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Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2024 – Show and tell

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Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2024 – Show and tell

#41

Post by jf93ap29sh »

joshstrange wrote: post #36
JamesSwift wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Are you comfortable sharing any architecture details? Im half wanting to do the same for a local fair that had a high friction ticket system. I wasnt happy with any designs I came up with though

Sure! It's QR-based, so customers create an account, load money onto their account, then show their QR code to vendors who scan it to charge their account. We also provide plastic cards (think: gift card) for people who don't want to use their phone but we see 80%+ of people interact completely on their phone/online. We have an app and website (same codebase, Quasar framework) and for in-person payment (entry, bar) w…

Good for you man, happy to hear about your success and pains. A sign of maturity is realizing the tech is always the easy part.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2024 – Show and tell

#42

Post by joshstrange »

ManuelKiessling wrote: post #40
joshstrange wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure! It's QR-based, so customers create an account, load money onto their account, then show their QR code to vendors who scan it to charge their account. We also provide plastic cards (think: gift card) for people who don't want to use their phone but we see 80%+ of people interact completely on their phone/online. We have an app and website (same codebase, Quasar framework) and for in-person payment (entry, bar) w…

I think I might just have downvoted you because I‘m a clumsy idiot. So let me just say I love these honest no-bullshit posts!

Thank you! I appreciate you saying that.

I love geeking out over my "stack" or talking about the business stuff, it's been rollercoaster and a huge learning experience for me. Really upended a ton of preconceptions I had about a number of things.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2024 – Show and tell

#43

Post by j0hnyl »

goenning wrote: post #10

I did not like any Kubernetes UI so I built my own https://aptakube.com It went from side project to my primary job in less than 6 months. Everyone was saying that $99 was too much for “an API wrapper”, but here we are, 2 years later and with hundreds of small to enterprise companies using it :)

How did you go from "I built my own" to making your first few sales?

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2024 – Show and tell

#44

Post by j0hnyl »

GaryNumanVevo wrote: post #32

I made an AI chatbot for OnlyFans models. Their fans can speak to "them" via a third party messaging app. It's currently pulling ~15k USD MRR. I built my own GPU infra for inference and I run Llama 3 with a fewshot prompting to get the model to respond like a given OF model, typically using their actual DMs with fans. I don't have a website for obvious reasons, but if you're in the biz you've no doubt heard about my…

Your GPU infra is a local server?

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2024 – Show and tell

#45

Post by PinkPigeon »

rafram wrote: post #29
PinkPigeon wrote: post #24

https://pinkpigeon.co.uk Who'd have thought that a CMS could still make money in 2024, but this one is around £500 a month. It obviously doesn't pay the bills or the mortgage, but it works. All my clients are word of mouth, I do not advertise at all (a combination of costs and insanely opaque / fractured advertising models by Facebook and co...I don't have time to get a phd in your ad platform to see if any of my mon…

The “Lea Hill Holiday Cottages” link is broken!

Thank you for pointing that out, fixed!

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2024 – Show and tell

#46

Post by dchuk »

Jabbs wrote: post #30

https://www.unlistedjobs.com/ Scraper of job listings directly from company websites. I found my last day job by using a scraper that visits company websites in search of job listings. Now I've turned it into an app for others to use and access jobs that are posted on company websites (rather than paid employer ads on Indeed or wherever). This gives the job searcher an advantage to find jobs not listed on job search…

I’ve had a similar idea over the years. You should consider exploring whether competitive companies could be customers.

As a competitor, getting alerts about roles another company is hiring for can be very interesting. Combine it with trends of postings over time…

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2024 – Show and tell

#47

Post by goenning »

j0hnyl wrote: post #43
goenning wrote: post #10

I did not like any Kubernetes UI so I built my own https://aptakube.com It went from side project to my primary job in less than 6 months. Everyone was saying that $99 was too much for “an API wrapper”, but here we are, 2 years later and with hundreds of small to enterprise companies using it :)

How did you go from "I built my own" to making your first few sales?

I shared with a couple of co-workers/friends and they all liked it, I then built a simple website with screenshots and a download button for free.

Then I started sharing the progress on LinkedIn/X, my co-workers shared on their network too which also helped.

After 4 months I put a price on it and sold it with a 50% discount for early adopters. A lot of people bought it, which to me was a signal that I was into something that could become bigger if I invested more time on it.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2024 – Show and tell

#48

Post by GaryNumanVevo »

j0hnyl wrote: post #44
GaryNumanVevo wrote: post #32

I made an AI chatbot for OnlyFans models. Their fans can speak to "them" via a third party messaging app. It's currently pulling ~15k USD MRR. I built my own GPU infra for inference and I run Llama 3 with a fewshot prompting to get the model to respond like a given OF model, typically using their actual DMs with fans. I don't have a website for obvious reasons, but if you're in the biz you've no doubt heard about my…

Your GPU infra is a local server?

not local, it's colocated, but I specced and built it specifically to do inference at scale

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2024 – Show and tell

#49

Post by stuckkeys »

Jabbs wrote: post #30

https://www.unlistedjobs.com/ Scraper of job listings directly from company websites. I found my last day job by using a scraper that visits company websites in search of job listings. Now I've turned it into an app for others to use and access jobs that are posted on company websites (rather than paid employer ads on Indeed or wherever). This gives the job searcher an advantage to find jobs not listed on job search…

What are you using to for the scraping? Playwright…selenium? I wanted to do something as a hobby but my IP kept getting reported lol. Also when you say companies…where are you getting the information from? Data brokers? Anyway, it is an interesting topic to me.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2024 – Show and tell

#50

Post by Jabbs »

dchuk wrote: post #46
Jabbs wrote: post #30

https://www.unlistedjobs.com/ Scraper of job listings directly from company websites. I found my last day job by using a scraper that visits company websites in search of job listings. Now I've turned it into an app for others to use and access jobs that are posted on company websites (rather than paid employer ads on Indeed or wherever). This gives the job searcher an advantage to find jobs not listed on job search…

I’ve had a similar idea over the years. You should consider exploring whether competitive companies could be customers. As a competitor, getting alerts about roles another company is hiring for can be very interesting. Combine it with trends of postings over time…

Oh that's a really interesting idea. Yea I dislike the idea of charging the job seeker but have not found a good way to monetize companies (not that they even know about me anyway)
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