be afraid of having to throw it away, no need to get it right the first time.

Re: Ask HN: Building a side project that makes money. Where to start?

#146

Post by tixocloud »

simonbarker87 wrote: post #130

My side projects always come from personal needs, in each case I built it to solve my own problem before turning it in to a full product (summaries below). If you are going in with the sole intention of making money then make sure you know that there is a need for what you want to make and that you can get your project in front of people. You don't need to use the latest and greatest tech, in fact, I would urge you d…

The Radfan looks pretty ingenious and actually I could see a lot of use for it at my alma mater's dorms as they are all using radiators.

Great idea.. Let me know if you need help pushing/promoting it in Canada.

Re: Ask HN: Building a side project that makes money. Where to start?

#147

Post by wpietri »

ssijak wrote: post #63
mikekchar wrote: post #25

This is going to sounds like crazy advice, but having worked on many side projects in my life the last thing that's going to let you down is your skills. What you really need is time. Let's say it takes you 400 hours to build your project -- in those 400 hours, you will build up enough skills to get you started (not nearly enough to be good at it, but good enough). So you need to work consistently 1-2 hours a day on…

My biggest problem is in "no need to get fancy". Do not know how to overcome that urge to overengineer everything in the start and how to be satisfied with minimal working thing even if it looks like crap.

You don't have to feel satisfied. You're supposed to feel unsatisfied with an MVP. If you didn't, you wouldn't have the drive to build anything better.

For me, I use three other feelings to combat my high standards.

One is fear. In particular, fear that I'm building a bunch of stuff that won't work. It's the same fear that drives me to write automated tests, or at least to manually run something and see that it works. Except here the fear is that it might work for me but not for my audience.

Another is rigor. This part feels very sciencey to me. I'm trying to test the hypotheses that are implicit in the thing I'm making (and that I've hopefully at least tried to make explicit before I start coding). I want to test my hypotheses as early as possible, and when I don't I start to feel like I'm not being rigorous.

The third is joy in results. The early tests are only looking for one step forward. If that's all I'm looking for, it is really exciting to see that. And so I temporarily set aside my concerns about all the things I'm not testing for and celebrate the wins when I get 'em.

Re: Ask HN: Building a side project that makes money. Where to start?

#148

Post by rb808 »

I dont think any advice is any use unless we know what you want.

First thing is you should decide why you're doing it. Is it to make money, or have fun, or enhance your current mgmt skills or to learn to code in a whole new area?

Only once you've decided that, then questions like "I don't have any frontend dev skills. Where should I start?" and "Should I outsource the website development part?" are possible to answer.

Re: Ask HN: Building a side project that makes money. Where to start?

#149

Post by simonbarker87 »

tixocloud wrote: post #146
simonbarker87 wrote: post #130

My side projects always come from personal needs, in each case I built it to solve my own problem before turning it in to a full product (summaries below). If you are going in with the sole intention of making money then make sure you know that there is a need for what you want to make and that you can get your project in front of people. You don't need to use the latest and greatest tech, in fact, I would urge you d…

The Radfan looks pretty ingenious and actually I could see a lot of use for it at my alma mater's dorms as they are all using radiators. Great idea.. Let me know if you need help pushing/promoting it in Canada.

Thanks, once we've got Europe sorted we'll branch out to the last remaining countries that use steel panel radiators (turns out most countries don't pump hot water around their houses!).

Re: Ask HN: Building a side project that makes money. Where to start?

#150

Post by tmaly »

I used my food side project as a way to learn new skills. I am still in the process of working on version 2.

The simplest way to start is to take a framework or system that has most of the basic parts ready for you to use.

Since you already know python, try to learn something like django and use Bootstrap with a CDN for your front end stuff.

I would recommend reading some of the posts on indiehackers.com to get an idea of how those people got started with an idea and how they got their first customers. Some do not even have any tech skills and just used wordpress or found someone to help them with the site. There is also a podcast for this that just got started that is excellent. The founder of indiehackers was a YC alumn named Courtland, he is a cool guy.

I chose to solve a problem that I personally encountered. If you cannot think of something, try picking something that you know requires lots of manual effort for some people. Then use some scripts from the book Running Lean to try to work out exactly what the problem is for those people.

Another great resource is OppsDaily which I love reading first thing in the morning. Cory sends out a problem someone has in a particular industry that needs to be solved. The criteria is that they must be willing to pay for it if someone responds. In many cases they will say how much they are willing to pay.

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