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Ask HN: What revenue generating side projects do full-time employees here have?

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Re: Ask HN: What revenue generating side projects do full-time employees here have?

#91

Post by Spooky23 »

cloudjacker wrote: post #55
Kurimo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you live that $350,000/yr isn't enough to live on?

the first question: do I feel like debating wealth inequality to get my HN karma back up? naaaaaaaaaaaah anyway, in silicon valley (or san francisco in particular) you could not retire on that. you could coast, but you couldn't use it to buy a house (or apartment/condo), the moment you make a downpayment you absolutely have to keep working to make the monthly payments

That says more about the foolishness of living in a boomtown during a boom than anything else.

We're talking about annual income 7x the Per capita income in the US and 10x of countries like Italy, Spain and Israel.

Re: Ask HN: What revenue generating side projects do full-time employees here have?

#92

Post by kup0 »

risingasia wrote: post #26

Generating about 16k/mo after about 6 months building an Amazon FBA business selling private label goods from Alibaba. Spend about 1 hour per week managing inventory, the rest (shipping, returns, support) is automated through Amazon and other various services.

Wow, this is very interesting and something I think I could handle, even making a fraction of what you're making. What kind of profit do you see out of that 16k, if you don't mind me asking (if so, feel free to ignore the question)?

Re: Ask HN: What revenue generating side projects do full-time employees here have?

#93

Post by patrickgordon »

jonknee wrote: post #29
ajiang wrote: post #4

Job hunting ;) In all honesty, I find that when people working full-time jobs look for side projects, either their not happy with the job they have or their job underpays them. (That's not to say that working on fun side projects that happen to lead to revenue is a bad thing, but seeking side project revenue is not a great indicator). Things that I've heard from friends: - Shopify sites - Consulting - Tutoring / teac…

> In all honesty, I find that when people working full-time jobs look for side projects, either their not happy with the job they have or their job underpays them. Or they just don't get fulfilled spending all day making someone else rich?

To add to this, I also don't get to program as part of my day job so it let's me scratch my creative/building and making itch that I do not get as a business analyst.

Re: Ask HN: What revenue generating side projects do full-time employees here have?

#94

Post by aaronbrethorst »

hbhakhra wrote: post #79
jcdavis wrote: post #25

Standard trolling-but-not-entirely answer, I'll probably get $8-10k worth of dividends this year from investing and holding in a bunch of low-cost index funds.

I actually appreciated your answer, because its easy to lose sight of truly passive options to make money. If you don't mind, how much do you have to invest to get that $8-$10k worth of dividends?

Unless my math is horribly wrong, $8,000/year of dividends in an ETF like SDY would cost you about $400,000 right now.

Re: Ask HN: What revenue generating side projects do full-time employees here have?

#95

Post by risingasia »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #87
risingasia wrote: post #26

Generating about 16k/mo after about 6 months building an Amazon FBA business selling private label goods from Alibaba. Spend about 1 hour per week managing inventory, the rest (shipping, returns, support) is automated through Amazon and other various services.

Do you dropship from Alibaba/Aliexpress or get a bulk shipment wholesale and try to offload the entire shipment and recoup costs and earn profit?

Its a little different than that. I'm working 1-on-1 with the manufacturers to customize products based on their pre-existing "template" products. I try to work with manufacturers with low minimum orders to prove the demand before making bulk orders.

Re: Ask HN: What revenue generating side projects do full-time employees here have?

#96

Post by risingasia »

kup0 wrote: post #92
risingasia wrote: post #26

Generating about 16k/mo after about 6 months building an Amazon FBA business selling private label goods from Alibaba. Spend about 1 hour per week managing inventory, the rest (shipping, returns, support) is automated through Amazon and other various services.

Wow, this is very interesting and something I think I could handle, even making a fraction of what you're making. What kind of profit do you see out of that 16k, if you don't mind me asking (if so, feel free to ignore the question)?

Amazon FBA takes a huge amount, but it's worth it in my opinion. Look up "retail arbitrage" if you want to get your feet wet. There is a bit of learning curve with private labeling. I also recommend The Amazing Seller Podcast if you're serious about getting into it.

Re: Ask HN: What revenue generating side projects do full-time employees here have?

#97

Post by kup0 »

risingasia wrote: post #96
kup0 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, this is very interesting and something I think I could handle, even making a fraction of what you're making. What kind of profit do you see out of that 16k, if you don't mind me asking (if so, feel free to ignore the question)?

Amazon FBA takes a huge amount, but it's worth it in my opinion. Look up "retail arbitrage" if you want to get your feet wet. There is a bit of learning curve with private labeling. I also recommend The Amazing Seller Podcast if you're serious about getting into it.

Thanks for the information. Will check these out.

Re: Ask HN: What revenue generating side projects do full-time employees here have?

#98

Post by gremlinsinc »

risingasia wrote: post #95
gremlinsinc wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you dropship from Alibaba/Aliexpress or get a bulk shipment wholesale and try to offload the entire shipment and recoup costs and earn profit?

Its a little different than that. I'm working 1-on-1 with the manufacturers to customize products based on their pre-existing "template" products. I try to work with manufacturers with low minimum orders to prove the demand before making bulk orders.

You wouldn't happen to have any case studies on a product that was successful would you?

Re: Ask HN: What revenue generating side projects do full-time employees here have?

#99

Post by kingkool68 »

rockdiesel wrote: post #89
kingkool68 wrote: post #3

http://dummyimage.com does fairly well considering I haven't touched it since it appeared on Hacker News in 2010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1077013

How well does Carbon Ads perform? Have you compared it against something like Google Adsense?

$10 - $40 a month depending on traffic. Seems to be higher earning than Adsense.

Re: Ask HN: What revenue generating side projects do full-time employees here have?

#100

Post by jtfairbank »

ruler88 wrote: post #17

I run this website: http://step2scheduling.com It is solving the problem of scheduling step 2 CS exam for medical students. It uses selenium to refresh and check for schedule openings and automatically book tests for students. I coded it up for my G/F some time ago when she needed to schedule a test and couldn't find an opening. Now I'm making $500/month for doing next to nothing.

Very interesting! I founded ReSchedule Med (https://reschedulemed.com) to solve scheduling problems that residency programs have. Our solution is quite different but it's so cool that you've worked on a medical scheduling app- quite the niche space.

I'd love to chat! Email is in my profile if you're interested.

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