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Ask HN: Fastest way to make $300-400 a month online?

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Re: Ask HN: Fastest way to make $300-400 a month online?

#31

Post by starkfist »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #29
starkfist wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they also sell the class itself... go to your local university and ask how much it costs to sit in on a class for no credit. It's not going to be free, if there is even such an option.

It usually is free if space is available and you don't annoy the professor. I've had several non-paying students; the only time I ever kicked one out of class was because we ran out of seats. MIT is actually well known for making information free, but the credential is expensive. http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm

That's interesting because I wanted to sit in on the computational photography course at NYU and the registrar said it was impossible. Maybe I should have avoided talking to the administration? However, I did email the instructor and he did not return any of my email.

How do you even get into the buildings without an ID?

Re: Ask HN: Fastest way to make $300-400 a month online?

#32

Post by mikeyur »

I used to do a lot of offline marketing of online products and made some good money. What I mean by this is selling sites/hosting/newsletter hosting to small, local businesses.

I did this when I was tight on cash, since it can usually be done in a weekend: research a local group of businesses (ie. dentists or furniture stores) using Google Maps and grab all of their info. See which businesses don't have websites - and if they do check out how they look/work.

For the companies that didn't, I'd write a simple sales letter offering a discounted website. Something like the client that originally bought the site ended up bailing near the end, but I got a deposit out of them so I'm selling this site for cost. Since the other customer already paid (say, $1000), and costs were $1500, I can give you the site for $500.

That site is really just a cheap TemplateMonster design ($40-50) and once I get the payment I'll send over a word doc requesting all of the info they want for the pages and all the media they want uploaded. Probably a good 6-10 hours of work, for a decent profit (I typically charged them around $800 for the site).

Once completed you sell them on hosting (grab a VPS for $30/mo. and charge them $50/mo. to host their site - I put ~10 clients on a VPS (comfortably) since the sites get very little traffic). You sell them on newsletter hosting, explain benefits of contacting customers directly about offers for almost $0 cost to them. Email is huge to local businesses, set them up with mail@theirdomain.com and many will worship you. So many people still use xyz123@isp.net for their BUSINESS email.

For customers that already have sites, offer a redesign, better functionality (contact/quote request forms, email newsletter hosting, etc.).

There's also lots of money in local business directories, if you know anything about SEO. Offer them targeted traffic/leads at $XX/mo. - even more if they want a banner on the site.

So much cash offline, go and take it. It may be harder to do it based on the country, but I refuse to believe there isn't at least some need for it. If not - hit up craigslist in the US and start pimping your offerings ;)

Re: Ask HN: Fastest way to make $300-400 a month online?

#33

Post by kalid »

petercooper wrote: post #14

First, a Web service that "meets an unmet need." Back in 2005 I built a "code snippets" site using the then-nascent Rails in just over 24 hours. I then spent a second day making the design more "Web 2.0" a few months later, but otherwise did little except mention it here and there and add my own code into it. It made ~$800 a month from Adsense for a couple of years and then I sold it to DZone for $30,000. Perhaps the…

Agreed re: writing an ebook. If you have niche content and can package it nicely, you can make $300-$400 monthly. It helps to have some venue for marketing though (blog or other medium).

Re: Ask HN: Fastest way to make $300-400 a month online?

#36

Post by nopassrecover »

patio11 wrote: post #23

If I said "I want the Wordpress theme from http://www.christmasbingocards.com done similarly except for St. Patrick's Day" and you were able to accomplish that without needing too much handholding, I'd be able to give you one project a month for $400 until you either got sick of doing them or decided to move upmarket. If this interests you, email me a link to your portfolio.

I have to say that I am impressed every time I read a comment from you - you manage to be relevant and drop some innovative new idea you're trying for your own business.

Re: Ask HN: Fastest way to make $300-400 a month online?

#38

Post by csomar »

ique wrote: post #17
csomar wrote: post #15

here's how I made $300 last month (working 4 hours a week) - Write articles (around $150). - Make something (script, firefox addon) for a client (around $100) - Google Adsense (around $50)

How do you make money by writing articles, and what kind of articles? Are you talking tutorials on some tutorial site that buys them or are you writing journalistic reports for blogs/news industry? Or something else entirely?

Anything i can write about.

I find jobs on forums, problogger, blogs that accept guest posts...

Nettuts pays $150 if it's good enough

Re: Ask HN: Fastest way to make $300-400 a month online?

#39

Post by fragmede »

kyx wrote: post #27

Write exploit code for vulnerabilities :) Look at http://oss-security.openwall.org for some -- You could probably make around $500 to $5000 depending on your exploit / vulnerability. Just thought you'd check that out if interested.

In the same vein: ~$500, depending on severity for Google Chrome vulnerabilities: http://blog.chromium.org/2010/01/encouraging-more-chromium-s...

Same for Mozilla/Firefox: http://www.mozilla.org/security/bug-bounty.html

Re: Ask HN: Fastest way to make $300-400 a month online?

#40

Post by pingswept »

starkfist wrote: post #31
yummyfajitas wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It usually is free if space is available and you don't annoy the professor. I've had several non-paying students; the only time I ever kicked one out of class was because we ran out of seats. MIT is actually well known for making information free, but the credential is expensive. http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm

That's interesting because I wanted to sit in on the computational photography course at NYU and the registrar said it was impossible. Maybe I should have avoided talking to the administration? However, I did email the instructor and he did not return any of my email. How do you even get into the buildings without an ID?

You walk up just behind someone with an ID, and then you walk in before the door closes.
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