Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Ways to generate income when you're at home without pay?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 296 posts

Re: Ask HN: Ways to generate income when you're at home without pay?

#171

Post by econcon »

TrackerFF wrote: post #150
soared wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think someone working at a call center has the technical aptitude and financial resources to source and build there own extrusion machine.

Lots of technically gifted people working dead-end jobs, due to things like location, family situation, lack of formal education, personal issues, or whatever :-)

Yes, I know a lot of people who don't have opportunity or have some sort of mental roadblock that makes them not put efforts into area which can potentially produce result. I am not sure if there is some name of this phenomenon.

But usually they need a visionary who can make them believe in the idea and then they can put their work/efforts/mind into it with confidence and they do end up achieving the result at the end.

Re: Ask HN: Ways to generate income when you're at home without pay?

#172

Post by econcon »

soared wrote: post #142
xeromal wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard times can make hard people. You don't know what someone is capable of until they're backed against a wall. I was a computer repair man until my parent's divorce and the 2008 market collapse which forced me into a CS degree.

Computer repair -> computer science. Call center -> building machines from scratch based on a medium post. Sure it’s possible but I don’t think the suggestion really makes sense. You can be blind to the fact that hn is in the 1% of intellect/ability, but it should be obvious that effectively no one can honestly take that suggestion. Unemployed, low on cash, and then in a low-skill industry it doesn’t make sense to ri…

Yea but OP is trying to help his friend and I am pretty sure they've some friend who might have experience working with mechanical things, maybe they know a mechanical engineer and JV, produce output and turn it into a mini factory, we never know!

Re: Ask HN: Ways to generate income when you're at home without pay?

#173

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

Call center for what kind of company? Can he reach out to similar (possibly local) companies and offer to do similar work for them?

Years ago, when my first job folded, I did customer support for them for a couple months on a fixed rate with a minimum time. e.g., $75/hour, minimum bill of 0.2 hours -- those are examples, I don't recall what I actually charged.

The point is, he's used to talking to customer all day and negotiating issues and frustrations. That is really valuable experience to a small company that may not be able to afford a full-time customer support person.

Besides that, being a Virtual Assistant might be a good transition for him: https://horkeyhandbook.com/how-to-become-a-virtual-assistant...

Re: Ask HN: Ways to generate income when you're at home without pay?

#174

Post by mapleshamrock »

snazz wrote: post #69
thrownaway954 wrote: post #34

content generation. you have no idea how many marketing companies need content writers for their clients. typically you can make between $5-$25 an article with an article being 300-2000. most articles don't have to be great, they just want articles written for a specific keyword.

I started a little economics experiment on Fiverr a few months ago (to try to figure out how much the market is willing to pay for a native English speaker with technical knowledge) and I've had a surprising amount of success at the $0.05/word pricepoint. When you charge a little more, the worst of the worst buyers are scared away by the price.

What keywords should I search for on Fiverr to see examples/how this service is marketed?

Re: Ask HN: Ways to generate income when you're at home without pay?

#175

Post by thrownaway954 »

qz_ wrote: post #40
thrownaway954 wrote: post #34

content generation. you have no idea how many marketing companies need content writers for their clients. typically you can make between $5-$25 an article with an article being 300-2000. most articles don't have to be great, they just want articles written for a specific keyword.

Do you have a company name?

just look for any SEO company online or in your area and either call or email them. btw, thehoth is hiring

https://the-hoth.breezy.hr/p/0d5643348f96

Re: Ask HN: Ways to generate income when you're at home without pay?

#176

Post by thrownaway954 »

larrywright wrote: post #78
thrownaway954 wrote: post #34

content generation. you have no idea how many marketing companies need content writers for their clients. typically you can make between $5-$25 an article with an article being 300-2000. most articles don't have to be great, they just want articles written for a specific keyword.

I don’t need this myself, but know someone who does. Do you have any pointers to companies or how to get started?

thehoth.com

Re: Ask HN: Ways to generate income when you're at home without pay?

#177

Post by xeromal »

soared wrote: post #142
xeromal wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard times can make hard people. You don't know what someone is capable of until they're backed against a wall. I was a computer repair man until my parent's divorce and the 2008 market collapse which forced me into a CS degree.

Computer repair -> computer science. Call center -> building machines from scratch based on a medium post. Sure it’s possible but I don’t think the suggestion really makes sense. You can be blind to the fact that hn is in the 1% of intellect/ability, but it should be obvious that effectively no one can honestly take that suggestion. Unemployed, low on cash, and then in a low-skill industry it doesn’t make sense to ri…

I definitely get it from the capital perspective. I just want you to give underemployed a fair shake before making a judgement.

Re: Ask HN: Ways to generate income when you're at home without pay?

#178

Post by jpindar »

illegalsmile wrote: post #117
goatherders wrote: post #77

There are some truly awful suggestions here. The question isnt about changing his life by learning to code or setting up a plastics machine (which is pretty cool but takes investment) or starting an affiliate site and then generating traffic, it's about generating income during a global pandemic. 1. Fiverr 2. Mechanical Turk 3. Craigslist Gigs 4. UpWork Can generate $50 by dinner time if you're willing to focus and p…

That brings up a question: What can you do to earn $50 in 24 hours? Unless you already have mturk the waiting period is days to weeks if you're not rejected. Fiverr/Upwork would all require a large amount of luck to make $50 in one day as communication with client and turn-around time could take 12-24 hours before even starting a small one hour project. CL might be the best way to make that money in that time period…

People Ready (aka Labor Ready). Be there early before they open, and if you're lucky (because I'm sure they're swamped these days) you'll get a full day's work. You get paid that evening.
Post reply on HN