Instapainting – From $4k in debt to $32k/mo in passive revenue with no employees • Hacker News Board

Re: Instapainting – From $4k in debt to $32k/mo in passive revenue with no employees

#261

Post by lorenzhs » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 2:01 PM UTC

teh_klev wrote: post #140

dkrich wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the Art Institute of Chicago, or the Metropolitan Museum of Art qualify? In fact, the existence of products like, say this: http://www.artinstituteshop.org/item.aspx?productId=931 would seem to indicate that there actually is a pretty decent market for oil painting reproductions that are [GASP] the product of a high quality printer and that you are wrong. In other words, don't assume that just because you are an…

> In other words, don't assume that just because you are an art snob who was educated at the Sorbonne and obsesses over the textures that you can run your fingers over that the entire market (or even a majority of it) is like you. No need to be rude. I'm certainly not an "art snob", though I did study art and art history in high school over thirty years ago. And only then to escape playing football (soccer) in PE bec…

The Art Institute of Chicago is great. Not sure if OP is from Chicago, though—the other museum they named is the Met Museum in New York. I visited both this summer (and also the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.), and they're all truly fascinating. I could spend several days in each ;)

Re: Instapainting – From $4k in debt to $32k/mo in passive revenue with no employees

#262

Post by Silhouette » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 2:09 PM UTC

ska wrote: post #253

graeme wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There can be middle ground. I have a very similar situation to the OPs. If I stopped working for over a year, eventually there would be complaints, competitors, etc But within a one year timeframe, there's very little I have to do. And I could get away with working a couple months of the year only + maybe three hours a week maintenance, and the business would grow, slowly. But, I work consistently, adding new things,…

That might work, yes. I like the term much better than passive. If you need to [edit regularly] respond to SEO changes, or payment provider issues, or maintain your relationships somehow it just isn't passive. It's not a lot of work, hopefully, but it is not passive. You need to stay engaged enough to know how to do it. Reacting to the environment changes and modeling absolutely is not passive, and I wish people woul…

If you need to respond to SEO changes, or payment provider issues, or maintain your relationships somehow it just isn't passive.

I'm not sure that's a terribly useful definition. Since any business must have some means of accepting revenues, and almost any means of accepting revenues is subject to dispute, by your argument there is probably no business in the world with a truly passive income. Likewise, in many places you are at minimum going to have to file some sort of annual statements and tax returns for any commercial business.

If a business is generating revenues that don't require anyone to do routine/regular work to keep the money coming in, it seems reasonable to call it passive, even if someone needs to step in under rare or exceptional circumstances.

Re: Instapainting – From $4k in debt to $32k/mo in passive revenue with no employees

#263

Post by ska » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 2:30 PM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #262

ska wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might work, yes. I like the term much better than passive. If you need to [edit regularly] respond to SEO changes, or payment provider issues, or maintain your relationships somehow it just isn't passive. It's not a lot of work, hopefully, but it is not passive. You need to stay engaged enough to know how to do it. Reacting to the environment changes and modeling absolutely is not passive, and I wish people woul…

If you need to respond to SEO changes, or payment provider issues, or maintain your relationships somehow it just isn't passive. I'm not sure that's a terribly useful definition. Since any business must have some means of accepting revenues, and almost any means of accepting revenues is subject to dispute, by your argument there is probably no business in the world with a truly passive income. Likewise, in many place…

Ok, I should have added "regularly" respond, that would have been clearer.

What I'm getting at is: If I adjust SEO targets, mailing lists, app or interface code say monthly to keep things moving along, it really isn't passive.

I'm not thinking about annual taxes, or one time problems (DNS issues, certs, payment provider changed) etc.

But routine, regular work absolutely includes any regular updates to website code, transaction providers (add/remove vendors etc.), SEO techniques, etc. If you are tweaking the business weekly/or monthly it is just silly to call it passive.

Re: Instapainting – From $4k in debt to $32k/mo in passive revenue with no employees

#264

Post by Cpoll » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 3:09 PM UTC

baccredited wrote: post #256

Nonsense. Creating a startup is the opposite of 'passive'. Also the word passive doesn't appear in the article title or text.

If you don't have to full-time manage the startup after it's created, and it still makes you money, that money IS 'passive'.

Passive income without initial effort is called a trust fund.

Re: Instapainting – From $4k in debt to $32k/mo in passive revenue with no employees

#265

Post by jonknee » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 3:21 PM UTC

mountaineer22 wrote: post #251

jonknee wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like there is one artist who is doing all the work and is in the dark about how much their talents are worth. Painting is a skill, but it's not a super valuable one unless you're one in a million and create original pieces. Making a photo into a painting is valuable, but only to the person who has memories wrapped up in the photo.

If the artist is 1 in a million, in China that would be over 1,300 people. That is still less than the number of current NFL players in the US.

What's your point? Everyone knows that very talented artists who produce original work are sometimes very richly rewarded (Jeff Koons comes to mind). But like football, most everyone else is not. This is not exploitation.

FWIW the world is also full of studio musicians who have more musical talent than big name stars but get paid modestly.

Re: Instapainting – From $4k in debt to $32k/mo in passive revenue with no employees

#266

Post by mdrzn » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 4:26 PM UTC

chrischen wrote: post #212

prawn wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a partner or children to account for when working while travelling?

No.

Would you want one?

Re: Instapainting – From $4k in debt to $32k/mo in passive revenue with no employees

#267

Post by graeme » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 4:29 PM UTC

ska wrote: post #263

Silhouette wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you need to respond to SEO changes, or payment provider issues, or maintain your relationships somehow it just isn't passive. I'm not sure that's a terribly useful definition. Since any business must have some means of accepting revenues, and almost any means of accepting revenues is subject to dispute, by your argument there is probably no business in the world with a truly passive income. Likewise, in many place…

Ok, I should have added "regularly" respond, that would have been clearer. What I'm getting at is: If I adjust SEO targets, mailing lists, app or interface code say monthly to keep things moving along, it really isn't passive. I'm not thinking about annual taxes, or one time problems (DNS issues, certs, payment provider changed) etc. But routine, regular work absolutely includes any regular updates to website code, t…

Oh, I don't need to do any of that regularly. Doing those things fall under growth activities.

The SEO and email system more or less runs itself. But, y'know, if I completely ignore it for two years something might change.

Mind you, I have some components that have run since 2013/2014 with no change at all. Most of my system is like that actually.

There are website updates required, but a contractor does that. I just monitor reports.

So there's somewhat more work than I think you're thinking of, but not much.

Re: Instapainting – From $4k in debt to $32k/mo in passive revenue with no employees

#268

Post by webmaven » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 5:24 PM UTC

chrischen wrote: post #211

vatotemking wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've used PHP, Node.js, Mongo, and React.js. The stack consists largely of micro-services, which is crucial in allowing me (the only developer) to migrate the site to new technologies. Can you pls elaborate on this?

It lets me uograde parts of the application piecemeal.

That's not an elaboration...

Really, could you go into some more detail on how you structure, build, and deploy your microservices? Monitor them? Scale? Do migrations?

Re: Instapainting – From $4k in debt to $32k/mo in passive revenue with no employees

#269

Post by webmaven » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 7:10 PM UTC

angus-prune wrote: post #145

amenod wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that he already has the robot which can paint, wouldn't it be easy (well, doable at least :) to really paint the picture instead of printing it? There is no reason why this kind of painting should be any different from the manually produced.

There is a missing piece of automation here still. The robot can replicate recorded movements - brush angle, pressure, timing etc. An photoshop filter can shift pixels around to make a photo look like an oil painting. What nobody has come up with yet (and would likely be hard to develop, or at least costly) is a way to translate a photograph, or a photoshop filter into the set of movements required to render it in ph…

Software already exists to decompose a painting or drawing into a series of strokes (drawings are obviously easier). The examples I've seen were all 2D, but I am given to understand that 3D equivalents exist as well.

Getting a robot to actally lay down each stroke with paint is left as an exercise for the reader. ;-)

Re: Instapainting – From $4k in debt to $32k/mo in passive revenue with no employees

#270

Post by teh_klev » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 10:23 PM UTC

lorenzhs wrote: post #261

teh_klev wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In other words, don't assume that just because you are an art snob who was educated at the Sorbonne and obsesses over the textures that you can run your fingers over that the entire market (or even a majority of it) is like you. No need to be rude. I'm certainly not an "art snob", though I did study art and art history in high school over thirty years ago. And only then to escape playing football (soccer) in PE bec…

The Art Institute of Chicago is great. Not sure if OP is from Chicago, though—the other museum they named is the Met Museum in New York. I visited both this summer (and also the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.), and they're all truly fascinating. I could spend several days in each ;)

I have a pal from Scotland who lives in Chicago, if I ever make it across the pond to visit him I'll be sure to set aside a day or two to visit these.