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Ask HN: What are some easy ways to earn some side money?

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Re: Ask HN: What are some easy ways to earn some side money?

#81

Post by joegahona »

ferennag wrote: post #45
WestCoastJustin wrote: post #7

Get a second remote job. You could effectively double your salary for a few months or as long as you can handle it. Personally, this is much better than the race of the bottom of all these piece meal contracting gig sites. Youtube is likely a major waste of time in that you'd need to compete and build a profile, etc. This takes time. If you want to spend years then you might make it work. I've done this and know from…

This would require that at least one of the jobs basically have no meetings, and also that you can automate the sht out of one of them (and not to tell it to your boss). I can't see it working in any other way. I've heard about this before, but I think you need a huge amount of luck to make this work. Edit: I mean yeah, if you are willing to work 14-16 hours you can make it work, by landing the jobs in different time…

I knew a Sales guy who made the dual-job arrangement work. One job was high commission, low salary; the other job was low commission, high salary. He busted his ass at the high-commission job and earned his high commission, and just did nothing at the high-salary job and got fired after ~6 weeks, then just picked up another one, got fired in ~6 weeks, etc.

Re: Ask HN: What are some easy ways to earn some side money?

#82

Post by amerkhalid »

ferennag wrote: post #60
n_ary wrote: post #42

Disclaimer: Unpopular advice. Seek out local folks who wants to go online selling their tupperware, tobaco, small services, books, photos, small mom-n-pop coffee/fastfood shops etc and offer to build them a site they can maintain. Then buy them a subscription on no-code sites(wix, weebly, squarespace etc) and get a commission for the initial setup. Worked for my nephew who just wanted something he could do on the nig…

Not sure why would this be an unpopular advice. I think it's a good advice. I tried this before, but the problem is, the reason many people/businesses have shitty websites is that they are not willing to spend money on it. I approached a few local shops (e.g. a comic book store) to create a cool website for them for a few hundred bucks, but they wanted it for free. If I would be a junior developer looking for stuff t…

> to create a cool website for them for a few hundred bucks

I think this price range will push away serious businesses. I knew a consulting company that had hard time getting customers when they were charging under $1000 for simple WordPress sites. They had better luck when they raised their prices to $5000. It was 10 years ago for simple WordPress sites.

Re: Ask HN: What are some easy ways to earn some side money?

#83

Post by kcindric »

syndicatedjelly wrote: post #79
ferennag wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That said, boringcashcow.com has inspired me to try to come up with a simple programming project that could turn over 4 figures a month. It made me realize in software you can just go for base hits, not home runs, and still make plenty of money. Would you mind sharing more details? Story? What is the app? I am really curious :) If no, that's fine, thanks for the tip anyways. I will definitely check out the website.…

> My biggest problem is coming up with ideas for an app/business. I'm in the same boat. For me at least, I assume that any app that's making money must have been created by someone with much better skills than me. Someone shared that website on HN a few weeks ago and they just blog about various solo developer projects that earn 4-6 figures a month. Seeing those projects gives me ideas and confidence to try something…

Could you please share the link of the blog you’re talking about?

Re: Ask HN: What are some easy ways to earn some side money?

#84

Post by smarmgoblin »

WestCoastJustin wrote: post #7

Get a second remote job. You could effectively double your salary for a few months or as long as you can handle it. Personally, this is much better than the race of the bottom of all these piece meal contracting gig sites. Youtube is likely a major waste of time in that you'd need to compete and build a profile, etc. This takes time. If you want to spend years then you might make it work. I've done this and know from…

I believe this is a significant and understated direct cause of tech’s current push for returning to offices.

Which is not to say that it’s a bad idea necessarily for the stated goal.

Re: Ask HN: What are some easy ways to earn some side money?

#85

Post by Gunnerhead »

kcindric wrote: post #83
syndicatedjelly wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My biggest problem is coming up with ideas for an app/business. I'm in the same boat. For me at least, I assume that any app that's making money must have been created by someone with much better skills than me. Someone shared that website on HN a few weeks ago and they just blog about various solo developer projects that earn 4-6 figures a month. Seeing those projects gives me ideas and confidence to try something…

Could you please share the link of the blog you’re talking about?

I’m very curious too!

Re: Ask HN: What are some easy ways to earn some side money?

#86

Post by Gnarl »

lun4r wrote: post #2

You could consider apiculture. Yes, that's right, beekeeping. You might wonder how this is relevant to your 11 years of development experience, but let me explain. Beekeeping can offer a relaxing, nature-oriented antidote to the stresses of coding, and moreover, there is a burgeoning market for smart apiary technology. Bee mortality rates have increased over recent years for numerous reasons, and technology is beginn…

Very interesting suggestion! I must however point out that near monitoring of bees should not be based on wireless tech. There are now numerous studies showing that bees exhibit avoidance reactions to active phone and WiFi signals (think: colony collapse, hive abandonment). Probably an effect mediated via their high magnetic field sensitivity. For starters, see: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s13592-011-001...

Re: Ask HN: What are some easy ways to earn some side money?

#87

Post by atraac »

didyoureboot wrote: post #66

If you have your masters, you could try teaching as an adjunct at a local university at night. Pay isn't bad (relative to the amount of work) and you can stay in the field. Rewarding work, and in some state/provincial systems you can even earn a pension. I get speaking isn't your thing, so that might be an impediment, but maybe it's less of an issue in a more intimate setting

To be honest you don't even have to go to universities or schools. Just offer tutoring from the field or around the field you're in. There's a lot of money to be made like this, especially since math in school is fairly easy to teach for someone with comp-sci degree.

Re: Ask HN: What are some easy ways to earn some side money?

#88

Post by kossTKR »

Interesting that for over a decade these threads were filled with hundreds of optimistic posts, but now it's almost pure pessimism and warnings.

Maybe earning money on the internet, even with advanced skills and experience has just been met with so much global competition that it's just not that valuable a skill anymore, maybe the monopolies took over e-trade and maybe most users became trapped in silos or on giga-services so the money is really in influencing, not curating, building or creating from scratch?

Rather depressing.

Re: Ask HN: What are some easy ways to earn some side money?

#90

Post by akmarinov »

drones wrote: post #23
WestCoastJustin wrote: post #7

Get a second remote job. You could effectively double your salary for a few months or as long as you can handle it. Personally, this is much better than the race of the bottom of all these piece meal contracting gig sites. Youtube is likely a major waste of time in that you'd need to compete and build a profile, etc. This takes time. If you want to spend years then you might make it work. I've done this and know from…

Wouldn't multiple jobs like this make you a huge security/IP rights liability?

Get a LLC per job and sign on its behalf, then if sh*t hits the fan - declare bankruptcy.
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