Ask HN: Passive Income Suggestions 2016 • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Passive Income Suggestions 2016

#21

Post by beamatronic » Mon, May 23, 2016, 6:12 PM UTC

mertevinski wrote: post #11

Peer to peer lending is the best thing I have found this year. You can get around 5 to 7 percent interest and you don't need a large amount of capital. With all the other financial markets so volatile right now this is a pretty solid rate of return. There are always risks of default that you will need to consider, but most platforms allow you to mitigate that with automated diversified portfolios.

I started playing around with Prosper in 2010. I have had a very good experience. My overall return is about 6%. It's very easy to dial in exactly the amount of risk/reward you want to take.

I had actually typed this up but deleted it because I thought the question was more about a beer-money level enterprise.

Re: Ask HN: Passive Income Suggestions 2016

#22

Post by wineisfine » Mon, May 23, 2016, 6:12 PM UTC

mmastrac wrote: post #6

Perhaps a negative example might be interesting? I started working on game-development tools in 2015 and have sold a grand total of $0. Granted I have been contracting for the last year and haven't done development or marketing for a few months, but I would say it's a clear non-success. If you're curious what it was, it's here: https://codano.com/typeforge/ . The reasons I've probably done poorly: 1) I haven't spent…

Codano, good name

Re: Ask HN: Passive Income Suggestions 2016

#23

Post by beamatronic » Mon, May 23, 2016, 6:14 PM UTC

jonknee wrote: post #17

mertevinski wrote: post #11

Peer to peer lending is the best thing I have found this year. You can get around 5 to 7 percent interest and you don't need a large amount of capital. With all the other financial markets so volatile right now this is a pretty solid rate of return. There are always risks of default that you will need to consider, but most platforms allow you to mitigate that with automated diversified portfolios.

Careful though, you can quickly be picking up pennies in front of a steamroller. It's a low amount of interest for unsecured debt and when you don't get the principal back that 5-7% suddenly seems not so high. And "automated diversified portfolios" is exactly what mortgage backed securities were a decade ago. Look how that turned out.

For me risking no more than $25 ( the minimum ) on AA rated borrowers ( the best ) was a decent risk/reward.

Re: Ask HN: Passive Income Suggestions 2016

#24

Post by codegeek » Mon, May 23, 2016, 6:16 PM UTC

bwb wrote: post #13

Small pitch, I am the owner of Pressed ( https://www.pressed.net ), and we do white label managed WordPress hosting. So anyone can sign up to create their own Managed WordPress hosting brand, and refer clients to their brand and build recurring revenue. Our team handles all the running, support, etc for the brand so you can just sit back and feed customers into it. Pretty passive :)

Genuine question. How can a managed hosting service be passive ? Specially since you handle the running and support.

Re: Ask HN: Passive Income Suggestions 2016

#25

Post by btown » Mon, May 23, 2016, 6:18 PM UTC

louisswiss wrote: post #10

I have found the best side projects to be monetized versions of stuff which I built for my startup to save me time. A recent example is a script which I originally hacked together to check for possible IP changes/submissions (copyrights, patents, trademarks etc) which might affect my startup's own IP. It didn't cost very much to SaaS-ify the original script (outsourced using upwork.com) and after sending out a few em…

Could you share the website of the service? I'm sure many startups here have a similar need.

Re: Ask HN: Passive Income Suggestions 2016

#26

Post by OJFord » Mon, May 23, 2016, 6:18 PM UTC

mmastrac wrote: post #6

Perhaps a negative example might be interesting? I started working on game-development tools in 2015 and have sold a grand total of $0. Granted I have been contracting for the last year and haven't done development or marketing for a few months, but I would say it's a clear non-success. If you're curious what it was, it's here: https://codano.com/typeforge/ . The reasons I've probably done poorly: 1) I haven't spent…

At the risk of derailing, some feedback, if I may: I think it need better examples.

Of course, you're selling the tool, and it's the buyer's creativity which limits the outcome rather than your own - but the first thing I'm thinking when I look at that page is "oh this tool is at least ten years old, maybe it's still good, but I'm going to try and find something more modern".

It's just a weird psychological effect of the fonts on the page, I suppose. I'm not saying everyone's like that - and actually, I'm not the target market anyway, so maybe this doesn't apply. But I suspect if I'm thinking that, that others are too.

Re: Ask HN: Passive Income Suggestions 2016

#27

Post by ceejayoz » Mon, May 23, 2016, 6:18 PM UTC

codegeek wrote: post #24

bwb wrote: post #13

Small pitch, I am the owner of Pressed ( https://www.pressed.net ), and we do white label managed WordPress hosting. So anyone can sign up to create their own Managed WordPress hosting brand, and refer clients to their brand and build recurring revenue. Our team handles all the running, support, etc for the brand so you can just sit back and feed customers into it. Pretty passive :)

Genuine question. How can a managed hosting service be passive ? Specially since you handle the running and support.

Passive to the resellers, I'd imagine.

Re: Ask HN: Passive Income Suggestions 2016

#28

Post by jjoe » Mon, May 23, 2016, 6:18 PM UTC

bwb wrote: post #13

Small pitch, I am the owner of Pressed ( https://www.pressed.net ), and we do white label managed WordPress hosting. So anyone can sign up to create their own Managed WordPress hosting brand, and refer clients to their brand and build recurring revenue. Our team handles all the running, support, etc for the brand so you can just sit back and feed customers into it. Pretty passive :)

Passive and managed hosting is an oxymoron in my book. I know because I've been doing that for the last 15 years :)

Re: Ask HN: Passive Income Suggestions 2016

#29

Post by gk1 » Mon, May 23, 2016, 6:18 PM UTC

mmastrac wrote: post #6

Perhaps a negative example might be interesting? I started working on game-development tools in 2015 and have sold a grand total of $0. Granted I have been contracting for the last year and haven't done development or marketing for a few months, but I would say it's a clear non-success. If you're curious what it was, it's here: https://codano.com/typeforge/ . The reasons I've probably done poorly: 1) I haven't spent…

Thanks for sharing that. When all we see are success stories, we miscalculate the amount of effort required to start generating passive income. Passive income is rarely passive from day one.

Re: Ask HN: Passive Income Suggestions 2016

#30

Post by kinnth » Mon, May 23, 2016, 6:19 PM UTC

mmastrac wrote: post #6

Perhaps a negative example might be interesting? I started working on game-development tools in 2015 and have sold a grand total of $0. Granted I have been contracting for the last year and haven't done development or marketing for a few months, but I would say it's a clear non-success. If you're curious what it was, it's here: https://codano.com/typeforge/ . The reasons I've probably done poorly: 1) I haven't spent…

Game Industry Vet here. Unfortunately middleware or tools for gaming have gone to the 0 margin, free area. Mainly because 99% of game generally don't make much money so people dont invest heavily. Those 1% that do make a lot of money tend to invest in the their own tool development or want to retain control of their middleware hence less money in the pot.

Another interesting point, IMO, is that game development attracts very capable developers. Thus they tend to be very adept at finding things for OS instead of forcing the company directors to buy large licences for convoluted software they don't need :)