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Ask HN: I made $24k over the last month. Now what?

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Re: Ask HN: I made $24k over the last month. Now what?

#51

Post by jorkos »

I would think about monetizing your experience of making money through apps; take a small amount of your money and create a resource for building and deploying cheap apps - this could be in the form of a PDF, etc. Add a dynamic element like 2 hours of personal consultation. Sell at a few price points and package this through a new app "Learn to sell apps app" - buyers need to get the app to get the PDF.

This type of strategy leverages your experience & diversifies your revenue streams w/ very little capital requirements....to make serious income you want to move beyond just creating apps which may have very short life spans. Good luck

Re: Ask HN: I made $24k over the last month. Now what?

#52

Post by PieSquared »

rsheridan6 wrote: post #45

What you're looking for is a get rich quick scheme, but you're not going to find one here (not a legit one, anyway). Here's an idea: have your cousin in the Illinois state legislature throw you some lucrative contracts. That's the kind of get rich quick scheme that works. Don't have a cousin in the Illinois state legislature? Then you'll have to do something that requires more time investment if you want both a reaso…

It seems to me what he's looking for is more like a "get-rich-investment". He has time and money to invest in something, and wants to use them to maximum advantage. No need to belittle the post, it's quite valid.

Re: Ask HN: I made $24k over the last month. Now what?

#53

Post by sethg »

I do NOT want to invest in the stock market, or invest in anything long term like bonds or property. I want to somehow use the money to make more money quickly (within a 2 year time span).

If you’re looking for investment tips, I recommend the book A Random Walk Down Wall Street.

If you’re looking at the broader question “what should I do with all this free cash flow”, hiring someone else (as many others have suggested) isn’t a bad idea, as long as you think that the time freed up by delegating work to someone else will free you up to work on your next money-making project.

Re: Ask HN: I made $24k over the last month. Now what?

#54

Post by eru »

icey wrote: post #31
eru wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you get a decent return on your microloans, they can be a good way to make money (and give some capital to people who need it). But I agree: I doubt Max has as much of an advantage in evaluating promising targets for microloans than he has building software.

The feel that I've gotten is that nobody is really making any money with Kiva. Most people I've read have gotten roughly a 1% return. Have you heard much about people having success with Kiva that exceeds a bare return on principal?

I agree, and, no, I haven't heard of people making money with Kiva, but that's (at least partly) because I haven't really heard of Kiva at all. My comment was meant to reference the success of e.g. Grameen bank which seems to get decent returns on its microloan business, but also applies a lot of local knowledge.

Re: Ask HN: I made $24k over the last month. Now what?

#55

Post by Mz »

cellis wrote: post #44
Mz wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone knew of a way to turn 24k into millions, why would they say how to do it for free? Because people are social creatures and often take great pleasure in talking about something they know a lot about and may have difficulty finding many people that really want to listen/discuss it. Besides, as gets stated here often, a great idea isn't worth much. You still have to put in the time and effort to get any payoff…

Someone smart enough to create a black box (which a million dollar business never turns out to be) that takes input of 24,000 and returns as output 2.4 million is not going to give it away at a marginal cost. He's asking, in essence, how to get rich quick. If i have a grq idea, i'm either already doing it and getting rich, or planning on doing it (raising capital, finding co-founders, et al).

A lot of excellent ideas are viewed as "crazy" when first proposed. That is probably a bigger reason you aren't going to get a qrq scheme from an online discussion: Either they are burned out on trying to convince people casually or you won't recognize it as brilliant. And that comes back to my earlier remark: An idea isn't worth that much. Execution is what brings in the money.

That still won't prevent some folks from wanting to discuss it just because that's the kind of thing that floats their boat. Maybe you aren't that type. Some people aren't. But some people just like talking about stuff.

Re: Ask HN: I made $24k over the last month. Now what?

#56

Post by andrewcooke »

i think that it's pretty clear that getting rich is largely luck. you were in the right place at the right time with the right skills. if it was more than that, then you'd be able to repeat it without advice, right?

given that, two approaches make sense to me:

1 - treat it as a lucky break and consider how best to make it last over the long term, as a one-off. but you say you don't want to do this in your question.

2 - try to somehow increase the odds of getting lucky again. you can use money to improve your chances in various ways: by improving your skill set; by allowing you to fail more often before you starve; by out-sourcing work not associated with "taking a chance" to someone else; by entering a market with a higher barrier to entry (where you need to invest more up-front) but with, hopefully, less competition.

perhaps the best approach is to see (1) as yet another way to do (2). in other words: invest the money so that you have a small but reliable income over as long a period as possible (a ramen fund, if you like), so that you can keep trying new ideas.

ps i think the biggest argument against the "luck" hypothesis is that very rich people tend to get richer. but i suspect that's because they exploit information available only to people in their position; $24k doesn't buy your way into that.

Re: Ask HN: I made $24k over the last month. Now what?

#58

Post by maxklein »

jackowayed wrote: post #42
petervandijck wrote: post #40

The internet thing to do would be to make a member-only site where you teach people everything you know about making money on the appstore, and charge 97$/m subscription. Run that for a year or two, then sell it.

At first that sounds crazy (run a get-rich-quick scheme, and that will get you rich quick!), but that's actually a pretty good idea. Assuming you can pinpoint some of the secrets to your success (or, more importantly, things that sound like they will help people succeed), you can write a book, start a subscription website, etc selling those tips. Saying "I'm making $24k from a wide variety of apps, and it's just me i…

That seems like an even quicker way to end the profit run. If everyone knows how to do this, the market will slow down and then soon my tips will be worthless since they no longer work. Then I killed the goose that lays the golden egg.

Re: Ask HN: I made $24k over the last month. Now what?

#60

Post by maxklein »

jeromec wrote: post #50

I think the answer heavily depends on how confident you are in yourself. Do you feel your success was a fluke, or could you mimic it with something else? Having 24K in capital is great, but if you know anything about the tech startup space you'll know it's no sure ticket to riches. You need to board a train that can take you higher, and that either means something you do yourself or tagging along with someone else. B…

I'm pretty smart, but you still need a confluence of certain things at a certain time, which was clearly the case with the app store about 8 months ago, and which I took advantage of.

One can never know if everything will fall perfectly in place the next time.

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