Ask HN: How do you earn your money?

I hire out subcontractors to increase my throughput, and I make the other half of my income from this. In total, I make more dollars from the 10-15 hours a week I spent consulting than from the 40 I spend in my job, but I've done the math and when you include the equity vesting in a few years, in terms of per-hour rates, the full time job and the consulting share nearly identical rates. One just has a longer payment period.

When I started I was afraid to freelance because I didn't feel that safety net of my job beneath me, but I finally got my first job working 300$ for 20 hours of work. It was ridiculously underpaid. But I got my foot in the door and now I make quite a tidy sum from it, while getting a lot of enjoyment and satisfaction in it.

Also, I'd always recommend having a side gig going on because it frees you. I don't need to work full time - I don't use a single dollar from my full time job anymore. It goes straight into savings. That kind of thing can free you, and make you more likely to be eligible for raises at work because they know you're only here because you want to be.

I know your thoughts very well. I myself have worked for 18 years or so as employee building the dream of someone else -- or better to say: building the wealth of someone else.

I think, a lot is said already, so I want to restrict myself to my personal opinion: If you have this feeling you describe, you should definitively search for your island! And don't give up until you found it.

I am searching now for ten to fifteen years I think and have not found it yet. But I hope, my current project (an online medieval strategy game) will bring me thus far. I dumped until now at least three projects that resulted in a situation that I had to say I can not do it with my resources or in one case the project proved itself to be not profitable. Currently I also dumped my employer to be fully able to find the island I am looking for.

Today, I think, the biggest problem is to find one or more good partners. If you have one, good for you! It makes things easier. But it is so difficult to find one and I have not, since some are just not reliable enough and with others I was not able to find a common target.

The problem is, that if you are in a group you have to give up parts of your own dreaming to find a common dream.

The only reason for doing is to gain industry domain experience. (Software doesnt count.) The domain can suggest startup possibilities. Consulting income is a trap, unless you make massive savings.

Dont look back at what might have been. I worked on a VisiCalc equivalent on a 7094 in the 60s. One of the members of the founding team of Sorcim worked for me (remember SuperCalc?). Dont say I didn have my chances to be rich and famous.

Dont look sideways. If it is being done now, someone has beaten you to it. And someone else is working on the second generation.

Dont scratch your own itch. Software itches dont make money. Too many smart people doing the same thing.

Do cultivate relationships.

Do look for other people,s problems. As you noted , if it bugs the common man or the elderly, it is probably an annoyance for everyone else.

I started my first real job in technology in the mid-late 90s and spent roughly the first half of my career maintaining systems that were built by other people.

Eventually, I jumped up a level and stared accelerating from there. Planning, writing proposals and doing the technical implementation for projects of increasing size and complexity. With each major undertaking done I was looking for the next as I had no interest in getting drawn back into maintenance mode.

I started toying with the idea of working for myself, being a truly independent consultant and ended up doing some side projects while maintaining a full time job. The money was great, nearly double my full-time job hourly rate, but it wasn't nearly consistent enough and I was in the process of starting a family.

With all the responsibilities of a family looming I had more or less mentally resigned myself to moving into a rock-steady management role and calling it a career.

That plan didn't work out for what at the time were incredibly frustrating reasons, but it turned out for the best. I took a job as an independent contractor for a lot more money doing a mix of interesting projects and braindead operations.

That's where I am today, I've realized that I'm unlikely to ever be satisfied working for other people or working on the same things for more than perhaps year at a time.

At the same time, I've realized that I don't need to draw satisfaction from my day job. By coming to grips with being parent and learning to manage my time and goals I'm able to collect a good, steady income to live while doing a full load of courses and dabbling in side projects to satisfy myself.

That's probably the most important part. Once I was earning enough money to have everything my family needs plus many of the things we want I found myself wanting less and realized at least within the same order of magnitude more money isn't what I want.

As best I can tell, what I want is autonomy and variety.

Figuring out what it is that you actually want would a great start.

Personally, I mean to continue my education while building up enough consistency on the side to transition that to be primary income. If something better comes along in the meantime - great.