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Ask HN: Those making over $1K/month on side projects, what did you make?

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Re: Ask HN: Those making over $1K/month on side projects, what did you make?

#91

Post by johndandison »

sgc wrote: post #25
johndandison wrote: post #18

http://getlivead.com and http://chattorney.com . They're different front ends to the same backend. Makes everything from aubscriptions. Not enough to live on as primary income but not shabby either. It has been a long four year road, with a couple of pivots and rewrites, 3 years of attorney's fees for patents but hugely personally rewarding and self-sufficient now.

I liked the idea of getlivead.com and went to the pricing page. 149 for what time period? Hard to sign up like that. For most people, that is way too much for a tool that only does one niche thing. The thing is, everyone could use that one niche thing every once in a while. You should have a casuals tier with limited use/time for people who have some stuff to sell because they are moving or whatever. Bigger clients c…

Thanks for the feedback. If you're interested in some of the thought pattern I can give you an abbreviated history. Also, if you're interested I can give you a code to sign up for free.

We started to service attorneys only, but as a clearing house of sorts. Attorney signs up, registers practices and regions, and when a user sends a message in that region/practice, all subscribed attorneys are notified and chat begins. That is challenging from a marketing perspective. So we pivoted to a more simple embeddable chat box, with the core still being web to SMS.

We then tried to expand to include the casual user, hence texttheweb.com and getlivead.com. At the same time, the prices dropped to $5/week or $10/month - thinking craigslist seller.

Fast forward to now and we have resellers - some targeting attorneys, others targeting local professionals (plumbers, electricians, etc). They get funny about pricing and undercutting, so we've basically jacked up the 'published' pricing so the resellers can make some money. It has effectively ended passive web sales, with all sales coming through resellers.

Probably more than you asked for, but figured I'd offer some insight.

Re: Ask HN: Those making over $1K/month on side projects, what did you make?

#92

Post by Schweigi »

https://www.ganttplanner.com is one of my side projects. It turns your Google Calendar into a gantt chart. The project is making a bit more than 1k/month and is currently on auto pilot.

I created this project for learning purposes and because it was a lot of fun. I open sourced the actual gantt component: https://www.angular-gantt.com

Re: Ask HN: Those making over $1K/month on side projects, what did you make?

#93

Post by eLobato »

GavinMcG wrote: post #89
eLobato wrote: post #85

I no longer make that kind of money through any side project but I did during ~ a year of college. It was one of the worst projects (coding wise) I made, and I made it all through ads. It was just an Android soundboard app for a very popular TV show in Spain. You could tap a button and it'd play some funny sentence from a character from this show. Long press, you could share that sound. Revenue model: a little ad bar…

IANAL, nor am I in Spain, so I don't really know what I'm talking about. My sense, though, is that in the US the TV show owners could sue me for copyright infringement, and I'd be on the hook for up to $150,000 in damages for each "infringing work" – I'd think that means audio clip, in this case. There's a "fair use" defense to that (where I'd say that the clips didn't impact the market for buying the original work)…

There was an eventual copyright complaint and cease&desist which I had no intent to fight. I talked with a lawyer (friend of my family) who said I could probably win or find a settlement in court.

They only went after the app a few years after the show was in its prime (it was making ~40$ a month more or less) so I just removed the application from the Android Play Store as that was all they were asking for.

Re: Ask HN: Those making over $1K/month on side projects, what did you make?

#94

Post by unlimit »

mutatio wrote: post #86

Created http://encycolorpedia.com a few years ago, kind of neglected it until recently (it's looking very dated), a version implemented in Rust is 90% complete - cheaper to run (more beer money, thanks Rust team!) & more features than the node.js implementation it will hopefully replace in the coming weeks.

> a version implemented in Rust is 90% complete - cheaper to run

Is it cheaper to run because of Rust? Why is it so? Could you please explain, don't know anything about Rust though.

Re: Ask HN: Those making over $1K/month on side projects, what did you make?

#95

Post by matthewmueller »

nowayyeah wrote: post #80
matthewmueller wrote: post #14

https://standupjack.com is a side project I started earlier this year on my own. It's making more than $1k/mo now :-)

It doesn't work on firefox. Check your ssl score https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=standupjack.c...

Yeesh – I'll get that upgraded. Thanks for the heads up!

Re: Ask HN: Those making over $1K/month on side projects, what did you make?

#96

Post by mutatio »

unlimit wrote: post #94
mutatio wrote: post #86

Created http://encycolorpedia.com a few years ago, kind of neglected it until recently (it's looking very dated), a version implemented in Rust is 90% complete - cheaper to run (more beer money, thanks Rust team!) & more features than the node.js implementation it will hopefully replace in the coming weeks.

> a version implemented in Rust is 90% complete - cheaper to run Is it cheaper to run because of Rust? Why is it so? Could you please explain, don't know anything about Rust though.

A lot of the colour space calculations are orders of magnitude faster using Rust (LLVM). This would be the same story had I chose C/C++ of course, but Rust was chosen in part for educational purposes.

I had originally started the re-write in Google Go, but I experimented with Rust and had a much better performance profile for the more CPU intensive stuff like using the more modern Delta E methods (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_difference).

I had to use the more primitive colour distance calculation methods for the node.js/JS implementation (CIE76). Not only that, I also had to cache the output after the first run. Using Rust I can use better colour difference methods, do it in real time AND get more requests/sec.

I should add I still use Go on the API side of things.

Re: Ask HN: Those making over $1K/month on side projects, what did you make?

#97

Post by matthewmueller »

arms wrote: post #76
matthewmueller wrote: post #14

https://standupjack.com is a side project I started earlier this year on my own. It's making more than $1k/mo now :-)

Great landing page! I love the screenshots with example conversations - it makes it crystal clear what to expect from the product.

thanks!

Re: Ask HN: Those making over $1K/month on side projects, what did you make?

#98

Post by matthewmueller »

swegg wrote: post #51
matthewmueller wrote: post #14

https://standupjack.com is a side project I started earlier this year on my own. It's making more than $1k/mo now :-)

Very nice looking website. FYI, you have a typo in the FAQ: "Can I change the time I get asked for an update?". I think "change my time" should be "change my settings".

Good catch!

Re: Ask HN: Those making over $1K/month on side projects, what did you make?

#99

Post by matthewmueller »

halisaurus wrote: post #48
startupss999 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good job. How does it make money?

It is $1/mo/user over 3 users. Says so on the FAQ. Curious if they've tried other pricing models. Beyond, say, 10 or 20 users the value proposition shifts against that pricing model IMO.

Definitely worth experimenting with some more. I have some 15+ user teams that think it's worth it though :-)

Re: Ask HN: Those making over $1K/month on side projects, what did you make?

#100

Post by chrismorgan »

unlimit wrote: post #94
mutatio wrote: post #86

Created http://encycolorpedia.com a few years ago, kind of neglected it until recently (it's looking very dated), a version implemented in Rust is 90% complete - cheaper to run (more beer money, thanks Rust team!) & more features than the node.js implementation it will hopefully replace in the coming weeks.

> a version implemented in Rust is 90% complete - cheaper to run Is it cheaper to run because of Rust? Why is it so? Could you please explain, don't know anything about Rust though.

Rust code is likely to be very much more efficient, reducing the server requirements.

I wouldn’t expect this site to have particularly high requirements, but hey ho.

(Example: NewsBlur was at a certain point using about 50 servers, for a specified load that by careful calculation I am confident would fit on one server (though not with much headroom) if it were written sensibly in Rust, rather than however it is in Python/Django.)

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