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Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

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Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#261

Post by orangethirty »

patio11 wrote: post #134
cmaxwell wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that I have your attention.. my site: http://www.golfingstat.com Should I quit it (brokeback style), spend some time making it mobile + setting a annual fee and trying to find the magic adwords amount to grow my userbase without losing money or keep on keeping on (trying to make some ad revenue with my current userbase of 150ish)

I know little about golf. I know a bit more about selling software -- I can tell you, for example, that "Facebook integration" is not a benefit for most people (you mention it prominently like you believe it solves problems, but no golfer wakes up in the morning and goes "You know what was missing from my last golf game? Facebook!"). You're not making economically rational decisions trying to sell ad networ ads again…

Agreed. He should make sure people actually want to use this, and if not, then just move on. Seems he built the software before testing if there was a market for it. Golfers spend lots of money on the actual game and equipment, though. So maybe he could use this as a channel to sell some golf equipment. Maybe he can test different golf balls and then have the software tell people which to buy from his website. Though this would require more resources to be invested into it.

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#262

Post by orangethirty »

I just launched hacker fiction. It is a collection of stories (no more than 100 pages long) focused on hacking, sci-fy, and just about anything else I can imagine. It already made its first $20 on launch day. :)

You can read a sampler here:

http://orangethirty.blogspot.com/2012/09/hackfy-space-raven-...

I don thave a website yet, because Im still testing the idea to see if its worth investing time in. Plans would be to write a collection of stories and then sell them. Maybe some merchandise if any of the stories stick.

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#263

Post by mapster »

codex wrote: post #27

I generate about $1K-$2K a month in passive income. I spend approximately zero hours on maintenance every week, and I bootstrapped it while holding down a full-time job. It took an extra 5-10 hours per week for about a year. Here's what I did: a) Got a job at a major software company for very high comp. b) Spent an extra 5-10 hours a week working intelligently at my full time job; got promoted. c) Invested the salary…

It's less about the money and ALL about creating and building and changing. In other words, I don't want to build someone else's Lego set - I want to create my own.

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#264

Post by mapster »

veyron wrote: post #70
lwat wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"May you come to the attention of powerful people." -- Old Chinese curse

It's not even that. Oftentimes many of the recurring services are easily replicable. So until a market leadership position is cemented (until you set up the moat) you don't want others to know that building XYZ service actually could be significantly profitable.

Making cheeseburgers and fries is replicable, but I am not going after a piece of mcburger's pie 1st thing tomorrow (well, maybe I am, maybe I'm not). Selling is harder than most code jockeys can manage, so there is low risk. I think what you mean is that others are reading HNews too.

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#265

Post by jtheory »

veyron wrote: post #70
lwat wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"May you come to the attention of powerful people." -- Old Chinese curse

It's not even that. Oftentimes many of the recurring services are easily replicable. So until a market leadership position is cemented (until you set up the moat) you don't want others to know that building XYZ service actually could be significantly profitable.

I have a moderately-successful side project in the education sector that I'm not posting numbers about... not because I'm worried about competitors, but because I've already lost a few very large signups ("can we sign up every student in our school district?") when they get a sense it's a small project.

Even though the site has been up & running (and stable) for almost a decade now, they don't want to make the jump unless there are OTHER entire school districts already on board that they can talk to.

I'm not quite sure how to solve this chicken/egg problem yet. And since it's a side project, I'm not even sure I want to solve it right now -- that would sabotage my primary work, unless I could rapidly find someone capable to help with it.

But posting obviously-non-corporate-level sales numbers just a google away really doesn't seem like it would help things; ESPECIALLY because those same numbers will still be just a google away 5 years from now, even if the actual numbers are an order of magnitude higher by then.

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#266

Post by nickwoodhams »

thejerz wrote: post #112
codypo wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One note here: Experiment 2 isn't exactly passive income, not until I get a lot more comfortable with the code. That's the goal, though, and I think it's the likely choice for the greatest amount of income (and least amount of work) in the long run.

Are you willing to tell more about Experiment 2? What kind of strategy are you using? What development platform (e.g. what language and libraries and what OS)? What trading platform (e.g. what brokerage / API)? Where did you get your test market data from / how much did you pay? What other strategies did you try first that didn't work? What blogs or sites do you read on the subject? What is your background in? Financ…

I am interested as well. I've studied something similar, the idea is to find the underpriced option in a group. The premise is that the inefficiency in the market will work its way out in hours/days. But it's pretty hard to find a substantial price inefficiency based on my research. Needed a large amount of money to trade.

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#267

Post by GrothingFash »

anon_builder wrote: post #257
GrothingFash wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

where do you find good freelance employees? Do you have many writers under your wing?

Freelancer marketplaces. You'll find a good one for every 50 crappy ones.

Are you in the sfw or nsfw biz?

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#269

Post by verganileonardo »

the_bear wrote: post #73
tedmiston wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The detail and personal experience make it feel more adventurous than a normal cookbook or recipe blog. I have a few questions: * Are you building on top of a blog platform, or is this mostly custom? (The BuiltWith page makes this site appear full of tech [1]). * What % of the revenue comes from Amazon referral links? * Are there other revenue sources? * Can you discuss your visitor distribution (first time vs. repea…

The blog is entirely custom. Several years ago I made my own blogging software just as a fun side-project, and I decided to use that code as the base for The Yummy Life. It sucks missing out on all the great WordPress plugins, but it's really nice having absolute control over the entire experience. I know you technically have control with WordPress, but it's much harder to edit someone else's code than your own (for…

Have you ever tried selling the book for $30+? Probably the user do not see enough value in a $1 ebook to justify the effort to make the purchase...

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#270

Post by jbrains »

I generate about $25k/year in mostly-passive-income from single family rental homes. I average 20 hours/year maintaining this income stream in answering email, collecting invoices for my accountant, and making the occasional tough decision about renovating/repairing/waiting.

I got there after placing subcontractors for about 2 years with various companies, which built up the cash reserves that let me purchase the rental properties with no mortgages.

I got /there/ by inviting some young dude to a conference I organised whom I'd met at another conference. He and I worked together to match talented young programmers with companies that wanted them. Nice work if you can get it.

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