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Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

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Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

#611

Post by lifeformed »

deanmoriarty wrote: post #511

After reading all this, I admit I feel kind of silly for working so hard (50-60h a week on average) to earn my Silicon Valley FAANG comp. I am wondering how much survivorship bias is at play here, some ideas look relatively simple compared to the amount they bring in. Or maybe one really has to take the leap of faith and trust that there is demand for virtually anything? Maybe it’s not so simple, my partner opened a…

The powerful part of passive income isn't that you could make some more money, but that you could make more time. Even with a huge salary, you've sold your best 50 hours every week, as well as most of your mental energy. The richest people still have the same amount of time. Making $50k a year passively is worth so much more than making a few hundred thousand a year actively. It could mean having your whole life to yourself.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

#612

Post by czue »

parmezan wrote: post #588
czue wrote: post #289

I have two! An app for making wedding place cards that does about $1000/mo https://www.placecard.me/ A boilerplate for making SaaS apps with Python/Django that does $5k/month (highly variable) https://www.saaspegasus.com/ I also have a third that does around $150/mo. It's an app that adds analytics to GroupMe which is a WhatsApp alternative. https://chatstats.co/ I keep complete revenue and effort data here if you're…

Impressive dude. Also from a security perspective don't forget to update those very out of date nginx webservers :) My tool detects version 1.10.3 which was released on 31 Jan 2017

Good tip, thanks. Will make it a priority.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

#613

Post by czue »

unobatbayar wrote: post #382
czue wrote: post #289

I have two! An app for making wedding place cards that does about $1000/mo https://www.placecard.me/ A boilerplate for making SaaS apps with Python/Django that does $5k/month (highly variable) https://www.saaspegasus.com/ I also have a third that does around $150/mo. It's an app that adds analytics to GroupMe which is a WhatsApp alternative. https://chatstats.co/ I keep complete revenue and effort data here if you're…

What happens when it comes to taxes? Do you pay taxes if it's from side projects? Or it's done automatically e.g. Stripe?

Someone already added a great summary below, but yeah the short answer is "it's complicated". I personally have a single LLC for the businesses and also now hire help to make sure I'm compliant.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

#614

Post by czue »

maclockard wrote: post #338
czue wrote: post #289

I have two! An app for making wedding place cards that does about $1000/mo https://www.placecard.me/ A boilerplate for making SaaS apps with Python/Django that does $5k/month (highly variable) https://www.saaspegasus.com/ I also have a third that does around $150/mo. It's an app that adds analytics to GroupMe which is a WhatsApp alternative. https://chatstats.co/ I keep complete revenue and effort data here if you're…

How much time do you spend a month on marketing for placecard?

These days basically zero because most of my attention has moved on. I invested a ton in SEO and content early on though.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

#615

Post by kasey_junk »

doovd wrote: post #590
hydershykh wrote: post #444

I have about 6 years of applied AI experience and I have been trying to work on something that can use that experience and be useful to others. Ended up building an analytics based platform that uses data analysis techniques to generate trade ideas for retail investors [0]. Started it as a hobby July 2019, but it ended up growing quite big. The plan was to generate about $1k/mo but we are generating about $120k/mo th…

How do you answer the following inevitable questions? If you have good trade ideas/signals, then why do you not use them yourself? I assume you do not use them yourself because it' does not make sense to share your edge (if you have one). If you do not have an edge, how can you be offering "trade ideas"?

These are common questions people ask that haven’t actually been involved in generating trades professionally.

But people who have don’t ask those questions because finding edge in the markets is actually pretty easy. Finding edge that is scalable is the hard part.

For professional traders it doesn’t make much sense to engage in all the small edge trades because it won’t pay more than your opportunity cost if you did something else. For retail traders that constraint isn’t true.

Now, I don’t have any idea if this particular product actually offers good trades, but it’s not true that as a class you can’t make more money selling profitable trades than you can using the trade yourself.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

#616

Post by tetek »

ronyfadel wrote: post #557
tetek wrote: post #540

I had developed an iOS app with backend for construction site businesses. It was making ~$700/month for the last year, now I'm in process of selling through microaccquire for $60k.

What does "in process of selling" mean? Did you find any acquirers?

yes. We are now after the due diligence. Funds were send to escrow, and we are transferring all assets. I also help the new team with the setup. It takes some time, but it's actually a good time for migration between Christmas and New Year's Eve.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

#617

Post by czue »

asdev wrote: post #314
czue wrote: post #289

I have two! An app for making wedding place cards that does about $1000/mo https://www.placecard.me/ A boilerplate for making SaaS apps with Python/Django that does $5k/month (highly variable) https://www.saaspegasus.com/ I also have a third that does around $150/mo. It's an app that adds analytics to GroupMe which is a WhatsApp alternative. https://chatstats.co/ I keep complete revenue and effort data here if you're…

how did you get users for Placecard and Chatstats?

Place cards was a ton of content, SEO and a long game.

Chat stats is so niche that I've literally just shared it a couple times on reddit and that's basically it. But somehow Google has figured out to show it for relevant queries.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

#618

Post by barthom »

For the past 2 and a half years I've been running a YouTube channel with semi-automated content. The content in question is threads on AskReddit. I know a lot of people look down on content like that (tbh myself included) but to be fair most content on YouTube is very low-effort. It's not getting close to the views it used to, but now it makes an average of about $1k/month.

Our content is a lot higher quality than most other similar channels, mainly because the software I made automates so much. Which is why I think this one stood out. I effectively spend an hour a month or so just maintaining the software, while the actual work of uploading/making thumbnails is outsourced to someone I know. He spends maybe 15 minutes per video and we upload daily. It's a fun side-business to have but I don't expect it to be viable long-term unless I somehow pivot it into something else.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

#619

Post by czue »

kungito wrote: post #432
czue wrote: post #289

I have two! An app for making wedding place cards that does about $1000/mo https://www.placecard.me/ A boilerplate for making SaaS apps with Python/Django that does $5k/month (highly variable) https://www.saaspegasus.com/ I also have a third that does around $150/mo. It's an app that adds analytics to GroupMe which is a WhatsApp alternative. https://chatstats.co/ I keep complete revenue and effort data here if you're…

Judging by time spent, saas pegasus feels less like a side job and more like a full time job

I went full time independent in June of this year which gave me a lot more time. Since then I've averaged 60-80 hours a month on it, so I guess it's approaching a half-time job...

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

#620

Post by czue »

wbharding wrote: post #298
czue wrote: post #289

I have two! An app for making wedding place cards that does about $1000/mo https://www.placecard.me/ A boilerplate for making SaaS apps with Python/Django that does $5k/month (highly variable) https://www.saaspegasus.com/ I also have a third that does around $150/mo. It's an app that adds analytics to GroupMe which is a WhatsApp alternative. https://chatstats.co/ I keep complete revenue and effort data here if you're…

Love that dashboard! Makes me wonder what your Line Impact would be for the various projects, seems like you get a lot of business value from each line of code.

Ha, there's a metric that would be interesting.

Probably the secret is that I try to spend as much time marketing as I do coding... (I usually fail but I'm guessing I still manage to market more than most devs)

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